For consistency with the Guidelines For Resolving Scheduling Conflicts adopted by the Oklahoma Supreme Court at 1998 OK 117, and for the purpose of resolving conflicts that arise in scheduling between this Court and other Oklahoma state courts and Oklahoma federal courts:

A. An attorney shall not be deemed to have a conflict unless:

1. The attorney is an attorney of record in the workers' compensation case, as defined in Rule 7;

2. The attorney is lead counsel in two or more of the actions affected; and

3. The attorney certifies in writing that the matters cannot be adequately handled, and the client's interests adequately protected, by other counsel for the party in the action or by other attorneys in lead counsel's firm; certifies compliance with this rule and nevertheless has been unable to resolve the conflicts; and certifies in the notice a proposed resolution by list of such cases in the order of priority specified by this rule.

B. When an attorney is scheduled for a day certain by trial calendar, special setting or Court order to appear in two or more courts (trial or appellate/state or federal), the attorney shall give prompt written notice of the conflict, as specified in subsection (A) of this rule, to:

1. Opposing counsel;

2. Clerk of each court; and

3. The judge before whom each action is set for hearing (or in the case of court en banc appeals, to the presiding judge or vice-presiding judge of the Workers' Compensation Court). The written notice shall contain the attorney's proposed resolution of the appearance conflicts in accordance with the priorities established by this rule and shall set forth the order of cases to be tried with a listing of the date and data required by subparagraphs (a) through (e) below for each case arranged in the order in which cases should prevail under this rule. Attorneys confronted by such conflicts are expected to give written notice as soon as the conflict arises, but in any event at least seven (7) days before the date of the conflicted settings. In resolving scheduling conflicts, the following priorities should ordinarily prevail:

a. Criminal (felony) actions shall prevail over civil actions set for trial or appellate proceedings;

b. Jury trials shall prevail over non-jury matters, including trials and administrative proceedings;

c. Trials shall prevail over appellate arguments, hearings (including prehearings) and conferences (including
settlement conferences);

d. Appellate proceedings prevail over all trial hearings, other than actual trials, (e.g. prehearings and settlement conferences); and

e. Within each of the above categories only, the action which was first set shall take precedence.

C. In addition to the above priorities, consideration should be given to the comparative age of the cases, their complexity, the estimated trial time, the number of attorneys involved, whether the trial involves a jury, and the difficulty or ease of rescheduling.

D. The judges of the courts involved in a scheduling conflict shall promptly confer, resolve the conflict, and notify counsel of the resolution. The judge presiding over the older case (i.e. the earliest filed case) will be responsible for initiating this communication.

E. Conflict resolution shall not require the continuance of the other matter or matters not having priority. If the matter determined to have priority is disposed of before the scheduled time set, the attorney shall immediately notify all affected parties, including the court affected, of the disposal and shall, absent good cause shown to the court, proceed with the remaining case or cases which did not have priority if the setting was not vacated or already continued to another date certain.

F. Nothing in this rule is intended to prevent courts from voluntarily yielding a favorable scheduling position, and judges of all courts are urged to communicate with each other in an effort to lessen the impact of conflicts and continuances on all courts.

Adopted by order of the Supreme Court, 1997 OK 130, eff. November 1, 1997; Amended by order of the Supreme Court, 2000 OK 13, eff. April 15, 2000; Renumbered from former Rule 18C by order of the Supreme Court, 2002 OK 6, eff. March 1, 2002.