Communicating With Judges and Judicial Assistants

Lawyers must follow specific, primarily unwritten, guidelines when communication with a Judge. It is important that when composing a letter to a judge that the letter is properly addressed, recognizing the judge’s standing in the community. If the judge if offended because a letter lacks their proper title or if the judge’s name is misspelled they will be less likely to quickly grant the attorneys request.

A second important piece of information to remember is that a lawyer is prohibited from having ex parte communications with the judge with very few exceptions. All counsel in a case has the right to see all correspondence that is sent to the judge on their particular case.

The judicial assistant can be a great resource to a lawyer. The judicial assistant typically has control of the judge’s calendar and will be the contact person when scheduling hearings. Judicial assistants have difficult jobs and are typically responsible for a thousand plus cases that their judge is assigned to. It is always important to clearly identify the case referenced in all correspondence and telephone calls and include both the case number and style.

When sending correspondence and documents to judges in advance of the hearing, often it is being done a rush basis. According to a judicial assistant the fastest way to have something in the judge’s hand is to send it via overnight mail. By sending the material through an overnight service the package avoids having to go through an extra level of security that hand delivered documents have to.