Motions should not be noticed for presentment in accordance with Local Rule 5.3(b). Instead, counsel must confer prior to the filing of all motions and include an agreed briefing schedule with the motion if at all possible. If agreement cannot be reached, the parties should indicate their positions on scheduling in a joint submission filed with the motion. The Court will review the motion and any joint submission to determine the appropriate briefing schedule and whether a hearing is necessary. If the Court determines a hearing is necessary, it will be scheduled by chambers. The Court will adopt reasonable briefing schedules agreed to by the parties; Court-imposed briefing schedules may be more accelerated than the parties would have proposed.

Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, briefs in support of or opposition to a motion should be no more than 15 pages, and reply briefs should be no more than 10. For dispositive motions, response and reply briefs are always permitted. For other types of motions, the Court will set dates for response or reply briefs if necessary. Parties may move for leave to file briefs that the Court has not requested, but motions will typically be granted only if there is an unforeseen point raised in an opposing brief.

Requirements

Before filing a motion, the movant’s counsel must ask opposing counsel whether there is an objection to the motion. If there is an objection, movant must note that fact in the body of the motion. Joint, uncontested, and agreed motions should be so identified in both the title and the body of the motion. Many of those motions will be granted without appearance. Motions for extension of time shall indicate: (i) the reason for the request, and (ii) the number of previous extensions. Discovery cutoff dates generally will not be reset except by written motion. Trial dates are firm and will not be reset except in exceptional circumstances that were unforeseeable at the time the trial date was set.

Citations

If counsel cites to an unpublished opinion, the Court strongly prefers citations to Westlaw. It is not necessary to attach copies of unpublished opinions if they are available on Westlaw. Please attach copies of any cited authorities that are not available on Westlaw. To the extent possible, briefs and other filings (such as Local Rule 56.1 statements of fact) should cite exhibits by the ECF docket number and page, not exhibit number.

Searchable Text

All electronically filed documents shall be made word searchable before being filed on ECF. For any filing of any kind (including exhibits in support of a motion or any Local Rule 56.1 Statement), counsel must run an OCR conversion on it before uploading it onto CM/ECF. To do this in Adobe, go to Tools, Text Recognition, In This File, and select All Pages. If you see the message, “Acrobat could not perform recognition (OCR) on this page because this page contains renderable text,” click “Ignore future errors in this document,” and click OK. Counsel must convert any word-processed document into a .pdf document by printing or publishing to .pdf, rather than manually scanning a paper copy into .pdf.

Document Format

The parties are reminded that the Local Rules concerning page limits, font size, line spacing, and margins for filed documents are not mere suggestions. See Local Rule 5.2. Footnotes are to be used sparingly and only when necessary; footnotes may never be employed as an artifice designed to squeeze more words under the page limit. The Court may strike any filing that does not comply with these requirements.

Supplemental Authority

Parties wishing to file supplemental authority should file a motion seeking leave to do so.