Sec. 202.23b. Staggered court appearances

Staggered court appearances are a mechanism to increase efficiency in the courts and to decrease lawyers’ time waiting for a matter to be called by the courts. While this rule is intended to streamline the litigation process, it will be ineffectual without the cooperation and participation of litigants. Improving the process of litigation by instituting staggered court appearances, for example, requires not only the promulgation of rules such as this one, but also, and more importantly, the proactive and earnest adherence to such rules by parties and their counsel and the court.

(a) Each court appearance for oral argument on a motion shall be assigned either a set time or a time interval during which the appearance is expected to be held. The assignment of time or time interval, and the length of time allotted to a case is solely in the discretion of the court.

(b) In order for the court to be able to address any and all matters of concern to the court and in order for the court to avoid the appearance of holding ex parte communications with one or more parties in the case, even those parties who believe that they are not directly involved in the matter before the court must appear at the appointed date and time assigned by the court unless specifically excused by the court.

(c) Since the court is setting aside a specific time or time interval for the case and since there are occasions when the court’s electronic or other notification system fails or occasions when a party fails to receive the court-generated notification, each attorney who receives notification of an appearance on a specific date and time is responsible for notifying all other parties by e-mail that the matter is scheduled to be heard on that assigned date and time. All parties are directed to exchange e-mail addresses with each other at the commencement of the case and to keep these e-mail addresses current, in order to facilitate notification by the person(s) receiving the court notification.

(d) Requests for adjournments shall be transmitted in writing to the court and to all parties, in such manner as the court may direct, so as to be received no later than 48 hours before the hearing and shall set forth whether the other parties consent to the adjournment.