Sidebar with Your Magistrate Judges

Our chapter’s biggest event yet was “Sidebar with Your Magistrate Judges,” an event on March 30, 2023 with over 100 lawyer attendees, nine judges in attendance, and sponsorships from the two district courts we serve along with our sister chapter in Oklahoma City.  The event offered civil practitioners unique insight into the process for appointment of magistrate judges, the backgrounds and experience of the magistrate judges in both the Northern and Eastern Districts, and first-hand experiences of practitioners on consenting to magistrate judge jurisdiction.

The forum was particularly timely given the appointment of several new judges over the past few years, the civil backlog caused by McGirt v. Oklahoma, and the magistrate judges’ presence on the case assignment wheel in the Eastern District and likely soon the Northern District.  The event was led by T. Lane Wilson, former United States Magistrate Judge and current Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the Williams Companies.

All four magistrate judges in the Northern District and all three magistrate judges in the Eastern District attended, along with both active district judges from the Northern District.  The forum outgrew its original location in the Side Bar of McNellie’s Irish Pub in downtown Tulsa and moved to a larger space upstairs at McNellie’s, where attendees were able to mingle with judges over food and drinks both before and after the presentation.