Magistrate Judge John F. Docherty
Practice Pointers and Preferences
Resources for Pro Se Litigants
• People representing themselves without the help of a lawyer - pro se litigants - have
free, online access to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure here. The Local Rules of
the District of Minnesota can be found here. Additionally, the Pro Se page on the
District Court’s website has other useful resources for pro se litigants. Magistrate
Judge Docherty expects pro se litigants to be familiar with and to follow the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure and the Local Rules.
Contact with Chambers
• If you have questions about Magistrate Judge Docherty’s Practice Pointers and
Preferences, please contact the Courtroom Deputy at
[email protected]
• Neither Magistrate Judge Docherty nor members of Chambers staff will provide
answers to legal questions. For procedural questions, please refer to the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure, the Local Rules for the District of Minnesota (available
here) or the pretrial scheduling order in the case.
• Requests for relief must be brought by motion, stipulation, or by using Magistrate
Judge Docherty’s informal dispute resolution (“IDR”) process, which is described
further down in these Practice Pointers and Preferences. Emails and telephone calls
to Chambers are not appropriate means for requesting relief from the Court.
• Neither Magistrate Judge Docherty nor any member of Chambers staff will
communicate with the press about any matter before the Court.
• When contacting Chambers with a question regarding a specific case, please first
identify yourself and the party you represent, and please have the case name and
number ready to provide to Chambers.
• If you have a question or seek clarification regarding an order entered by Magistrate
Judge Docherty, please do not call or email Chambers seeking an answer or
clarification. Instead, file a letter on CM/ECF containing your question or request
for clarification.
• If you have a question about how to file a document on CM/ECF, please contact the
Help Desk in the Clerk of Court’s Office at 612-664-5155 or toll-free at 866-325-
4975, or by email at
[email protected].
Scheduling Hearings
• All motions to be heard by Magistrate Judge Docherty must be scheduled through
Magistrate Judge Docherty’s Courtroom Deputy at
[email protected]. When scheduling a motion, the parties
should inform the Court of all motions pending or anticipated so they can be heard
at the same time. The party scheduling the motion shall include counsel for the
opposing party, or the opposing party themselves if they are not represented, on the
email.
• When scheduling a motion, the parties should inform the Court if there are related
cases with related motions.
• The parties should jointly contact the Court if a hearing date or time must be
rescheduled.
• Even if the parties agree that a motion can be submitted on the papers without oral
argument, chambers must be contacted to set the date for submission of the matter
to the Court. The matter will be deemed submitted upon receipt of the last filing.
The Court will determine whether to hold a hearing.
• Magistrate Judge Docherty allows for hearings via Zoom if all parties agree. If one
party objects to a Zoom proceeding, the hearing will be held in-person. The parties
should discuss their preferences before contacting the Court for scheduling.
In Court
• Counsel should be prepared to refer to the record using citations to the CM/ECF
docket (e.g., Dkt. No. 22 rather than “Exhibit M”).
• Magistrate Judge Docherty will read all relevant filings in advance of a hearing. The
hearing is primarily to allow questions to be put to counsel and receive clarifications
from counsel.
• If you intend to use visual aids at a hearing, such as PowerPoint or other presentation
graphics, bring sufficient hard copies for the Court, the law clerk, the court reporter,
and opposing counsel to be used in case of technology issues. The copy should
reference the case name and case number.
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• If you intend to use paper copies of cases, documents, etc., at a hearing, bring
sufficient copies for the Court, the law clerk, the court reporter, and opposing
counsel.
• Magistrate Judge Docherty strongly encourages litigants to seek opportunities for
newer lawyers to conduct hearings before the Court. This is particularly true of
motions which the newer lawyer drafted or made a significant contribution to
preparing. Magistrate Judge Docherty believes it is crucial to provide substantive
courtroom opportunities to newer lawyers. This will benefit the newer lawyer and
will also benefit their law firm, clients, and the legal profession in general.
Magistrate Judge Docherty will emphatically not make any inferences about the
importance a party places on a particular point from the experience level of the
lawyer chosen to argue that point.
• If you plan to use the courtroom technology, please become familiar with it ahead
of time. Courtroom technology manuals can be found on the court’s website here.
You may coordinate a time to test your technology in advance of the hearing by
contacting chambers at
[email protected] or 651-848-1180.
Magistrate Judge Docherty and his staff are not responsible for the courtroom
technology’s functioning, so have a back-up plan if the technology is not available.
Audio-Only Hearings
• Magistrate Judge Docherty uses Zoom audio-only (no video) to hold status
conferences and Rule 16 hearings. The parties will receive an email from Chambers
in advance of the call that will provide the necessary Zoom information.
• Magistrate Judge Docherty may periodically schedule a Zoom audio-only status
conference in your case to discuss the current state of the case and how it is
progressing, and to see whether the parties could use the Court’s assistance in
reaching a mediated resolution of their dispute. If counsel or a pro se litigant has a
scheduling conflict with a scheduled status conference, please contact the
Courtroom Deputy at
[email protected] to ask that the status
conference be rescheduled.
