California Trial Binder Requirements, 58 Counties

Not legal advice. Rules checked against the code on August 20, 2026. Verify every date yourself. Read the full disclaimer

Core CCP rules were checked against Westlaw (via CoCounsel legal research) on August 20, 2026. County local rules are paraphrased summaries. Individual department and judge standing orders are included only where the court publishes them and we have read the document, so assume your own department has requirements beyond what you see here. Verify every date against the operative code sections, your court’s rules and your department’s own order before relying on it. Using this site creates no attorney-client relationship.

There is no statewide rule about what goes in a trial binder. The Code of Civil Procedure sets the discovery and motion deadlines, and then each superior court decides for itself what you file before trial, when you file it, and whether any of it arrives in a tabbed binder. This page carries all 58 of them, 1754 published rules in total.

Every rule on every county page carries the operative sentence quoted from the court’s own text, cited to the subdivision rather than the bare rule number, and a link to the document it came from with the edition that was read. Where a court publishes nothing on a point, the county page says Not published, and that is a finding: somebody read that court’s civil rules on that point. Where nobody could resolve it, the page says so separately, under Still open. Those are different claims and the difference is most of the value here.

At a glance

Trial document and trial binder requirements, 58 California superior courts
County	Conference that anchors trial documents	Binder rule	Rules	Depts with own order
Alameda	Pretrial conference, the local rules do not set it.	By department	26	5
Alpine	Pretrial Management Conference, set by the court "within approximately two (2) weeks preceding the trial date" under Local Rule 5.10.1, in all civil jury trials.	No county rule	26
Amador	Not published	No county rule	20
Butte	Trial Readiness Conference (TRC), the court sets the TRC date at the same time it sets the trial date, and it ordinarily does both at the case management conference.	No county rule	41
Calaveras	Settlement conference. The rules call it a settlement conference in rule 3.6 and a Mandatory Settlement Conference in rule 3.8(c)(7). There is no civil trial readiness conference, final status conference or issue conference in this court's rules., set by the court at the same time it sets the case for trial, and it must fall at least 15 days before the trial date.	No county rule	17
Colusa	Case management/pretrial conference, set no later than 180 days from the filing of the complaint, per rule 4.01(4)(b).	No county rule	16
Contra Costa	Issue Conference, within 14 calendar days before the trial date, unless otherwise ordered.	Yes	68
Del Norte	Not published	By department	21	1
El Dorado	Not published	Yes	42
Fresno	Trial Readiness Hearing, set at the Case Management Conference along with the trial date and the mandatory settlement conference date (Rule 2.1.9(C)), and held on the Friday prior to the date set for trial (Rule 2.6.2(A)).	Yes	49
Glenn	Not published	Yes	17
Humboldt	Settlement Conference, on party request only (Local Rule 2.5(a)). Humboldt holds no final status conference, no trial readiness conference and no issue conference. The only pretrial-procedure conference the civil rules create is the Jury Trial Conference under Local Rule 2.6(c), which convenes on the morning of the first day of trial., nothing anchors Humboldt's trial documents to a conference.	No county rule	32
Imperial	Not published	No county rule	18
Inyo	Not published	Yes	28
Kern	Final Case Management Conference, the rule does not fix an interval.	Yes	19
Kings	Pretrial Conference or Motions in Limine Hearing, the local rules do not fix an interval between the Pretrial Conference or Motions in Limine Hearing and trial.	Yes	40
Lake	Not published	No county rule	37
Lassen	No civil final status or trial readiness conference exists by rule. The court's optional analogue is a "final case management conference before trial" under Local Rule 7, subd. F(9)(g), set in the case management order and only if the court or the assigned judge requires one. The mandatory settlement conference, when set, also comes from the case management order under subd. F(9)(f) and is heard in Department 6. The only conference the Lassen rules label a trial readiness conference is criminal (Local Rule 1, subd. U)., not fixed by rule.	No county rule	20
Los Angeles	Final status conference, set by the court not more than ten days before the trial date under Local Rule 3.25(f).	By department	70	26
Madera	Not published	Yes	37
Marin	Issue Conference, not published.	Yes	23
Mariposa	Mandatory Settlement Conference, required in every civil trial matter except domestic and short cause matters of one day or less.	No county rule	20
Mendocino	Not published	Yes	33
Merced	Mandatory settlement conference (there is no final status conference or trial readiness conference in the civil rules). A discretionary "civil pre-trial conference" also exists but is set only on a party's declaration., the MSC is set at the case management conference and calendared in the eleventh month after the complaint was filed.	No county rule	26
Modoc	Not published	No county rule	20
Mono	Pretrial Conference, approximately fourteen days before the trial date, stated twice: rule 4.8 says "approximately fourteen (14) days prior to the trial date" and rule 3.13 says "approximately two weeks prior to trial." Held before the trial judge.	No county rule	25
Monterey	Mandatory settlement conference (all civil cases), plus a discretionary trial management conference in Category Three cases only, the mandatory settlement conference is set by the court approximately thirty days before the trial date, or earlier if the court decides an earlier one is appropriate (rule 6.13(A)).	Yes	47
Napa	Trial Management Conference, local Rule 6.2(A): "Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, Trial Management Conferences are usually held the second to the last court day of the week preceding the week in which the jury will be selected, or, in a court trial, the first witness called." In a normal week that puts the conference on the Thursday before the trial week.	Yes	21
Nevada	Pretrial conference, set at the case management conference or by later court order, to be held within two weeks of the first day of trial, or as otherwise ordered by the court.	No county rule	28
Orange	Issue Conference (OCSC Local Rule 317(A)). Orange County does not use the phrase "final status conference" or "trial readiness conference" anywhere in its civil rules. A discretionary "Pre-Trial Conference" may be added or substituted by the assigned judicial officer, and complex civil departments schedule a "Pre-trial Conference" separately., at least 14 days before the date set for trial.	Yes	36	25
