Stefanie Otte

Stefanie Otte has been President of the Higher Regional Court of Celle since 2018, whose district is the largest in Lower Saxony, comprising 47 local and regional courts employing almost 800 judges and more than 4,000 further staff. Alongside her duties as President and senate chair, she works as a mediator, supervisor and certified conflict resolution facilitator. She is a judge at the Lower Saxony State Court of Justice and a member of the Standing Committee of the Deutscher Juristentag, as well as Chair of its Department of Legal Education. In addition to co-editing various legal journals, including the legal training journal Juristische Schulung (JuS), Stefanie Otte is actively involved on the board of the Deutscher EDV-Gerichtstag e.V., on the advisory board of the Digital Justice Summit and within the German Society for Law and Informatics. She is also a member of the advisory board of the Forum Recht Foundation and general editor of the new BeckOGK Zivilverfahrensrecht. In 2026, she played a key role in the new edition of the “Foundational Paper on the Use of AI and Algorithmic Systems in the Judiciary”.

Previously, Stefanie Otte was State Secretary at the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice, where she headed the E-Justice Council and was instrumental in advancing the development of the joint specialist IT system intended to standardise the IT applications of the various federal states or state consortia.

Photo rights: Jan Pries/Legal Revolution