Effective December 1, 2008 the judges of the Northern District of Alabama will begin to create a civil case load to be assumed by the Article III Judge who will be appointed to replace Honorable U. W. Clemon when he leaves the bench January 31, 2009. The “Unassigned” case load will consist of randomly selected civil cases filed on and after December 1, 2008 in the Southern division of the Northern District. Other civil cases may also be transferred to “unassigned” case status from the current pending case load of Judge Clemon. The designation of the presiding judge will be “U” for unassigned.
In order to manage the cases prior to the appointment of the new judge, a referral judge will also be randomly selected when the case is filed or transferred. The referral judge may be any Article III or Magistrate Judge of the Northern District. The initials of the referral judge will be reflected at the end of the case number in the same way Magistrate Judges are now shown - example [CV 08-U-1234-SLB]. The referral judge will enter initial case management orders as he/she deems appropriate and rule on motions as necessary.
If there is a need to contact the court’s clerks regarding one of the “unassigned” cases, please direct your call or correspondence to the clerk’s office personnel assigned to the referral judge. Contact information can be found on the court’s webpage www.alnd.uscourts.gov under CM/ECF Information.
It is our hope that beginning the random selection of newly filed cases for the new judge months before the appointment will create a civil case load to be assumed that is reasonably representative of the age and complexity of our case loads.
Judges of the Northern District of Alabama