Placer	Not published	Yes	34
Plumas	Trial Readiness Conference / Final Trial Status Conference (the rules use both names for the same event and Rule 4.3 abbreviates it FTSC), at least three weeks before the first day of trial under Rule 4.2.	Yes	34
Riverside	Issues Conference, not less than seven days before the date set for trial, or by such other time agreed upon by counsel.	Yes	45	9
Sacramento	Pretrial conference with the assigned trial department. In complex cases, a Final Status Conference and a Final Pre-Trial Conference., mandatory Settlement Conference: SSC Rule 2.93(B), "approximately 30 court days before trial." Pretrial conference with the assigned trial department: no interval published.	Yes	25	7
San Benito	None for trial documents. San Benito anchors its civil trial filings to the trial date itself, not to a pretrial conference. The only settlement event is a mandatory or voluntary settlement conference under Chapter 5, and the only other civil conference is the case management conference under Rule 3.4, set roughly 120 calendar days after the initial pleading under Rule 3.3. There is no civil trial readiness conference, final status conference, or issue conference in these rules. The Trial Readiness Calendar that appears in the rules (Rule 14.6) and on Department 3's Wednesday 10:00 a.m. calendar is criminal., court set with no fixed interval.	Yes	16
San Bernardino	Trial Readiness Conference (TRC), the county rule fixes no interval between the TRC and trial.	By department	29	21
San Diego	Trial Readiness Conference (TRC), rule 2.1.15 says the TRC "generally will be scheduled three weeks before the trial date." The rule does not say who sets it or at what stage of the case.	Yes	39	21
San Francisco	Not published	Yes	43	3
San Joaquin	Mandatory Settlement Conference, the assigned judge sets the trial date at the trial setting conference, and at that same conference sets a mandatory settlement conference 15 to 30 days before trial.	No county rule	19
San Luis Obispo	Trial Readiness Conference (the departments' term). Department P2 also sets a separate pretrial Status Conference ahead of it. Departments 2 and 4 refer to a status conference at which the mandatory settlement conference gets ordered., department 2: "A trial readiness conference typically is scheduled two weeks before trial." Department P2: "Trial Readiness Conferences usually will be set approximately two weeks before trial," preceded by a pretrial status conference that "usually will be scheduled 4-6 weeks in advance of trial." Department 4: "The Trial Readiness Conference is typically scheduled several weeks prior to trial," with no number given.	Yes	57
San Mateo	Not published	Yes	34
Santa Barbara	There is no single countywide name. Each civil department anchors its trial documents to a different event, and the local rules create none of them. Department 3 (Anderle) counts backward from the "trial call" and separately holds a "pretrial conference" whose date and time are noticed later. Department 4 (Geck) issues a "Trial Call Order" at trial call and holds the "pre-trial conference on the first day of trial." Department 5 (Sterne) uses a "Trial Confirmation Conference" on the Monday calendar at 11:30, after which a separate "Pretrial Conference" and trial commencement date are set. Santa Maria Departments 1, 2 and 4 count backward from the trial date itself and, for non-jury trials, SM1 and SM2 refer to an "Issues Conference" that produces a List of Controverted Issues. SM4 does not mention an Issues Conference at all. The only pretrial conference the local rules create for a civil case is the case management conference under rule 1309., case management conference: 120 calendar days from filing of the complaint, 90 calendar days from receipt of the file on a transfer (Local Rule 1309(b)); CMC statements 15 calendar days before (Local Rule 1309(c)(1)).	Yes	46	6
Santa Clara	Mandatory Settlement Conference, rule 9(B)(1): scheduled to take place before the trial assignment hearing, in any case where the trial estimate is more than one day.	Yes	46	4
Santa Cruz	Not published	Yes	34	2
Shasta	Mandatory Settlement Conference, set by the clerk at the time the complaint is filed, in the same LF-CIV-100 that sets the trial date, and calendared in the department the case was assigned to for all purposes.	Yes	15
Sierra	Mandatory settlement conference, the rules do not state when the settlement conference falls relative to trial.	No county rule	24
Siskiyou	Additional Case Management Conference (there is no trial readiness conference or final status conference in Siskiyou general civil cases), not set by reference to the trial date.	No county rule	25
Solano	Trial Conference (Local Rule 4.10). The court's civil setting guide and Local Rules 4.2(a) and 4.8(c) call the same event a "Trial Management Conference.", not stated in the local rules.	Yes	32	6
Sonoma	None. Sonoma repealed its readiness conference rule and anchors every pretrial trial document to the trial date itself, counted backward in court days. A mandatory settlement conference exists but is discretionary and is not the trial-document anchor., rule 4.15 repealed the readiness conference effective January 1, 2021 and the 7/1/2026 rule set carries the repeal forward with no replacement.	No county rule	28
Stanislaus	Mandatory Settlement Conference, approximately fifteen (15) days prior to trial, for all "general civil cases." Short cause matters (one day or less) are not ordinarily set for one.	Yes	22
Sutter	Not published	By department	14	1
Tehama	Not published	No county rule	8
Trinity	Not published	Yes	14
Tulare	Not published	Yes	24
Tuolumne	Not published	Yes	31
Ventura	Not published	Yes	56
Yolo	None. Yolo publishes no civil pretrial conference that anchors trial documents. The trial statement, motions in limine, jury instructions and voir dire questions all count backward from the first day of trial itself, not from a conference. The only conference the civil rules set is the case management conference., not applicable to trial documents, which anchor to the first day of trial.	Yes	16
Yuba	Settlement conference, under Local Rule 3.2(B). That is the only pretrial conference in the civil chapter that carries a document requirement. The court publishes no civil trial readiness conference, no final status conference and no issue conference. Its only trial readiness conference rule, rule 6.0, is a criminal rule in Chapter 6. Note that the settlement conference is not what anchors the trial documents in this county: motions in limine, the trial brief and the joint jury instructions all run off the trial date directly under rule 2.2(A), not off any conference., not stated in the rules.	No county rule	21

