We could hardly expect Garfield County to have a family law motions calendar five days a week, or King County to hear family law motions on only the first Friday of each month. Courts, to describe how they are organized, adopt local rules. By explaining how to use the court, local rules facilitate access to justice. Article 4, Section 5 of the state constitution and CR 83 expressly authorize local rules, but even without these provisions, a court would have the inherent authority to adopt local rules. Indeed, a court could not provide a fair and accessible court process without local rules.
Process promotes uniform treatment of all litigants and facilitates access.
There may be a few attorneys willing to practice in a court without local rules, relying instead on guess and trial by error to figure out how the court operates, but most would not. King County Superior Court rules are probably as complex as any, and far from user-friendly. But the adoption of our case management and individual calendar rules have reduced our time from filing to trial for civil cases by more that one-half. These innovations would never have been adopted if changes could only be implemented statewide. The real source of frustration is variations in local court organization, something we will never escape.