So that is the Purpose of Local Rules. Part 1- Reality
For those of your who do not try cases this should be eye opening—for those of you who do it should be annoying.
Let’s start with law school, Federal Civil Procedure to be precise. Remember your professor with great intonation telling about the adoption of these rules—relatively stable these rules governed practice throughout the federal system, or at least that was what you were led to believe.
Then there was reality; in fact, every district court had taken it upon itself to modify, annul or in some cases totally obliterate those federal rules by adopting a set of local rules. Added to that was a series of standing orders by individual judges.
By the time you were finished the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which were supposed to bring uniformity to federal practice which you had worked so hard to master in law school had been relegated to a quaint historical footnote.
File a motion for summary judgment without a statement of undisputed facts, or was that in the district court in another state, and gotcha. Sure you could keep looking up these rules but try it with 10 or 15 cases going on all over the country.
Did I mention tentatives (tentatives are rulings by court on motions handed out before oral argument) . You guys in California will recognize them. They are a state court practice—yep in federal court too, but only in California. In a global world we have a federal court system that gives new meaning to the term: parochial. State practice is typically more uniform than federal court practice in the same state.
Sure I have complained about this for years, so why am I writing about it now. I am conducting an ADR study for the federal court and in connection with that study I was asked to address the local federal court local rules advisory committee. This was the first time I witnessed the how and why these rules are adopted—an experience I will share with you in part 2.