The deadline usually runs off the conference, not off trial

This is the single most common way a trial-document deadline gets missed. Most courts do not count backward from the trial date. They set a final status conference, a trial readiness conference, an issue conference or a mandatory settlement conference, and the documents are due a fixed number of days before that, which the court schedules. Los Angeles sets its final status conference not more than ten days before trial and wants the trial documents five days before the conference. Counting five days back from trial puts you ten days late.

Of the 1754 rules here, fewer than one in six can be computed from the trial date alone. The rest wait on a date the court sets. Every county page marks which is which.

Department and judge standing orders

14 of the 58 courts have at least one department publishing its own trial preparation order, and 137 of those orders are on the county pages below. This matters more than it sounds. In several counties the county rule is a floor that the assigned judge can move, and in Los Angeles the rule says so outright: Rule 3.25(g) lets the court order joint trial documents, a joint witness list, a joint exhibit list and an agreed special verdict form that the county rule itself never requires.

No court publishes a list of which of its departments have a trial order. The statewide index by department is that list, one row per department, each linked to what it requires.

Where a court publishes nothing at the department level, this site says so rather than inferring that none exists. Some of those courts genuinely have nothing to delegate, because the county rule already fixes every trial document and its deadline has nothing to delegate. Read the county rule first, then your department’s own order, and where the two differ the department wins.

How this was built

Every county was researched from the court’s own published rules and then checked a second time by a reader told to assume a rule had been invented. Only what survived the second pass is here. That pass removed fabricated quotations, rules that turned out to be family or juvenile rules numbered in a civil-looking range, and a large number of claims that a court published nothing where the truth was that nobody had looked. See methodology for how the site verifies, and scope for what it does not cover.

Court rules change, and department assignments change every January. Each county page carries the date its rules were read. Check the court’s own page and your department’s order before you rely on any of it.

Where this fits

The trial countdown calculator computes the statewide CCP chain from your trial date: discovery cutoffs, the summary judgment window, expert exchange and the last day for a section 998 offer. That chain is the same in all 58 counties. This page is the part that is not.