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Official rule; awaiting reverification against the current source text. Verify with the clerk, judicial assistant, or official court website before relying on it.
When a judge is disqualified or recuses, the Clerk first randomly reassigns within the same division at the same courthouse. Where a division has only one judge, or all its judges are conflicted, the order routes the case along a fixed six-branch cascade — foreclosure to Circuit Civil, IA and IZ paired, and branch-courthouse matters to the Main Courthouse.
Verified verbatim from page 4 of the signed order: "Should a reassignment be required due to disqualification or recusal, the Clerk of Court shall, when possible, randomly reassign the case to a judge within the Division at the same courthouse. For those Divisions where there is only one judge, or where all judges are unable to preside over the case, reassignment shall be as follows:" (1) Foreclosure Division to Circuit Civil Divisions. (2) Probate/Guardianship/Mental Health: Division IA to Division IZ; Division IZ to Division IA; if both IA and IZ have a conflict, the Chief Judge will reassign. (3) Juvenile Divisions: South County Division to Main Courthouse Divisions; West County Division to Main Courthouse Divisions. (4) Family Divisions: Branch Courthouse Divisions to Main Courthouse Divisions; Main Courthouse Divisions to North County Divisions. (5) County Court Criminal Divisions: North, South and West County Divisions each to Main Courthouse Divisions. (6) County Court Civil Divisions: North, South and West County Divisions each to Main Courthouse Divisions. NO ATTORNEY- OR FIRM-SPECIFIC CARVE-OUT appears in this order. BenchPath does not assert a circuit-wide negative on firm carve-outs, because the full 2025–2026 AO registry has not been proven complete.
Should a reassignment be required due to disqualification or recusal, the Clerk of Court shall, when possible, randomly reassign the case to a judge within the Division at the same courthouse.
Reviewer note: Full cascade transcribed from the page image; the research pass summarized it accurately but without the operative sentence. | Set to in_review 2026-07-26: the order's subject looks practitioner-facing but the extracted text captured only recitals or an effective date, not the operative ORDERED section. This is an extraction defect, not a judgement that the order is unimportant — it needs re-extraction before it goes back on the published surface. PUBLISHED 2026-09-02 (July-hold adjudication by full text): the verbatim recusal and disqualification reassignment cascade — which judge a case goes to.
9 verbatim requirements from 4th Circuit Administrative Order 1997-10.
6 verbatim requirements from 4th Circuit Administrative Order 1997-13.