Your case will either be randomly assigned to an individual calendar judge or to a judicial team.
Individual calendar judges operate independently to administer each aspect of your case from commencement through post-decree.
Judicial teams, conversely, are comprised of multiple judges operating as one cohesive judicial unit. If your case is assigned to a judicial team, it shall be administered by that team from commencement through post-decree.
The presiding judge has designated one member of each judicial team as a preliminary judge. All other judges on the team are trial judges. Trial judges hear contested trials, default or stipulated prove ups, post-decree matters, and any other matter assigned to them. Pre-trial matters may be heard by the preliminary judge or by any other judge on the team that he or she may designate. When the preliminary judge certifies that a case is ready for trial or prove up, or determines that a pre-trial matter requires a hearing, the case may be assigned to one of the available team trial judges.
Matters arising post-decree will typically remain with the team trial judge who presided over your trial. However, matters arising post-decree may be randomly assigned within the team if a team trial judge conducted a prove up but had minimal involvement with your case. If your case is randomly assigned within the team and, because of the trial or prove up judge’s substantial involvement in your case, you would rather address post-decree matters with the judge who heard your trial or prove up, you may request that the randomly-assigned judge send your case back to the preliminary judge. The preliminary judge will then assign the case to the trial or prove up judge to determine whether he or she will keep the case or return it back to the newly-assigned judge.