1. The Court Clerk shall number all cases with a case prefix, a hyphen, and all four digits of the calendar year, as provided by Supreme Court Administrative Directive. The Court Clerk shall randomly assign all cases to judges in the various divisions of Court according to their assignments by the Presiding Judge of the district, except as provided otherwise by this rule or by Administrative Order. Cases shall be so assigned immediately upon their filing and the clerk shall note the assigned judge at that time. Thereafter, the assigned judge shall have full superintending charge of the case except for various matters according to custom and practice, other Court Rules and statutes.

2. If, after a case has been assigned, the assigned judge becomes disqualified or unable to hear it, it shall be transferred to the Chief Judge for random reassignment. In order to maintain a fair balance in case assignments and workload among judges, upon recusal or disqualification of the assigned judge and the resulting reassignment of a case, the transferee judge may select a comparable case docket to be reassigned by the Chief Judge to the transferor judge.

3. Misdemeanor cases and small claims cases, including forcible entry cases, shall not be assigned to individual judges but shall be assigned to a master docket for handling by the special judges in charge according to the rotating schedule established by the Presiding Judge.

1. Every morning during a jury term each district judge and special judge assigned to misdemeanor trials shall send a docket report to the Chief Judge by 9:00 o'clock a.m., or as soon thereafter as possible. The report shall inform the Chief Judge whether the reporting judge is engaged in trial or is available to accept reassignment of a case for trial. Any cases set on the reporting judge's docket for trial, other than one selected for trial, shall be transferred on Monday to the Chief Judge for reassignment for trial by any available judge.

2. No case should be sent to the Chief Judge for reassignment for trial that can reasonably be expected to require more than three (3) days of trial time. Cases expected to take more than three (3) days should be tried by the assigned judge.

3. The Chief Judge shall return all untried cases to the assigned judges at the end of each week's jury term for resetting on the trial docket of the assigned judge.

4. Upon receiving cases transferred from the various judges for trial, the Chief Judge shall reassign them for trial to those judges who have reported available to accept cases for trial. The Chief Judge shall give preference in assigning civil cases to those judges assigned to the civil docket and criminal cases to those assigned to the criminal docket. When only civil or criminal cases remain to be assigned, the Chief Judge may reassign them without regard to the judge's docket assignment. In assigning criminal cases for trial, preference shall be given to defendants who are in custody.