The State Bar seeks public comment on proposed changes to the Rules of Procedure of the State Bar that will give litigants in State Bar Court proceedings additional ways to request to appear remotely at an evidentiary hearing or trial and will make clarifying changes to the rules regarding remote and in-person appearances at proceedings.
Deadline: September 20, 2024, 11:59 p.m.
Comments should be submitted using the online Public Comment Form. The online form allows you to input your comments directly.
Due to the reconfiguration of the State Bar’s San Francisco office space, the State Bar Court will soon have only one courtroom to accommodate all in-person and hybrid proceedings held in San Francisco. The court seeks to amend the current rules regarding remote appearances to make it easier for litigants to give notice when they intend to appear remotely at an evidentiary hearing or trial. By giving the parties more ways to give notice to the court of the intent to appear remotely, the changes to rules 5.17 and 5.18 will give the court more advance notice when a trial will be held entirely remotely, allowing for more efficient calendar management. The proposed changes will also clarify the language of these rules.
The State Bar Court is proposing changes to rules 5.17 and 5.18 of the Rules of Procedure that will make it easier for parties to give notice to the court when they want to appear remotely for a trial or evidentiary hearing and make clarifying changes to the rules regarding remote and in-person appearances. Currently, under rule 5.17, the default for all proceedings in the State Bar Court other than trials and evidentiary hearings is for the parties to appear remotely. The default for trials and evidentiary hearings is for the parties to appear in person. Parties who wish to appear in person for a proceeding other than a trial or evidentiary hearing must file notice with the court at least 10 days before the proceeding; parties who wish to appear remotely for a trial or evidentiary hearing must file notice with the court no more than 10 days after the court sends notice of the trial date. The existing rules are unnecessarily cumbersome, particularly for parties who know well in advance that they wish to appear remotely at trial.
The proposed changes will allow parties to give notice that they intend to appear remotely for trial orally at the initial status conference, by oral stipulation at the initial status conference, or by written stipulation filed within 10 days after the court serves notice of the trial date. These changes will allow the court to better manage its calendar by giving it, in many cases, more advance notice when a trial will be held entirely remotely. Parties will benefit as well from having more options for giving notice to the court when they intend to appear remotely.
In addition the proposed changes clarify that rule 5.18 applies only to appearances by parties; eliminate an unnecessary requirement for notice to the opposing party by telephone or in person when a notice of intent to appear in person is filed non-electronically; and give the court greater discretion to require that a proceeding other than a trial or evidentiary hearing be held remotely.
State Bar Court judges sometimes are assigned to cases outside of their usual venue. More advance notice of remote proceedings will reduce the need for judges to travel from one location to the other, thereby reducing travel costs.
Background material
Board of Trustees, sitting as the Regulation and Discipline Committee
September 20, 2024, 11:59 p.m.