Judge John J. Tharp Jr.
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United States District Court
Northern District of Illinois
Honorable Virginia M. Kendall, Chief Judge | Thomas G. Bruton, Clerk of Court
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Home»Judges» Judge Information
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Order Transcript

Judge John J. Tharp Jr.

meeting_room Courtroom: 2303 gavel Chambers: 2388 phone Telephone: (312) 435-5573 fax Fax: (312) 554-8198
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Judge Tharp's Motion Procedures

The Court no longer requires motions to be noticed for presentment. Motions that are agreed will generally be granted without further briefing or hearing. Contested motions should, if possible, include an agreed briefing schedule; in the absence of an agreed briefing schedule, the Court will assess whether a response is required and, if so, set a briefing schedule. The Court will generally rule on the briefs without a hearing; to the extent the Court concludes a hearing is needed, the Court will set a hearing date and time.

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Judge Tharp's Procedures

This page and the links to the right contain important information about the Court's case management procedures. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with these procedures as well as those in the Local Rules. When there is a conflict, please follow the procedures outlined here.

These policies and rules have been designed to facilitate the prompt, efficient, and equitable disposition of civil cases on the Court's docket. The success of this Court’s trial procedures depends on your willingness to familiarize yourself with these materials and to act accordingly. Counsel will be expected to fully explain to the Court any failure to comply with the Court’s case management and pretrial procedures.

Procedures to be followed in cases assigned to Judge John J. Tharp Jr.

Counsel requesting entry of an order to preserve the confidentiality of materials disclosed in discovery must base the proposed order on the Model Confidentiality Order contained in the Local Rules (Form LR26.2), available here: _assets/_documents/_forms/_online/26.2%20FORM.pdf. The Model Confidentiality Order provides that counsel should include or delete language in brackets as necessary to the specific case. Any other proposed changes to this model order must be shown with redlining that indicates both deletions and additions to the model text.  Counsel are encouraged to include comments with any such proposed changes explaining why the changes are sought. Counsel shall file a motion for entry of the proposed confidentiality order, notice the motion for presentment, and separately submit the redlined copy and a clean copy of the proposed order in Word format to the Court’s Proposed Order electronic mailbox: Proposed_Order_Tharp@ilnd.uscourts.gov. The proposed order should not be filed as an exhibit to the motion.
Emergency matters must be of such a nature that a delay in hearing them would cause serious harm. Requests to set a hearing on an emergency motion shall be made to the courtroom deputy with as much advance notice as possible. All reasonable efforts must be made to give actual notice to opposing counsel.
The Court will promptly schedule an initial status hearing for newly-filed cases. In most cases, the initial status hearing will be conducted within approximately 60 days of the filing of the complaint.


NON-PATENT CASES

Per Local Rule 26.1, the initial status hearing shall serve as the scheduling conference referred to in Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(f). The parties must confer at least 21 days in advance of the initial hearing/scheduling conference, as required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(f), but need not present a written report outlining the discovery plan at the initial hearing. At least 7 days prior to the initial status hearing, the parties must file a joint Initial Status Report, in the format and including the information required by the template at the link below.

Initial Status Report



PATENT CASES

In patent cases, the parties must confer at least 21 days in advance of the initial status hearing, as required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(f). At least 7 days prior to the initial status hearing, the parties must file a joint report, in the format and including the information required by the template at the link below.

LPR Appendix A

Every case has an assigned Magistrate Judge, and in civil cases the parties may consent to have the assigned Magistrate Judge try the case. In many cases, consent to refer the entire case to the Magistrate Judge may offer significant efficiencies and greater certainty in scheduling the trial. All counsel in civil cases should inform their clients of this option and discuss it with opposing counsel.

Magistrate Judge Consent Form
Electronic Filing

The Court strongly encourages counsel to convert any word-processed document into a .pdf document by printing or publishing to .pdf, rather than manually scanning a paper copy into .pdf. The former method of conversion generates searchable optical character recognition (OCR) text; the latter does not.

Extensions of Time

A party seeking an extension of time must contact all other parties in the case to determine whether they object to the extension. Any motion for extension of time should indicate whether it is the first or subsequent extension request, shall include the reasons for the request, any previous relief granted and whether any other party objects to the extension.

Briefing Schedule

The Court no longer requires motions to be noticed for presentment. Parties are encouraged to submit a joint proposed briefing schedule when filing a motion. In the absence of a briefing schedule proposed by the parties, the Court will set a briefing schedule by minute entry. Joint, uncontested, and agreed motions must be so identified in the title and body of the motion.

Motions to strike are strongly disfavored. See generally Custom Vehicles, Inc. v. Forest River, Inc., 464 F.3d 725, 727 (7th Cir. 2006) (Easterbrook, J., in chambers). They serve primarily as unauthorized vehicles for parties to expand the page limits for memoranda in support of their motions. The Court is capable of discerning if a new argument has been raised in a reply brief, or if a litigant has failed to comply with the requirements of Local Rule 56.1; such errors do not require supplemental motion practice. If a party believes that the other side's brief contains inaccurate facts or that the other side's Local Rule 56.1 statement (in summary-judgment briefing) contains an unsupported assertion, then the complaining party should so argue in the response or reply brief, or in the responsive 56.1 statement. Motions to strike that are not within the limited boundaries established by Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f) will be summarily denied.
Unless Judge Tharp orders otherwise, parties should follow the Local Patent Rules for the Northern District of Illinois in all patent cases. At least 7 days prior to the initial status hearing in a patent case, the parties must file a joint report, in the format and including the information required by LPR Appendix A.

