Work on Eastern Dist. of Wisconsin's new federal bench moves forward.

• Date: 31 July 2002

Byline: Tony Anderson

Eastern District of Wisconsin court officials are preparing for the launch of the new federal bench in Green Bay. The goal is to have the court up and running in September.

In the interim, the district's newest judge, William C. Griesbach, has been running back and forth between Green Bay and Milwaukee dealing with the practical issues of making the court operational.

"It's just a challenge to see how much work is involved in setting up essentially a new division within the district and the impact it has on policies - for example, case assignments," Griesbach noted during a telephone interview.

The Rules Change

Griesbach and Chief Judge J.P. Stadtmueller have been working with the federal court's local rules committee to develop new guidelines for case assignments. In the past, cases were randomly assigned, since all of the judges were located at the courthouse in Milwaukee. Now that Griesbach will be handling cases in Green Bay, the rules of assignment will take on a geographic component as well.

"We have to design new local rules regarding case assignments," Griesbach explained. "Mine will be geographic as opposed to the random assignment that has been in effect for the district up until now."

Stadtmueller noted that the committee is formulating rules that will provide guidance to attorneys about where they should file cases. Initially, he anticipates a looser format that would allow attorneys to file cases in either location. However, those initial filings would not lock a case into a particular division.

"The fact that a case is filed by a lawyer in either courthouse does not mean that the case will be assigned to that...