Andrea K. Bouressa

First Business Court Division — Judge Bouressa's Court Procedures (rev. Apr. 1, 2026)

Judge Bouressa's procedures for cases assigned to her in the First Division (supplementing the court's Local Rules): email as the preferred court channel (all parties copied except true ex parte matters); her scheduling-order form with competing-order submissions when agreement fails, trial dates set by the court (agreed answer-date extensions do not delay trial; a case may be called on its date or within 14 days after); continuances heavily disfavored; written-discovery limits per the TRCP, BCLR, her procedures, and filed Rule 11 agreements; discovery-control-plan/protective-order/ESI settings with competing proposals e-filed in advance; motions to compel must attach the request and response and group requests by subject or objection; attorney's fees may be awarded for discovery abuse "even upon the first instance"; no-setting-needed classes (substitute service, default judgment, pro hac vice, unopposed non-continuance motions) with concurrent proposed orders; opposed motions require movant-obtained settings after conferring on dates; in-person oral hearings by default with evidentiary notices, specific-conflict availability statements, citation readiness, and at least four hard copies of demonstratives; submission settings by agreement; trials — older cases first, hour-based time limits fixed at pretrial, agreed or competing judgments in Word within 14 days of verdict, proposed findings within 10 days of a timely request; and settlement mechanics — a signed non-suit/agreed dismissal, agreed judgment, or all-party notice (with jury waiver where demanded) to clear a setting, and a 45-day dismissal-with-prejudice presumption after announced settlements. Her scheduling-order template adds conferral duties 14 days before pretrial, pre-marked exhibit and Word jury-charge delivery, joinder and arbitration-motion deadlines, staged expert designations, and the mediation default — parties who fail to mediate by the deadline "will be limited to 3 hours of trial time in a jury trial or 2 hours of trial time in a bench trial."