We mentioned back in October that Judge Hall was confirmed to the District of Delaware. Today, the Court started re-assigning cases from existing judges to Judge Hall. These arrive as a simple one-sentence docket entry:
Case Reassigned to Judge Jennifer L. Hall. Please include the initials of the Judge (JLH) after the case number on all documents filed.
The re-assignments involve cases at multiple stages, including past the close of fact discovery, and cases where Judge Hall was not previously involved as a magistrate judge.
One common question I see is "why did our case get re-assigned"? We can all speculate, but I'm not sure it's safe to read anything into a re-assignment like this beyond "our case was re-assigned …
The District of Delaware is looking for its next magistrate judge!
The formal requirements to become a magistrate judge, as set forth in the announcement, are actually fairly easy to meet:
To be qualified for appointment an applicant must
(1) Be, and have been for at least five years, a member in good standing of the bar of the highest court of a state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Territory of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the Virgin Islands of the United States, and have been engaged in the active practice …
An order on Friday reminded me of a local counsel issue that comes up from time to time here in D. Del.
Whenever a party files a motion or a brief, the docket on PACER automatically includes a due date, like so:
312 OPENING BRIEF in Support re 311 MOTION to Amend Judgment, filed by ViaTech Technologies Inc..Answering Brief/Response due date per Local Rules is 11/8/2023. (Mayo, Andrew) . . . (Entered: 10/25/2023)
ViaTech Technologies, Inc. v. Adobe Inc., C.A. No. 20-358-RGA-JLH (D. Del. Oct. 25, 2023).
The docket text is not perfectly clear, but that due date is automatically generated based on a set of rules in PACER (that are …
I was not expecting book recommendations—fiction and non-fiction—from the conference!saracohenn, Unsplash
Following up on our post last week, here is part 2 of our notes about the District of Delaware Bench and Bar. As we mentioned, these are all without attribution under the Chatham House Rule, and we won't be discussing any specific panels:
Magistrate Judge Tips
For discovery disputes, judges want to see what the moving party wants, why, and what law or regulation justifies the request.
The party opposing a discovery dispute should focus on the real reason for opposing the request
The court appreciates honesty and the parties having some level of restraint in arguing discovery disputes
Timing of discovery dispute motions is important. …
The 2023 District of Delaware Bench and Bar wrapped up today. It was really great to see everyone in person again. It's hard to believe it, but the last D. Del. Bench and Bar conference was back in May 2018 - over five years ago!
Everyone seems to agree the conference was a huge success. Thank you to the organizers and the Court, who put in a ton of work to make it happen!
Notes
The conference is conducted under the Chatham House Rule—which, honestly, we had forgotten. That means we "are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation …
I imagine all of our Delaware readers already know this, but the District of Delaware Bench and Bar conference starts tomorrow and runs through Friday.
The District of Delaware bench-and-bar is an excellent event that runs all day tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday, including an evening event on Thursday. It is the product of a huge amount of work put in by the District of Delaware FBA as well as many other attorneys, judges, and staff member, for which we are all thankful!
As we mentioned earlier this year, the Court has already issued an order modifying case deadlines that would otherwise fall tomorrow and Friday:
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that all members of the court - District, Magistrate, and …
Yesterday, the Judicial Conference announced the end to the exception permitting remote public access during COVID-19:
The COVID-19 emergency is no longer affecting the functioning of the federal courts, the Judicial Conference’s Executive Committee has found, setting in motion a 120-day grace period in which federal courts may continue to provide the same remote public audio access to civil and bankruptcy proceedings as they did during the emergency.
The Executive Committee finding takes effect May 24. The grace period, which ends Sept. 21, relates only to the Judiciary’s temporary broadcasting exception for remote audio public access to civil and bankruptcy proceedings. …
"No, I don't have a bar ID, I'm an expert witness. But you can't expect me to sit through this whole trial at $550/hr without looking at Reddit on my phone."AI Generated, displayed with permission
Prior to today, it has generally been easy to bring phones and other electronics (except for standalone cameras and recording devices) into the District of Delaware courthouse. The security team checks IDs, but did not require further identification to keep your phone.
Today, the Court issued a new electronics policy, which requires members of the public to lock their phones and other devices away upon entering the courthouse:
1. All cameras and personal electronic devices shall be subiect to inspection upon entry to the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building and United States Courthouse. Such devices may not be used in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53 (prohibiting courtroom photography and broadcasting in criminal cases) and Local Civil Rule 83.2 (prohibiting photographs and broadcasting). The Court may authorize exceptions for investitures, ceremonial or naturalization proceedings, law school moot court proceedings, and activities sponsored by a bar association for continuing legal education.
2. Subject to the exemptions set forth in Paragraph 4 of this Standing Order, all cameras, cellular telephones, smart phones, smart watches, and similarly sized personal electronic devices shall be ...
Parties can freely stipulate to many things in the District of Delaware, and often stipulations to extend deadlines are filed close to the last minute, especially where the parties are working toward agreement but ultimately cannot agree on the final filing in time (or else are having trouble connecting with the other side).
However, stipulations filed close to the Delaware witching hour (5:00PM EST) can be fraught with risk of the Court's denial, as we’ve seen in past heart-stopping examples. We’ve warned before that requests to move Court-scheduled conferences are in the “iffy” category, and combined with last minute filing, can end in disappointment for everyone, as shown in an oral order from Judge Noreika last week in Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. v. Lupin Limited et al., C.A. 21-1042, D.I. 197 (D. Del. Jul. 16, 2021):
On April 17, 2023, the Court instructed the parties to talk to each other about their disputes so that a follow-up call with the Court (set for April 21, 2023) would be more productive than the prior call. On April 21, 2023, a few hours before the set call, the parties submitted a stipulation requesting the April 21 call be delayed. After further inquiries, it became clear that, in the five days after the Court directed the parties to TALK, they did not do so. The Court intended to address that during the April 21 call, but no counsel appeared for the call (notwithstanding that the Court had not granted the request for a delay). THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, should the parties not inform the Court that they have resolved their dispute in full by Tuesday April 25, 2023, lead trial counsel SHALL appear in person in Courtroom 4A on April 26, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. ORDERED by Judge Maryellen Noreika on 4/21/2023.
Judge Noreika previously indicated frustration with the magnitude of this particular discovery dispute (on search methods to find responsive documents), so the parties were on thin ice long before ...
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