Court Hearing Preparation Checklist

Pull the live complaint, answer, and any amended pleadings, plus the order setting the hearing. Confirm what specifically is being heard — a motion to dismiss reads differently than summary judgment or a Daubert motion. The responsible attorney should be able to state the issue in one sentence before drafting begins.

Run every cited case through Shepard's or KeyCite. A negative-treatment flag on a controlling authority discovered at oral argument is the worst time to learn about it. Update the brief or be ready to distinguish.

Document what the client wants out of this specific hearing — not the case overall. Settlement appetite, willingness to testify, tolerance for adverse rulings, and bottom-line numbers should be in the file before prep ramps up.

Check the judge's standing order and the local rules for page limits, font, line spacing, certificate of service, and proposed-order requirements. Many courts reject filings on formatting alone.

Build the exhibit binder (paper and electronic) in the order you intend to introduce them. Confirm Bates numbers match the production set. Pre-mark exhibits per local practice — some courts require pre-marking, others mark at trial.

Second-attorney review every exhibit going into evidence. Inadvertent disclosure of privileged material may or may not be clawback-eligible under FRE 502 and the ESI protocol — assume it isn't.

One outline per witness, tied to specific exhibits and prior deposition pages. For cross, anchor each impeachment point to a deposition cite — line and page — so you can move quickly if the witness pivots.

File well before the midnight cutoff — most filings rejected for formatting hit a same-day refile cycle. PACER/CM/ECF for federal; NYSCEF, Texas eFile, File & ServeXpress, etc. for state. Save the receipt to the matter file.

Pull the proof of service for every subpoena. For out-of-state witnesses, confirm the foreign-subpoena domestication is filed in the witness's jurisdiction. A witness who isn't under compulsion is a witness who can no-show.

Walk the client through the courtroom layout, who will be present, the order of testimony, what to wear, and the rule against discussing testimony during breaks. Cover the most likely cross questions and the worst-case impeachment.

One-on-one rehearsal per witness — never group rehearsals (sequestration, plus the witnesses calibrate their stories to each other). Focus on clarity, pace, and avoiding speculation.

Walk the expert through their report, methodology, and likely Daubert / Rule 702 attacks. Confirm CV is current and that all materials relied upon are listed. Skipped step here is how a strong expert gets excluded on the eve of hearing.

Re-check the docket the morning before — courtrooms get reassigned, judges get reassigned, hearings get bumped. Calendar and docket should agree; if they don't, the docket controls.

Coordinate with the courtroom deputy on monitor count, ELMO availability, HDMI vs. VGA, and whether the firm needs to bring its own laptop. Bring paper backups of every exhibit — the projector will fail.

Courthouse address, parking, security screening (no phones in some courthouses), arrival time (30-45 min before call), and the paralegal's cell number for the day. Late witnesses are usually a logistics failure, not a flake failure.

First chair, second chair, exhibit handler, witness wrangler, note-taker. Paralegal owns the exhibit binder; legal assistant owns the witness schedule. Ambiguity on the day costs minutes you don't have.

Walk through the order of proof, anticipated objections, and the judge's known preferences (standing orders, prior rulings). Decide in advance which battles are worth fighting and which to concede.

If the final review surfaced a blocker — missing witness, unserved subpoena, expert unavailable — file the continuance motion immediately with a sworn declaration of the basis. Last-minute continuances filed without a clean record are the ones judges deny.