Lisa J. Cisneros
How Judge Cisneros rules, drawn from 22 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Cisneros
Lisa J. Cisneros joined the Northern District of California as a United States Magistrate Judge in San Francisco in 2022. Before joining the bench, she worked in the California Department of Justice's Civil Rights Enforcement Section and practiced class action and antitrust litigation. She earned degrees from Brown University and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Judge Cisneros's practices and standing orders
Rules for cases before Judge Cisneros, as published on the court's website (checked October 8, 2026). Judges revise these often, so confirm the current version on the court's site before you file.
Key rules
Filing
Provide chambers copies only for filings needing court action that exceed 50 pages including supporting material.
“Chambers copies are required only for filings that necessitate action by the Court and exceed 50 pages inclusive of supporting declarations and exhibits.”
Conferences
Motion hearings are in person unless the court orders otherwise; seek remote appearance by administrative motion or stipulation and proposed order.
“Motion hearings are in person unless otherwise ordered by the Court; any request for a remote hearing must be made by administrative motion or by stipulation and proposed order.”
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 8, 2026).
How Judge Cisneros decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In the naturalization case, undisputed facts and a statutory question supported final relief for the applicant rather than a remand to the agency.
“Azarmanesh's first application for adjustment to LPR status was lawfully granted, because Azarmanesh was married to a refugee (specifically, an asylee) at the time he submitted that application, and he was not required to remain married when USCIS later adjudicated it.”
Procedural preferences
In Samsung Electronics v. CM HK, Cisneros denied CM HK's request for a broad corporate deposition during jurisdictional discovery as disproportionate at that stage, but required Samsung to verify an interrogatory response it had already given.
“Given the scope of jurisdictional discovery, a wide-ranging 30(b)(6) deposition of Samsung's corporate representative is not warranted.”
She treats forensic examination of personal devices as exceptional relief and looks for serious questions about preservation, reliability, or completeness before allowing it.
“This standard appropriately applies before a forensic examination may be authorized because it is a particularly invasive form of discovery, and especially where Deel is Rippling's commercial competitor.”
In an immigration-delay action, she required an agency status report when the summary judgment record left important facts unresolved, reserving the possibility of trial.
“Given that equivocal record, an intermediate approach is appropriate, at least for now.”
Cautions
A challenge to agency action during an ongoing removal proceeding failed because the action was not yet final or reviewable. The district judge adopted that jurisdictional recommendation over the litigant's objection.
“the 'actions' challenged by Trifu are not reviewable by this Court under the Administrative Procedures Act, and Trifu's removal proceedings remain pending with the San Francisco Immigration Court.”
Before recommending dismissal for a self-represented litigant's failure to prosecute, she issued an order to show cause and warned that missing the response deadline could lead to dismissal.
“The order advised Justin that if he did not file a response by the May 21, 2025 deadline, the Court might recommend dismissal for failure to prosecute.”
In Vicious Brands, two sealing requests failed because the defendants relied on cases applying the less demanding standard used for nondispositive filings.
“In any event, both Natera and Calhoun applied the lower ‘good cause’ standard applicable to non-dispositive motions no more than tangentially related to the merits. They did not apply the ‘compelling reasons’ standard that applies here.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The Court has reviewed Magistrate Judge Lisa J. Cisneros's Report and Recommendation recommending dismissal of this case for failure to prosecute, failure to comply with a court order, and failure to state a claim ... The court finds the Report correct, well-reasoned and thorough, and adopts it in every respect. Accordingly ... this case is DISMISSED without prejudice”
“Judge Cisneros recommended granting Trifu's motion to proceed in forma pauperis and dismissing Trifu's complaint with prejudice for lack of jurisdiction over Trifu's still-pending immigration removal proceeding. ... The Court therefore overrules Trifu's objections, ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation in full, and DISMISSES Plaintiff's Complaint with prejudice.”
“Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED, and Azarmanesh's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED. ... Reviewing Azarmanesh's naturalization application de novo pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1421(c), the Court finds and concludes that Azarmanesh is eligible for naturalization, and GRANTS the application.”
“Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED, and Azarmanesh's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED.”
Cisneros gave the self-represented plaintiff an additional opportunity to respond before deciding the agency's pending dismissal motion. The order is retained for context but does not resolve the motion.
“CM HK's request for discovery relief is DENIED in PART and GRANTED in PART.”
“Samsung's request that CM HK produce additional documents regarding transfer of funds between CyWee Entities is granted in part.”
“Midjourney's request that Plaintiffs supplement their responses to the four interrogatories is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part.”
“No further responses or production to Requests 36/29 are warranted at this time.”
“Accordingly, by February 27, 2026, Plaintiff's counsel shall file a supplemental declaration identifying how Plaintiff, Ms. Stenson, and Paul accessed the portions of the draft report; describing the format in which the draft report was made available to them; addressing if they retained copies of the draft report or disseminated copies to other individuals; and describing all steps taken to retrieve copies of the draft report that Plaintiff, Ms. Stenson, and Paul accessed. Oura's requested relief is otherwise denied.”
“Accordingly, Fandom may serve each of the proposed subpoenas attached as Exhibits A through E to the Declaration of Ciara McHale.”
“For the following reasons, Plaintiff's request for an award of $4,772.50 is GRANTED.”
“Accordingly, Fandom may serve each of the proposed subpoenas attached as Exhibits 2 through 4 to the Declaration of Ciara McHale.”
Cisneros required the parties to cure a potential enforcement defect in a proposed fee-payment order. The order is retained for context but does not resolve the stipulation or a motion.
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
- The terminated-case sample covers matters filed in 2024.
- It includes immigration-delay actions, Social Security disability appeals, consumer-credit, employee-benefit, copyright, product-liability, and labor cases.
- A separate look at 2026 filings was predominantly pending and included civil-rights, disability-access, labor, and personal-injury matters.
- Case durations measure filing to termination, not motion-to-ruling time.
Pending matters in the official report
Reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts under the Civil Justice Reform Act, as of March 31, 2026.
| Motions pending more than six months | 0 |
| Bench trials submitted more than six months | 0 |
| Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Social Security appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 0 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2023 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2023 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2022 | 0 | 0 |
A snapshot on that date: matters listed may since have been decided or reassigned. A motion referred to a magistrate judge is counted for both judges. Motions in multidistrict litigation, section 2255 cases and Social Security appeals are not counted, and a very large three-year count is generally a multidistrict docket. Source: Appendix A of the report (PDF); about the report.
How long civil cases take in this court
For the whole of United States District Court for the Northern District of California, not for Judge Cisneros: median time from filing to disposition of the civil cases the court closed in the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, as reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
| Cases | Median time | |
|---|---|---|
| All civil cases closed | 6,017 | 7.7 months |
| Closed with no court action | 2,955 | 5.5 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 1,978 | 7.6 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 1,052 | 15 months |
| Closed during trial | 32 | 36.9 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 6,017 | 7.7 months |
| Sep 2024 | 9,248 | 20.6 months |
| Sep 2023 | 5,452 | 7 months |
| Sep 2022 | 9,464 | 11.4 months |
| Sep 2021 | 6,437 | 6.3 months |
| Sep 2020 | 6,881 | 11.4 months |
| Sep 2019 | 5,640 | 8.7 months |
The table leaves out prisoner petitions, land condemnations, deportation reviews, recovery of overpayments and enforcement of judgments, and reports no median for fewer than 10 cases. A district that closed a large multidistrict litigation in the period shows very large counts and long medians for that year. Source: Table C-5, U.S. District Courts (spreadsheet).
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