Know Your Judge: Sara L. Ellis

This week’s Know Your Judge features Judge Sara L. Ellis of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Ellis was born in Canada to parents who emigrated from Jamaica. She moved to the U.S. and became a citizen at age 15, according to the 2013 Senate Judiciary Confirmation Hearings.

She was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2013. Before joining the bench, Ellis was a member of the general litigation and white collar practice groups at Schiff Hardin LLP in Chicago, according to the questionnaire for judicial nominees.

Earlier this year, Ellis, who sat by designation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, joined a panel ruling that Taco Bell Corp. didn’t violate a California law mandating meal breaks when it offered employees a discount on food only if they ate on site.

In another employment case, she held that a former Uber driver had to convince an arbitrator that his age and disability bias claims against the ride-hailing company belonged in court.

Numbers & Statistics

Ellis is more inclined to grant partial or full dismissals in cases involving employee benefits and employment law matters than in labor cases. She has partially or fully granted motions to dismiss more than 70 percent of the time in benefits and employment lawsuits. She has denied requests for dismissals in labor matters 50 percent of the time.

Ellis’s rulings on employment law cases are usually affirmed by the Seventh Circuit—the appeals court that reviews decisions from the district courts in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. The Seventh Circuit reversed one of her employee benefits rulings.

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