Los Angeles County Superior Court — Santa Monica Courthouse… — CA · BenchPath

Los Angeles County Superior Court — Santa Monica Courthouse, Department I (Judge Mark H. Epstein): Courtroom Information (09/26/23)

High confidence· verified September 29, 2026Judge PreferencesCourtroom Information, Santa Monica Courthouse, Department I, Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles; served by the court's Courtroom Information application (https://www.lacourt.ca.gov/apps/courtroom-information) at https://www.lacourt.ca.gov/web3/courthouse/api/courthouses/courtroom-information/courthouse/SM/courtrooms/I/documents, fetched 2026-09-29.

Summary

Department I's guidelines for final status conferences and trials (Santa Monica Courthouse, West District): trial preference where the parties stipulate; the final status conference and the documents needed for all trials, for jury trials only and for bench trials only; and the department's trial procedures (electronic exhibits on a thumb drive, courtroom seating, trial time and time estimates, settlement talks, sidebars, civility, a settled statement where there is no court reporter, no speaking objections, civil examinations, punctuality and voir dire).

Applies to

California > Second Appellate District > Los Angeles County > Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles > Santa Monica Courthouse > Department I

Source of truth

Los Angeles Superior Court, West District Department “I” Guidelines For Final Status Conferences and Trials Hon. Mark H. Epstein The Court may give trial preference at the Final Status Conference to cases where there is such a stipulation, and the earlier the stipulation, the more preference may be given. Final Status Conference Parties should be sure to file all materials in a timely manner as se

Official source: Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles — Courtroom Information (courtroom information sheets)
Source health: Healthy · checked September 29, 2026
Effective date: September 26, 2023
Last verified: September 29, 2026benchpath-ca-t3-los-angeles-2026-09-29

Reviewer note: Composed 2026-09-29 (California T3 Los Angeles build 2026-09-29) from BenchPath custody ca/t3/ca-los-angeles/dept/CourtroomInformation_SM_I.pdf (165691 bytes, sha256 1a8c2328ac514d69c5ff7001e9b1835daaaec1d747f95fb0814255a2764fb8e0; 6 pages) with the shared verbatim composer (v2 reflow, drawn-glyph reading): page numbers, pleading line numbers and running headers or footers removed as chrome; lines reflowed into the sheet's paragraphs; proof 1 (whitespace-only), proof 2 (same character multiset as the text layer minus chrome) and proof 3 (same characters as the glyphs drawn on the page) all pass. Attached to Judge Mark H. Epstein: the sheet names the judicial officer, and the court's Courtroom Information application and Judicial Officer Search both place Judge Mark H. Epstein in Department I of the Santa Monica Courthouse.