(a) Definition. An attorney shall not be deemed to have a scheduling conflict unless:
(1) the attorney is lead counsel in two or more of the actions affected, and
(2) the attorney: (a) certifies that the matters cannot be adequately handled, and the clients
interest adequately protected, by other counsel for the party in the action or by other
attorneys in lead counsel’s firm; (b) certifies compliance with the rule and has
nevertheless been unable to resolve the conflicts; and (c) certifies a proposed resolution
by list of such cases in the order of priority specified by this rule.
(b) Whenever an attorney is scheduled to appear in two or more courts (trial, appellate, state,
or federal), the attorney must give prompt written notice, as specified in (a) above, of the
conflict to opposing counsel, to the clerk of each court, and to the judge before whom each
action is set for hearing. The written notice shall contain the attorney’s proposed resolution
of the appearance conflicts in accordance with the priorities established by this rule, and
shall set forth the order of cases to be tried, with a listing of the date and data required as
to each case arranged in the order in which the cases should prevail under this rule.
Attorneys confronted by such conflicts are expected to give written notice as soon as the
conflict arises but, in any event, at least seven days before the date of the conflicting
settings. In resolving scheduling conflicts, the following priorities shall ordinarily prevail:
(1) Criminal (felony) actions shall prevail over civil actions set for trial or appellate
proceedings.
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Local Rules Effective Date: 10/10/2024
(2) Jury trials shall prevail over non-jury matters, including trials and administrative
proceedings.
(3) Trials shall prevail over appellate arguments, hearings, and conferences.
(4) Appellate proceedings shall prevail over all trial hearings, other than actual trials.
(5) Within each of the above categories only, the action which was first set shall take
precedence.
(c) In addition to the above priorities, consideration should be given to the comparative age of
the cases, their complexity, the estimated trial time, the number of attorneys and parties
involved, whether the trial involves a jury, and the difficulty or ease of rescheduling.
(d) The judges of the courts involved in a scheduling conflict shall promptly confer, resolve
the conflict, and notify counsel of the resolution. The judge presiding over the earliest-filed
case will be responsible for initiating this communication.
(e) Conflict resolution shall not require the continuance of the other matter or matters not
having priority. In the event the matter determined to have priority is disposed of before
the scheduled time set, the attorney shall immediately notify all affected parties, including
the court affected by the disposal, and shall, absent good cause shown to the Court, proceed
with the remaining case or cases which did not have priority, if the setting was not vacated.
(f) Nothing in these guidelines is intended to prevent courts from voluntarily yielding a
favorable scheduling position, and judges of all courts are urged to communicate with each
other in an effort to lessen the impact of conflicts and continuances on all courts.
