Well, it's not as big a deal as the Cowboys defense shifting from the 3-4 base defense they've used the past eight years to a 4-3 (shown in last year's Buffalo game) under new defense coordinator Monte Kiffin, but it's still of at least moderate interest locally.
Chief Judge Davis issued two orders yesterday modifying the judges' docket assignments slightly, and reallocating the existing cases to reflect the new allocation. The reallocation in General Order 13-2- the first since Judge Folsom's retirement last March - raises Judge Gilstrap's portion of the Marshall civil docket from 75% to 100%, replacing Judge Schneider's 25%, and raises Judge Schneider's share of the Texarkana docket to 100%, replacing Judge Gilstrap's former 10%.
In other news, Judge Schneider and Judge Davis split the Tyler civil docket, Judges Schell and Clark split Sherman civil, and Judge Clark handles all the Beaumont and Lukin patent work, plus the Lufkin civil and 40% of Beaumont civil. Judge Crone matches that 40% of Beaumont and Judge Heartfield covers the other 20%. I'm not even starting on how the criminal docket is divided up.
General Order 13-3 then lists out the existing cases that are to be redistributed, and contains a helpful appendix telling new parties in Judge Gilstrap's court what to do, which more or less consists of directing the parties to execute proposed docket control orders (after getting their new trial dates) and discovery orders that track the form on Judge Gilstrap's website.
My math may be off a bit, but looking at the appendices it appears that the Court celebrated Judge Gilstrap's first anniversary on the bench by having Judge Davis send about 200 (mostly patent) cases to Judge Schneider, Judge Schneider send about 200 (mostly patent) cases to Judge Gilstrap, and Judge Gilstrap send 11 cases (all nonpatent) to Judge Schneider.
