No More Business Court? Use a Special Magistrate!

This month in Orange County, we saw the demise of the state's first "Business Court" due to lack of adequate funding from the state legislature which allocates less than one percent of Florida's budget to the judiciary. Known as the Complex Business Litigation Division of Circuit-Civil, this specialized court helped determine thousands of cases in its 15 year history through the use of its own rules and active case management by its presiding judges. Mediators with commercial experience also helped dispose of many a case upon referral. Now that these cases have been reassigned to the General Civil Division, they will likely have to wait to be decided among thousands more general cases already on those dockets. Ninth Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Fred Lauten spoke on this at our recent Orange County Bar Association Judicial Relations Committee meeting and is in the midst of a public relations campaign to encourage citizens to ask their elected officials to secure more funding next session. Judge Lauten has commented that "with a growing population and a base constituency of 1.7 million people, the Ninth Judicial Circuit has been operating at maximum effort with minimum resources for years. Despite a caseload that has qualified the circuit for additional judges every year since 2006, no new judgeships have been allocated. While an ever expanding workload coupled with chronically insufficient resources would spell a reduction in services for most agencies and businesses-- the judiciary is not afforded that option, nor should it be." As such, the business judges were moved to the fill a bigger need in the growing Family Division. Still, there remains an option to litigants to have their cases heard before a skilled neutral or Special Magistrate, by consent. Special Magistrates in state court (formerly known as Special Masters which they are still called in federal court) can timely assist burdened trial judges in the disposition of complex cases. Carefully drafted orders of referral under Rule 1.490 of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure that anticipate the scope of issues to be decided, such as discovery disputes, can do much to make the utilization of Special Magistrates effective and cost-efficient. Having served the Circuit-Civil Division in culling cases during 2013 as a General Magistrate, I recently offered to serve as a hired Special Magistrate where parties so desire. See more in newspaper opinion piece here-- https://bit.ly/2mykykR

New FL Ninth Judicial Circuit Biz Court Procedures

Now approaching a decade in existence, Florida's Ninth Judicial Circuit Complex Business Litigation Division or "Business Court" in Orlando specializes in handling complex business cases, such as antitrust, commercial foreclosure, intellectual property, franchise and unfair competition lawsuits. The goal is to handle business litigation matters in a more effective and efficient manner, much like the federal courts. The Business Court Procedures, known locally as the BCP, have just been revised retroactive to April 1, 2013 (in conjunction with civil division e-filing http://www.ninthcircuit.org/about/divisions/civil/downloads/ECF%20NOTICE%20final.pdf). New and notable is the requirement of attorneys who provide more than 50 pages of materials to the court for hearing preparation (typically done by the delivery of indexed binders) to provide this material now only on a USB drive. Also significant is the change to BCP 5.11(a) which requires that contested discovery motions be fully briefed unless the motion will be heard by the magistrate, or unless excused by the trial judge. The use of mediators and magistrates may be discussed the case management process, as well as in resolving ESI disputes arising out of electronic discovery. See Biz Court links here-- http://www.ninthcircuit.org/about/divisions/civil/complex-business-litigation-court.shtml and revised BCP http://www.ninthcircuit.org/about/divisions/civil/downloads/Business-Court-Procedures.pdf