Chief Judge Enforces Judicial Preferences Requiring Pre-Motion Letter

Key Points

• District of New Jersey judges enforce individual Judicial Preferences published on the court’s website as strictly as formal rules.
• Chief Judge Bumb administratively terminated a motion to dismiss filed without the required pre-motion letter.
• Judicial preferences serve as case management tools aimed at resolving disputes efficiently and minimizing litigation costs.

Individual Preferences

Every patent litigator knows the importance of following the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. But a judge’s individual preferences — particularly when published as mandates on the court’s website — carry just as much practical weight.

In this series, we frequently discuss the Local Rules of the District of New Jersey, including Local Rule 9.3 which contains the Local Patent Rules. To add to this complexity, individual judges in the District of New Jersey — both district judges and magistrates — have Judicial Preferences that litigants are expected to follow. Although aspects of these preferences may at times be incorporated into a scheduling order at the outset of the case, not all such preferences will be noted directly in a case docket.

Practitioners must therefore be mindful of the preferences of the magistrate and district judge assigned to the case.

In a recent text order in Jiaxing Super Lighting Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. et al v. All Star Lighting Supplies, Inc. d/b/a Luxrite et al., Chief Judge Renée Marie Bumb administratively terminated a motion to dismiss that was filed without a pre-motion letter as required by her Individual Rules and Procedures.

Specifically, Judge Bumb’s preferences note that prior to the filing of certain motions, including a motion to dismiss, a party must submit a letter “set[ting] forth the basis for the anticipated motion and include citations to relevant authority.”

The adversary must submit a response. The court will then attempt to resolve the dispute if possible at a pre-motion conference. If the court cannot resolve the dispute or determines that a pre-motion conference would not be helpful, the moving party may proceed with filing its motion. In Jiaxing, the parties subsequently followed this letter exchange and a pre-motion conference was held.

Chief Judge Bumb is not alone in following this procedure. Several other judges have similar procedures outlined in their judicial preferences, including:

• Judge Georgette Castner
• Judge Edward S. Kiel
• Judge Robert Kirsch
• Judge Brian R. Martinotti
• Judge Julien Xavier Neals
• Judge Christine P. O'Hearn
• Judge Zahid N. Quraishi

Chief Judge Bumb’s procedures note that “the Court hopes to use this procedure to advance the case efficiently and minimize the costs of litigation to the parties.”

This reflects a preference for informally resolving potential issues before directly proceeding to a resource-intensive briefing process. The prevalence of these procedures across the district shows that judges recognize their value as a case management tool and underscores the importance for practitioners of consulting individual judicial preferences before filing any motion.