Case delay rejected as judges opt for docket discretion. (Up Front).

The decision by the 24 active judges in U.S. District Court, Central District of California, to reject a proposal to delay hearing certain cases had more to do with autonomy than caseload.

The burden of hearing the estimated 150,000 cases that come through the district each year is great, they conceded, but as a group, the judges bridled at being told how to manage their dockets.

"Each federal judge is a king in his own kingdom, or a queen in her own queendom," said Senior U.S. District Judge Harry Hupp. "Every federal judge has his own calendar and organizes his business his or her way. That way, the judge is most efficient."

At their regular monthly meeting to discuss administrative issues on Jan. 9, the judges rejected a proposal by District Judge Dickran Tevrizian to delay hearing all cases expected to last longer than four days. The proposal was first reported by the Business Journal Dec. 16.

The decision was not surprising, given that consensus is not in the nature of federal judges, judicial experts say.

The federal judicial system is organized in a way that splinters day-to-day management of each courtroom, said Stephen Yeazell, professor at UCLA's School of Law.

"The federal judiciary, and trial judges in particular, are very loosely managed," Yeazell said. "The constitutional system gives each individual judge a great deal of autonomy. It's a strength to insulate the judiciary from the political kinds of pressures in a case, but it's a weakness if you're trying to organize a system for efficiency."

The chief district judge for the Central District, Consuelo Marshall, was unavailable for comment Tevrizian, too, could not be reached.

Relishing autonomy

Federal judges are unique in their independence. State courts, such as the L.A. Superior Court, are heavily managed by a local administrative office and are divided according to case type, such as criminal, family law or civil cases. Federal judges, by contrast, each hear every type of case that comes through the system, regardless of content.

To manage increasing workloads in L.A. Superior Court, the presiding judge can move judges and other staff to other cases. The presiding judge of the U.S. District Court, however, does not have as much administrative power.

"There is a chief judge in each district, but that judge's powers are quite limited," Yeazell said. "It's really the power of persuasion. He or she cannot tell other judges, 'Here's how you have to do it."

Under that structure, federal judges set their own calendars, instructing clerks, attorneys and litigants on what they need to do to make the process move more smoothly.

In theory, federal judges are supposed to receive an equal number of cases. In the old days, a physical wheel, like a bingo wheel, turned out the name of the judge to receive each case. Now, every couple of months, a computerized system--still called "the wheel"--selects judges randomly, Hupp said.

One day a week, judges hear a new jury trial. The wheel assigns cases on Tuesdays in the Central District, and if the trial lasts longer than four days--the number of working days until the next round of assignments--a judge has to squeeze in the next jury trial while continuing to hear the current one.

Their calendars come under more pressure when criminal cases, which take precedent over civil cases, flood the system. Most criminal trials last more than four days.

Setting quotas

Judges find themselves at work from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. and sometimes on the weekends, if they can't come up with ways to make their calendar work. "That's the art of trying cases," said U.S. District Judge Alicemarie Stotler. "The contingencies are uncontrollable and unpredictable."

No two judges have the same solution to efficiently manage case calendars.

Some judges set a quota on how many motions to dismiss or discovery motions can be filed in a single case, Hupp said.

Some request that lawyers make a reservation for a time slot to hear a motion. Some send cases to magistrate judges, others hear all discovery motions themselves. Some hear oral arguments, some don't

Some encourage settlement conferences at the beginning of a case; others believe a case must go through some discovery before settlement discussions begin, Hupp said.

"There are different philosophical views on how to conduct the proceedings of a trial, and each judge has the discretion on how he conducts the case," said Allen Abersman, chief deputy clerk of the Central District.

Further, each judge may have a different calendar because of where they work. The Central District has four locations: one each in Santa Ana and Riverside and two in downtown LA.

Stotler, who works in Santa Ana, said she sees more intellectual property cases than downtown L.A. judges because she is in Orange County, where technology companies dominate filings. U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter, who works in one of the downtown L.A. locations, said he often has trials in both downtown locations on the same day - a cumbersome walk made more time-consuming after additional security measures were added last year, he said.