(a) Selection. A judge, whose duty station is the Eastern Division and who is not currently serving as chief judge, shall serve as the Western Division backup judge. The judge shall serve as backup judge for a period of 1 year commencing on the first day of January. Unless an Eastern Division judge volunteers and is so designated by the Chief Judge, the backup judge shall be selected from among the eligible regular active judges on the basis of seniority, the most senior being selected first. No judge who has been in office for fewer than 6 months is eligible to serve as the backup judge.

(b) Reassignment of Cases. When all district judges whose duty station in the Western Division enter recusal orders in the same case, that case will be transferred to the Executive Committee for reassignment to the judge serving as Western Division backup judge. The Executive Committee will reassign the case to the calendar of the judge acting as backup judge as of the date of the Committee’s order. The order of reassignment will also provide that the backup judge receive equalization for each case so reassigned in the form of a skip in the assignment of new cases in the same category.

Adopted June 26, 2007; Revised November 21, 2023