As soon as practicable, counsel in a civil case should conduct an Attorney Planning Meeting under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(f). The Attorney Planning Meeting Report form should be completed and filed with the court promptly thereafter (and no later than 30 days in advance of any Initial Pretrial (IPT) Scheduling Conference). A draft Proposed Scheduling Order in word processing format should be simultaneously submitted via email as described later.
The standard forms on the court's web site should be used. Consult the web site to obtain the most recent forms.
Also download and submit Proposed Scheduling Order (below)WPD
WORDProposed Scheduling Order
WPD
WORD
Please use the Attorney Planning Meeting event in CM/ECF to docket the Attorney Planning Meeting Report form.
The draft Proposed Scheduling Order should be e-mailed to ipt@utd.uscourts.gov, unless the case is assigned to a senior judge in which case the Proposed Order should be emailed directly to that senior judge. In cases assigned to active district judges, please use ipt@utd.uscourts.gov and do not use the email addresses used for other proposed orders. (See Administrative Procedures II. G. 6. for those other email addresses.)
The Attorney Planning Meeting may be filed and the proposed Scheduling Order may be submitted even if no IPT hearing is set. If the Attorney Planning Meeting report is complete and a proposed Scheduling Order is submitted, the court may enter the Scheduling Order. If the case is assigned to an active district judge, the Scheduling Order will be entered by a magistrate judge. Magistrate judge scheduling duties are independent of any referral in the case. See DUCivR 72-2(a)(5). Senior judges handle their own civil scheduling.
Initial Pretrial (IPT) Scheduling Conferences are set under Fed. R. Civ. P. 16 and DUCivR 16-1 to ensure a civil case is scheduled. The IPT hearings for active district judges are assigned to magistrate judge David Nuffer who is assisted by Theresa Brown ipt@utd.uscourts.gov (801 524 6602). The notice of Initial Pretrial Scheduling Conference will give the date and time of the hearing and the date by which the Attorney Planning Meeting Report should be filed and the Proposed Scheduling Order should be emailed to the court. That date will be about 30 days before the hearing.
If the stipulated Attorneys' Planning Meeting Report is timely filed and the draft Proposed Scheduling Order is timely received in the ipt@utd.uscourts.gov mailbox, a scheduling order may be entered before the IPT hearing and the hearing may be vacated.
Amendments to Schedule: If a motion or stipulation is filed to request a change of scheduled dates, please consider whether the change will necessarily require a new trial date. Generally, five months must be allowed between the dispositive motion deadline and the trial date to allow the motions to be filed, briefed, set, argued and decided before trial preparation starts. A motion or stipulation that does not leave this amount of time will likely not be granted.
If a motion or stipulation to amend schedule is filed, a new Proposed Scheduling Order should simultaneously be emailed to ipt@utd.uscourts.gov, unless the case is assigned to a senior judge in which case the Proposed Order should be emailed directly to that judge. (See Administrative Procedures II. G. 6. for those email addresses.)
It is improper to use a combined "motion and order" to amend a scheduling order. DUCivR 10-1(a) provides:
Proposed orders submitted to the court must comply with DUCivR 54-1. Such orders must be prepared and submitted as separate documents, not attached to or included in motions or pleadings.
Telephone Appearance at IPT Hearings: Counsel may, on advance request at least 10 days before the initial pretrial conference, arrange for appearance by telephone if there are distances to travel or conflicting schedules. For advance permission, contact Theresa Brown ipt@utd.uscourts.gov (801 524 6602). The party requesting the telephone appearance must handle all call arrangements on the day of the Initial Pretrial Scheduling Conference. That party must call other counsel before the date of the Initial Pretrial Scheduling Conference and give them the opportunity to appear telephonically, and on the day of the call, that party must connect all others before calling the court, so that all counsel are on the line before the call comes in to the court.
Continuance of IPT hearing: An IPT hearing will not be vacated automatically because a dispositive motion is pending. A party seeking to delay the IPT because of a pending motion should file a motion and/or stipulation for continuance. After reviewing the motion/stipulation, the court will determine whether the IPT will be vacated. The filing of the motion or stipulation does not automatically guarantee that the IPT will be vacated.
Rev. 09/29/2008