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33 verbatim mandatory provisions from Biography: Souto, Melissa D..
Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. Check the order's own effective and rescission dates before relying on it. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
• Communications to the judicial office must be submitted by e-mail to Nicole.daniels@flcourts18.org. • All communications with the judicial office must comply with Canon 3 of the Code of Judicial Conduct, which prohibits a judge from initiating, permitting, or considering ex parte communications and from considering other communications outside the presence of the parties concerning a pending or impending proceeding, unless authorized by law. • All parties must be copied on any e-mail directed to the judicial office, unless an ex parte communication is authorized by law. • Unsolicited Communications: • Unsolicited communications from non- parties will not be considered by the Court. • All attorneys and self-represented litigants must provide an e-mail address to receive signed orders electronically, unless excused. • All parties are required to give a good-faith assessment of the time needed for a hearing. • A Notice of Hearing must specifically state the matter(s) to be heard, the date, time, and place of the hearing, and shall be e-filed with the Clerk. • Any party scheduling a hearing shall provide notice to all other parties. • Submission Deadlines (Hearing Materials): • Should you wish for the judge to review materials or case law prior to a hearing, please submit at least ten (10) days prior to your hearing • Continuance Procedure: • Motions for continuance must strictly comply with Rule 2.085(e) or be made orally on the record in open court. • If unable to obtain the State’s position, the motion must indicate such. • Such motions and proposed Orders must be filed at least two (2) business days prior to the scheduled court date. • Cancelling Hearings: • You must e-file a Motion to Appear telephonically, as well as a proposed order. • The proposed Order must state the date and time of the hearing, the first and last name of the party appearing by phone, and a telephone number for the Court to call at the time of the hearing. • If multiple parties wish to appear by phone, the proposed Order must provide ONE telephone number (conference line) for the Court to call at the time of the hearing. • If a party appearing by telephone will be giving testimony, they must have a notary public present with them at the time of the hearing so that he/she may be sworn in. • All proposed orders must be submitted in Word format along with a separately filed cover letter stating that opposing parties have reviewed the proposed Order and they have no objection to the form or content of the Order or containing a statement identifying any disagreement of the parties as to the proposed order. • If the matter has not been heard by the Court, and you have not received a response from opposing parties, then it must be set for a hearing. • The Motion shall also indicate that all interested parties have been contacted, and their position must be indicated in the motion. • Stipulated Modifications and Orders (with a stipulation signed by both parties) • Motion for Substitution of Counsel (Signed by Attorney and Party) • Motions to Withdraw (WITH SIGNED CONSENT FROM CLIENT – see below) • These types of matters may be submitted without a hearing, but depending on the nature of those matters, after review of the filings by the Court, a hearing may still be necessary. • Courtesy copies of case law that counsel plans to rely upon shall be provided to the Court in advance of the scheduled hearing. • All parties shall make themselves available for the emergency hearing, barring exigent circumstances. • All attorneys must bring sufficient copies of each exhibit for the clerk, the Court, and each party to review during the hearing or trial. • If the attorney is unable to obtain a signed consent from their client, the motion must be set for a hearing with at least 5 days' notice to the parties. • The proposed Order allowing withdrawal of counsel must reflect the following: • The client’s name, last known address, telephone number, and, if possible, e-mail address; • A statement that all pleadings are to be furnished to the client; • A statement that the client is responsible for notifying the Clerk of Court, in writing, within 5 days of any change of address. • Motion In Limine / Pre-Trial Motion: • All Motions in Limine and Pre- Trial Motions must be scheduled for hearing prior to the trial date unless the Court has indicated that they will be heard prior to trial. • Motion For Reconsideration: • If your client is in custody, and there will be a plea at arraignment, you must contact the Judicial Assistant no later than the day before at 3:30 pm to have the Defendant transported to the courtroom. • Docket Sounding: • If your client is in custody, and there will be a plea at Docket Sounding, you must contact the Judicial Assistant no later than the day before at 3:30 pm to have the Defendant transported to the courtroom. • You may also waive the Defendant’s presence at Docket Sounding, whether the Defendant is in custody or out of custody, but you must file a waiver signed by the client that waives their appearance and speedy trial, if applicable. • Trial Scheduling Conference: • Appearances at the Trial Scheduling Conference may NOT be waived. • Counsel shall be prepared to discuss witness availability, length of trial, any pretrial motions, and any jury instructions that will be requested that are not standard jury instructions. • Pleas: • All plea agreements must be in writing, in the form approved by the Court. • If you do not have the proper codes on the proposed orders, the order will be rejected for improper format. • You should have at least 5 lines below the JJJJ to make certain the signature block appears on that page. • Park Avenue, Sanford, FL 32771, 407-665-4227, at least 7 days before your scheduled court appearance, or immediately on receiving this notification if the time before the scheduled appearance is less than 7 days; if you are hearing or voice impaired, call 711. • Interpreter Requests:
Communications to the judicial office must be submitted by e-mail to Nicole.daniels@flcourts18.org.
Reviewer note: Document sha256: fa9e6dcec30b5f1b3277eeb85072d7317ac466269385801c6a9f71ec88e72b9f (308021 bytes). BenchPath harvested this circuit itself because no research corpus existed for it. Extraction is conservative: mandatory-language sentences only, so this rule is a faithful subset of the order, never a summary of it. Text layer cleaned 2026-09-08 (Phase 3a): page markers removed; wording untouched. Verbatim from the order's own text layer, harvested 2026-07-24; whitespace normalised only. No OCR was used. Only sentences containing mandatory language (shall, must, may not, no later than, within N) are reproduced — the full document is in custody and is the controlling text. [moved from the text 2026-09-14]
Judge Tompkins orders counsel to study Smith v. Crider before filing an emergency motion, files it with the Clerk only (never deliver to the judge), and runs UMC at 7–10 minutes per case.
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