Welcome to the Jungle ...

I spent three years clerking for various judges in federal district court in Los Angeles before starting as a law firm associate in the LA office of Kirkland & Ellis. By the time I started my practice, I was really comfortable with federal court.  I knew the rules, the general orders, and, to some degree, the procedural peccadilloes of many of the individual judges on our rather large (by federal standards) court.

I knew next to nothing, however, about state court trial practice.  My only state court experience was a two week stint of jury service in a fender bender case during my clerkship.  From that, all I knew about state court was that, compared to federal court: (1) the lighting was bad; (2) the hallways crowded; (3) the courtrooms tiny; and (4) the attorneys far less deferential to the judges.  (They did, however, have a better cafeteria.)

It was only after about a year with the firm, in a practice that was, back then, mostly devoted to federal white collar criminal defense, that I was put on my first civil case in California state court.  The first order I received in that case was an opinion on a demurrer.  The order chastised me for not including "a demurrer" in my filing, although the court stated it "was able to puzzle out" the grounds from the brief and mostly granted the motion anyway.

"What is this?" I asked my soon-to-be-state-courts mentor Jeff, a reluctant but wizened hand at state court practice. "So under Rule of Court 3.1320(a), I'm apparently not only supposed to file a notice of motion and a memorandum, but also a separate document called a 'demurrer,' which just lists the causes of action and says I'm demurring to them?  What is the point of that?  Why require such a worthless piece of paper?"

Jeff smiled a little and leaned back in his chair. "Welcome to the jungle . . . ," he said.