NCJ Number
100699
Date Published
1985
Length
12 pages
Annotation
By setting and adhering to pretrial procedures, lawyers and judges can cooperate to promote pretrial divorce settlements under circumstances that minimize the parties' pain.
Abstract
The most efficient means for the judge to bring the parties together for meaningful discussion with adequate information is through a uniformly enforced pretrial order. The order should require that the parties have a meaningful exchange and that the parties and counsel meet prior to preparation of the pretrial memorandum for the scheduled court conference. The date for the pretrial conference should be set sufficiently in advance of the trial date to permit complete discovery; the in-person meeting; and the preparation of a pretrial memorandum that outlines all the issues, lists the witnesses, and premarks all exhibits. The conference should not be postponed except for compelling reasons. The judge may appropriately make settlement recommendations at the pretrial conference, particularly when counsel view the judge as an authoritative source to control clients' unrealistic expectations. Where material facts are in dispute, however, the judge must be careful to condition all recommendations on perceptions of the evidence, which may change under trial conditions. Judges and attorneys should recognize cases where settlement negotiations are futile, e.g., when differences between the parties are too wide to bridge, and not waste time with pretrial negotiations.