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Superior Court Judge · Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo
What applies in this courtroom
100 verified requirements may apply in this courtroom, by layer: 4 published by Judge Nancy L. Fineman · 83 county-wide · 0 circuit-wide · 13 statewide. Only the judge's own rules are specific to this courtroom; the other layers apply by court, county and state scope, and a court- or case-specific order can displace them.
The tabs below show the judge-and-division layer only. The Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack — every requirement, deadline table, ruling intelligence, live case-type scan, and source appendix in one cited document.
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Judge — Department 4 (Civil Trial Judge), Southern Court, 400 County Center, Redwood City, Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo
On this assignment since August 3, 2026
4 verified rules specific to this judge's division, grouped by requirement category. 100 total requirements apply in this courtroom across all layers — the Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack.
No judge-level deadline on record runs shorter than a statewide deadline with the same trigger. The sentinel compares quoted timing across every published rule scoped to this judge on each visit — a clean result today is re-earned tomorrow.
Department 4 (Southern Courthouse): ex partes Tuesdays and Fridays at 1:30 p.m. (remote appearance under Local Rule 3.500(e)) and the dates she is unavailable; reply briefs e-mailed to the law and motion reply address; complex law and motion Tuesdays at 2:00 p.m. (briefing complete three weeks before); informal discovery conferences; TSC/CMCs Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m.; the pretrial order; mandatory settlement conferences (Local Rule 3.1100); pretrial conferences Mondays at 2:00 p.m.; trial days; proposed orders; Zoom appearances.
Department 4's pretrial order for civil trials (the court switched to a direct calendar system for all civil cases on January 1, 2021): the summary table of deadlines - serve (but not file) proposed motions in limine, jury instructions, verdict forms, witness lists and exhibit lists at least 42 days before the Pretrial Conference; meet and confer at least 35 days before; file and serve motions in limine and oppositions at least 21 days before; file the joint pretrial conference statement (jury instructions, verdict forms, voir dire and any juror questionnaire, the statement of the case, witness and exhibit lists, the motions in limine binders, deposition designations) at least 14 days before; the Pretrial Conference at least 14 days before the Trial Date; trial exhibits in binders and on thumb drive at least 7 days before the Trial Date - then the order's rules for each item; the Pretrial Conference is deemed the commencement of trial for all purposes; court reporters.
Judge Fineman's suggestions for cases assigned to her: an overview (efficient and practical case management; agreed procedures that differ from the rules when the law allows and the resources permit), law and motion, ex partes and trials.
No judge-scoped deadlines on this tab. Deadlines are extracted only when the source rule text states them — we never infer or calculate dates the rule does not explicitly contain.
Timing shown here is quoted from the rule text. Compute your actual date against the court's calendar and the rule itself — not legal advice.
No verified ruling summary yet. BenchPath generates ruling summaries from opinion and docket corpora (CourtListener where covered) and publishes them only after human review — fabricated judicial analytics are exactly what this platform refuses to ship.
Use the live case-law search below to see what exists for this judge today.
Answer three quick questions. The platform pulls Nancy L. Fineman's full public case-law record from the source, newest first — your matter never narrows the pull; it directs the relevance ranking and the dual-AI analysis. Every hit comes back Bluebook-cited with the opinion's own words quoted verbatim. The scan takes the time precision takes.
Case-law search
CourtListener · free connector · liveCoverage note: CourtListener is strongest for federal courts and state appellate courts. Florida circuit-court opinions are sparsely represented — an absence of results is a coverage gap, not evidence about this judge.
last checked September 28, 2026
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Judge — Department 4 (Civil Trial Judge), Southern Court, 400 County Center, Redwood City, Superior Court of California, County of San Mateocurrent
August 3, 2026 — present
assignment source →No source changes detected for this judge yet — when the underlying court pages move, it shows up here first.