Maine's Federal Judges Host Bench-Bar Meeting

Maine's Federal Judges Host Bench-Bar Meeting

The Judges of the District of Maine hosted a Bench-Bar Meeting at the Edward Thaxter Gignoux U.S. Courthouse in Portland on April 26, 2010.  Chief Judge Woodcock, Judges Hornby and Singal, and Magistrate Judges Kravchuk and Rich all attended the meeting, and the gallery was filled to the gills with federal court practitioners.

Chief Judge Woodcock opened the meeting with a warm welcome and a few announcements of mutual interest to the bench and bar:

Judge Hornby has reached the milestone of 20-years service on the federal bench, and he will soon be moving to Senior Judge status.  Representatives Michaud and Pingree recommended Michaela Murphy to President Obama for nomination to the bench.  Chief Judge Woodcock reported that the confirmation process will likely take up to 18 months.

We can expect to see scaffolding erected around the Edward Thaxter Gignoux Courthouse in the near future.  Apparently, the courthouse leaks like a sieve, and the GSA has finally decided to fix the problem instead of painting over the water damage.  The GSA has also approved a multi-million dollar renovation of the Margaret Chase Smith Courthouse.  No relocation outside the courthouse will be necessary while the work is underway.

A pilot project will soon be instituted to ensure a more equitable distribution of cases among the judges.  Geography will no longer be the sole determinant of whether a case is assigned to a judge who sits in Bangor or Portland.  That is, the judges who sit in Portland might be assigned to preside over cases filed in Bangor, and vice versa.  Still, a case will be tried where it is filed, not where the presiding judge customarily sits.

After the announcements, Chief Judge Woodcock opened the meeting to questions and comments from the bar.  Many remarks focused on improving communication between the judges and the lawyers (as the stated goal of the bench-bar meeting).  There was a general consensus that the bar’s perception of past practice in federal court persists even though our new judicial officers might have a different outlook than their predecessors.

The judges made two particularly important practice pointers.  First, do not hesitate to ask for oral argument on a motion.  Generally speaking, a judge will have reached a tentative decision (and perhaps drafted an opinion) before oral argument, but the judge will be open to persuasive argument.  There was some discussion on instituting a practice of announcing a tentative decision so that counsel can be better prepared to address the court’s concerns at oral argument.  Second, according to Chief Judge Woodcock, summary judgment practice “is not working.” We can expect further discussion on summary judgment practice in June as a first step toward likely amendments to the rule.