Magistrate judge assignment program gains strong support from civil litigants

A year on from the Central District of California's announcement that civil cases would be randomly assigned for start-to-finish proceedings by magistrate judges, 43% of civil litigants have chosen not to opt out, the district's chief magistrate said.

When the program started, only 6-7% of litigants consented to have their entire cases presided over by magistrate judges, Chief Magistrate Judge Karen L. Stevenson said.

"The direct assignment program has really been valuable in allowing our very talented magistrate judge bench to take on fully consented cases where they can manage them through trial," she said.

When the new system was announced last October and implemented on Dec. 1, 2024, Stevenson said the aim was to alleviate a severely backed up calendar for the largest district court in the nation, which serves over 19 million people in seven counties.

"The caseloads at the court are going up. Hearings are up. Criminal appearances are up," she said last October.

At that time, attorneys who had less-complex cases and wanted speedier handling had to request a magistrate judge to handle the whole case.

Describing the new procedure in last year's announcement, Stevenson said it is "a service that helps relieve congestion at the district court level. It's also a benefit to the bar community because it gives them a path to speedy resolution of their cases."

Since then, these goals have been substantially achieved, Stevenson said in a phone interview this week.

"We're very, very encouraged and very pleased, and that number can continue to increase," she said. "I think that is, at the risk of hyperbole, wildly successful in the view of many."

There are now over 1,200 civil cases pending before magistrate judges in the district, Stevenson said.

"We are busier, and that's a good thing," she said. "It has spread the case load across our full court, in a way, and has allowed the magistrate judges to shoulder a larger share of the civil matters pending."

The program randomly assigns 10 civil cases per month to magistrate judges who have served at least one year, Stevenson said.

"Folks are not getting the newest of our judges. You're getting judges that are very well seasoned, have done a year of work on the court, including lots of discovery work, settlement conferences, management of civil rights cases and those matters," she said.

Only one signature from one party is needed to opt out of the magistrate assignment, she said, with late-joining parties having the same period of time after service to opt out - 14 days for represented parties, 21 days for pro se litigants. And yet, nearly half of the cases remain with the assigned magistrate judges.

"I think it's really helped engage the talent and the bandwidth of our magistrate judge bench who come from a lot of backgrounds - former AUSAs, former federal public defenders, and many from very high-level civil practice background," she said.

"It's been great for the court thus far, and on behalf of the court, I would thank the many law firms, lawyers and their clients who have put their trust in the magistrate judge bench through the voluntary consent direct assignment program to entrust us with the responsibility for managing their cases for them through full resolution," Stevenson continued.

Jennifer L. Keller of Keller Anderle Scolnick LLP in Irvine said the appreciative feeling is mutual.

"It has worked out very well, as predicted," Keller said in an email. "It's a win/win for the lawyers, because we can now utilize the whole bench to move cases along, and the Central District magistrate judges are as good as they get. If parties are assigned to a magistrate judge they don't think is a good fit for a case, they can opt out with no penalty. So, there's absolutely no downside."

Michael D. Kibler of Kibler Fowler & Cave LLP in Los Angeles said that while he hasn't had a case opted into the program, he would be happy to remain opted in if he did.

Kibler, who said he clerked for magistrate judges earlier in his career, said for certain types of cases, their expertise could easily be utilized to move cases forward swiftly.

"If it was a case that I wanted to move quickly and efficiently, and I didn't have any strong feelings one way or the other on the district court judge it was assigned to and the magistrate judge who it would be assigned to, I am absolutely open to the program," he said in a phone interview this week.

"You could appreciate those cases where, depending on the nature of the case, maybe I wouldn't want it to move particularly quickly, or in a case where I really liked the draw I got as far as a district court judge, -- in those circumstances, I would opt out," Kibler continued. "But I think as a general proposition, I'm more than willing to opt in and get a magistrate judge. I think the magistrate judges across the country are an underutilized resource."