Minutes from the January 20, 2021 ELUC Meeting

1. Approval of December 9, 2020 Meeting Minutes

No issues were raised by the committee. As such, WEL Partners will prepare a version without a watermark so that they can be distributed accordingly.

2. Matters Arising Since the Last Meeting

The Judiciary discussed a number of issues pertaining to the scheduling of motions and related filings. The court has experienced difficulties in the recent past with filing practices for case conferences and motions. Specifically, judges have been receiving multiple zoom invitations and sync.com links. In some instances, counsel have also been filing hard copies of materials with the court. There is a procedure in place which must be followed. A number of motions have been adjourned because judges have not had access to materials.

Going forward, judges should receive one zoom invitation in outlook with the sync.com link attached. The Judiciary also requested that a counsel slip be provided in advance if possible.

Importantly, the Judiciary also noted that if there is something that needs to be sealed from the court record, it should be sent in a separate email and not uploaded to sync.com.

With respect to compendiums, the Judiciary noted that the court does not want all of the pleadings in a compendium. Rather, a compendium should be relatively brief and only contain the relevant portions of documents that counsel will be relying upon.

The Judiciary also noted that judges have been receiving emails from counsel at all hours of the day and night and on the weekend. This should not occur with routine matters. However, if the matter is urgent, they will address it after court hours.

They further noted that attention needs to be paid to the length of facta. The limit is 25 pages and unless leave is granted by a judge, it cannot be longer.

Counsel noted that sometimes counsel is served with materials the day before or the morning of a scheduled hearing knowing that the materials will not make it through civil submissions and put before the judge in time. Often, counsel does not know the process and how to upload to sync.com. This creates an ethical dilemma because you know it hasn’t gone through the proper filing process which is a problem that is regularly being faced by the Bar.

On this point, the Judiciary acknowledged that sometimes the Court is dealing with counsel or self-represented litigants who are not familiar with the technological aspects of filing. The best we can do is work together to make sure that the appropriate materials are before the court.