Local Patent Rules
LPR Appendix A
LPR Appendix B
Estimated Patent Case Schedule

The Court sets firm trial dates. All parties should be prepared to proceed on their trial dates.

The Court's final pretrial order guidelines differ from those in Local Rule 16.1 and are set forth in the documents linked below. Please note that courtesy copies of the pretrial order, motions in limine, and jury instructions are required.

Final Pretrial Order for Civil Jury Trial Cases

Final Pretrial Order for Civil Bench Trial Cases

Proposed orders on routine motions, such as motions for extensions of time, are unnecessary.

On occasion, the Court may direct the moving party, or the parties jointly, to submit a proposed order. Otherwise, a party filing a motion may, but is not required to, submit a proposed order for entry by the Court in the event that the motion is granted. The Court will consider proposed orders when ruling on motions, but will modify (or disregard altogether) such proposed orders as it deems appropriate, even if the proposed order was submitted at the Court’s direction and/or is agreed by the parties.

Unless otherwise directed by the Court, proposed orders may not be submitted in the absence of a motion. (In other words, a proposed order is not a substitute for a motion.) But proposed orders should not be filed as attachments to the motion to which they relate. Instead, when the motion is filed, the proposed order (if any) should be submitted via e-mail to Proposed_Order_Tharp@ilnd.uscourts.gov. The subject line of the e-mail must include the case number and name, the docket number of the corresponding motion, if any, and the title of the order that is proposed. All such documents should be submitted in Microsoft Office Word format (not WordPerfect). Proposed orders should also be served on all parties.
The requirements for the Initial Reassignment Status Report are provided at the link below.

Initial Reassignment Status Report

The Court urges parties to undertake settlement negotiations at the earliest practicable point in the litigation. Parties who desire a settlement conference should request one in open court or by telephone call to the courtroom deputy. Settlement conferences usually will be referred to the assigned Magistrate Judge.

In the event that the parties seek to have this Court retain jurisdiction to enforce the terms of a settlement agreement, counsel should review the following Seventh Circuit cases (among any other pertinent authorities: Dupuy v. McEwen, 495 F.3d 807 (7th Cir. 2007); Blue Cross and Blue Shield Ass’n v. American Express Co., 467 F.3d 634 (7th Cir. 2006), Shapo v. Engle, 463 F.3d 641, 646 (7th Cir. 2006), and Lynch v. Samatamason Inc., 279 F.3d 487 (7th Cir. 2002).

Motions for summary judgment and responses must comply with Local Rule 56.1 as well as the procedures outlined herein. All statements of undisputed material facts and their responses shall be filed separately from the memoranda of law and shall include the line, paragraph, or page number where the supporting material may be found in the record.

The Local Rules are not mere technicalities. Failure to abide by the Local Rules may result in the Court striking briefs, disregarding statements of fact, deeming statements of fact admitted, and denying summary judgment. See Cracco v. Vitran Exp., Inc., 559 F.3d 625, 632 (7th Cir. 2009).

The movant shall not file more than 80 statements of undisputed material facts without prior leave of the Court. The respondent shall be limited to 40 statements of undisputed material facts without prior leave of the Court.

If significant authority comes to a party’s attention after the filing of a brief, the party may file a Notice of Supplemental Authority identifying the authority and the argument in the brief to which the authority is relevant. Any such filing may not exceed 350 words (exclusive of case caption and signature block). Any response offered by any other party must be filed within 7 days and must be similarly limited.

Telephone Hearings

Counsel and Parties: Directions for counsel and the parties for participating in the telephone hearing will be provided by the Courtroom Deputy via email prior to the hearing. Counsel are instructed to use those directions, which require logging into the call via a web site. Failure to comply may result in termination of Counsel’s participation in the hearing.

Public Access to Non-Evidentiary Hearings in Civil Cases: Members of the public and media who wish to listen to a civil hearing that does not include witness testimony may call the Courtroom Deputy for instructions on how to log into the hearing by phone. Persons granted remote access to proceedings are reminded that this is a court proceeding and should be treated as such; phones should be muted at all times unless you are authorized to participate in the hearing. In addition, the general prohibition against photographing, recording, and rebroadcasting of court proceedings applies. Violation of these prohibitions may result in sanctions, including removal of court issued media credentials, restricted entry to future hearings, denial of entry to future hearings, or any other sanctions deemed necessary by the Court.

Defendants in criminal cases have the right to be present for all hearings. Defendants may, however, request to waive their appearances at routine status and motion hearings. At the initial hearing in the case before Judge Tharp, defendants will be advised that they may waive their right to be present at a specific hearing by completing and filing, at least 3 days prior to the hearing, a Waiver of Appearance form. Absent the filing of a completed Waiver of Appearance form, defendants are required to appear for all scheduled hearings. In addition, notwithstanding the filing of a Waiver of Appearance form, the Court may enter an order requiring a defendant to appear.

Select a date below to view all schedules.
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
1 case
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Thursday, May 1, 2025
9 cases
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Monday, May 5, 2025
1 case
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Tuesday, May 6, 2025
2 cases
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Wednesday, May 7, 2025
2 cases
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Number of days notice: 3 Business Days
Motion Type Day Time
Civ. & Crim. Tu, W, Th 9:00 a.m.
Court Reporter
Kelly Fitzgerald
(312) 818-6626
Room 2304
Courtroom Deputy
Alberta Rone
(312) 435-5861
Room 2308
Law Clerk
Anne Monjar
Matthew Krantz
Logan Kirkpatrick