(a) General; Applicability of IOP16. An initial calendar shall be prepared under the direction of the Executive Committee for any newly-appointed magistrate judge. The calendar shall consist of referrals in civil cases made pursuant to LR72.1 and IOP14 and civil cases reassigned on consent pursuant to LR73.1. No referrals in criminal cases or criminal cases assigned to a magistrate judge shall be included in an initial calendar.

Except as provided in section (b), the provisions of IOP16 shall be followed in preparing the initial calendar for a magistrate judge. Referrals and cases reassigned on consent shall be treated as two separate categories and separate target numbers and primary and secondary lists shall be prepared for each category. For the purpose of preparing the initial calendar for a magistrate judge, references to a regular active judge in IOP16 shall be taken to mean sitting magistrate judge. Referrals in criminal cases shall be included in the count of cases used to determine the target value for the number of civil referrals to be reassigned to form the initial calendar. Similarly, criminal cases assigned to magistrate judges will be included in the count used to determine the target value for the number of consent cases to be reassigned to form the initial calendar.

(b) Equalization and Initial Calendar Formation. The Executive Committee may use the formation of an initial calendar to equalize disparities in the calendars of magistrate judges. In the order directing the formation of an initial calendar for a magistrate judge the Executive Committee may direct that any of the following methods of determining the extent to which sitting magistrate judges may participate in the reassignment be used in lieu of the equal share participation rate established by IOP16:

(1) the participation may be limited to the magistrate judges most in need of equalization; or

(2) the participation may be based on the proportions of pending referrals or reassignments on consent rather than equal shares; or

(3) the participation may be based on the proportion of referrals or reassignments on consent received over a specified time period rather than pending numbers; or

(4) the participation may be based on such other method as the Executive Committee directs in order to achieve equalization of calendars among the magistrate judges.

Regardless of the method used, the referrals and cases to be reassigned will be selected from the calendars of the participating magistrate judges by lot in accordance with the procedures set out in IOP16.

Committee Comment. The calendar of a magistrate judge differs from that of a district judge in an important way. The calendar of a magistrate judge includes both referrals and cases reassigned on consent. The jurisdictional status of the latter is like that of the cases on the calendars of the district judges. The referrals, however, are simultaneously on the calendars of both a district and a magistrate judge. Accordingly, for the purpose of forming an initial calendar for a magistrate judge, the Court requires that referrals and reassignments on consent be kept separate. The initial calendar for the new magistrate judge will, therefore, involve two reassignment processes: one to select the referrals and the other to select the cases reassigned on consent.

There is another area in which the assignment of cases and referral of matters to magistrate judges differs from the assignment of new cases to regular active district judges. The system of assigning cases to district judges is designed to assure that each regular active judge receives the same number of new cases over time as each of the other regular active judges. Each magistrate judge in the Eastern Division is designated an equal number of times. However, a designation is a potential referral or reassignment on consent, not an actual referral or reassignment. Whether or not a case is referred is a result of many factors, case complexity and the calendar management style of the referring district judge, being just two of the more obvious. As a result, there often arises a significant variance among the magistrate judges in the numbers of referrals they receive. As civil consent cases frequently arise out of referrals, a similar variance occurs in the reassignment of cases on consent.

The formation of an initial calendar for a newly appointed magistrate judge provides and opportunity for the Court to address any calendar imbalances that have arisen among the magistrate judges because of variances in referral and reassignment rates. The default method of preparing an initial calendar is to use the procedures of IOP16 , i.e., the same system as that used to create the initial calendar of a new district judge. Under that system each magistrate judge would participate equally in the formation of the initial calendar. However, section (b) provides that the Executive Committee may depart from the equal participation approach of IOP16 and use the process of forming the initial calendar to equalize existing calendars. This may be done in one of four ways: (i) the participation may be limited to the magistrate judges most in need of equalization; or (ii) the participation may be based on the proportions of pending referrals or reassignments on consent rather than equal shares; or (iii) the participation may be based on the proportion of referrals or reassignments on consent received over a specified time period rather than pending numbers. The fourth alternative is simply a catch-all: "or by such other method as the Executive Committee directs in order to achieve equalization of calendars among the magistrate judges."

                                                                                                                                                           Amended March 22, 2019