CRIMINAL CASES
• Motions for reconsideration of detention premised upon acceptance into a treatment
program shall set out an appropriate release plan in accordance with the
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recommendations of a Rule 25 substance abuse evaluation. Further, Defendant shall
provide to chambers a substance abuse evaluation and a letter of acceptance from
the proposed treatment program, accompanied by a statement of the program’s
requirements contemporaneously with the filing of a motion.
• All motions for reconsideration of detention, whether premised on acceptance into
a treatment program or on some other change in circumstances, shall contain a
statement as to the respective positions of U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services and
the United States Attorney.
CIVIL CASES
First Pretrial Conference and Rule 26(f) Report
• The parties are encouraged to use the downloadable templates, in both pdf and Word
formats, for Rule 26(f) reports found on Magistrate Judge Docherty’s website here.
Templates are available for general civil cases, intellectual property cases, and
ERISA cases.
• The parties must discuss whether electronic discovery will be a factor in their case
and be prepared to discuss electronic discovery issues at the pretrial conference.
Well in advance of the conference, please review the Court’s “Discussion of
Electronic Discovery at Rule 26(f) Conferences: A Guide for Practitioners,”
developed by the Court’s Federal Practice Committee to help attorneys and parties
prepare for a meaningful discussion of electronic discovery issues early in the
litigation. The Guide is available here and on the District of Minnesota’s website.
Motion Practice
• The meet-and-confer requirement of the Local Rules is intended to lead to a
meaningful, pre-motion-filing exchange of views between the parties to a lawsuit,
and, if possible, to a full or partial resolution of the matter(s) that are the subject of
a contemplated motion. Neither a desultory, pro forma conversation, nor letter-
writing or email campaigns satisfy the letter—or the spirit—of the meet-and-confer
requirement of the Local Rules.
• If a pending motion is resolved, please notify Chambers as soon as possible so that
any scheduled hearing can be removed from the calendar. If a motion has been
partially resolved, please notify Chambers to let the Court know what parts have
been resolved and no longer need to be addressed by the Court. If time permits,
notification should be by joint stipulation, as provided by Local Rule 7.1.
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• There is no need to provide paper courtesy copies of filings to Chambers. Magistrate
Judge Docherty prefers not to receive hard copies.
• Magistrate Judge Docherty’s IDR process is available to resolve non-dispositive
disputes. Typically, if the IDR process is used, the matter is not briefed, nor are
declarations and sworn affidavits filed. IDR offers prompt resolution of an issue,
but because of IDR’s less formal procedure, Magistrate Judge Docherty’s decision
is not appealable to either the District Court judge or the Eighth Circuit. Therefore,
all parties must agree to use the IDR process. If there is no agreement to resolve a
dispute though IDR, then the dispute must be presented to the Court through formal
motion practice. If the parties agree to use the IDR process, each party will submit
a short (no more than three single-spaced pages) letter outlining their position on
the issue. No exhibits to the IDR letters are allowed and Magistrate Judge Docherty
will not resolve more than one issue per party in an IDR proceeding unless other
arrangements are made at least one week in advance of the IDR conference call.
Two business days after submitting the letters the parties will participate in a Zoom
audio-only conference call to further discuss and argue the issue. Magistrate Judge
Docherty will verbally rule on the dispute at the end of the conference call.
Magistrate Judge Docherty will not write an order or a report and recommendation;
the practical effect of this is that the parties will be unable to appeal an IDR decision.
IDR offers rapid resolution, at the expense of appealability. IDR is best-suited to
situations in which the parties’ need for a resolution of some sort before they can
move on with the case is more important to them than having a dispute resolved in
a particular way.
Settlement Conferences
• Magistrate Judge Docherty expects all parties and counsel to fully comply with any
Order for Settlement Conference issued by the Court.
• If a party to a settlement conference finds any reason not to hold the settlement
conference (for example, waiting on a motion to be ruled on that is important to
valuing the case for settlement, waiting on the deposition of a critical witness, etc.)
they should promptly reach out to chambers.
Protective Orders
• Proposed Protective Orders should be a standalone document inclusive of all of the
terms and conditions of the stipulation, not an order simply referencing the
Stipulation for Protective Order.
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• If the parties use the form protective order on the Court’s website as a template for
their own protective order, they should submit both the agreed-on protective order
and a redline showing deviations from the Court’s form order. (If the only change
to the Court’s form order is a change of caption and the insertion of the case name
and file number as appropriate in the body of the protective order, then no redline
need be submitted.)
Requests for Extensions
• Requests for extensions must follow Local Rule 6.1. Parties filing a Motion to
Extend Time must also file (as a separate docket entry) a proposed order. The
proposed order should also be emailed to
[email protected]
in Word format.
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