A lawyer who wrote to comment on the draft said that in his view case management should be mandatory if either side wants it. In the committee s view this is not feasible. The court has limited resources available for case management and should apply them only where they can be most effective. It does not set out the specific circumstances in which case management might be ordered. The Task Force thought, however, that it was preferable not to specify these types of situations in the practice note itself.
Some judges presently do that.
The preference of the CJ and the ACJ is that they formally assign the case management judge so that they can maintain a even distribution of case management assignments. A judge ordering case management can advise the CJ or ACJ or counsel that they are willing to be assigned and it the usual case they will be. He suggested there should be a means of requiring that without going to the formality of case management. The means already exists in Rule 219 which governs pre-trial conferences. This section has been added to highlight the availability of this option.