Know Your Docket, Know Your Judge
Video Transcribed: New assignment of special judges in Tulsa County. I’m James Wirth, an attorney in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I’m just going over an administrative order filed on January 11th of 2023 rotating some of the special judges in Tulsa County. On a somewhat regular basis, the district judges rotate the special judges, so there’ll be different judges on different dockets. That does allow them an opportunity to have an understanding and experience with different areas of the law by being on different dockets. Still, it can be difficult and sometimes a little cumbersome for attorneys as well as particularly the people that are on those dockets. So, it’s important for you to know if your judge is changing. So, I just wanted to go over those.
So, for the protective order docket, Judge Ludi-Leitch is being moved off that docket. She’s being moved to a domestic, a family docket. It’s actually docket F. So if you’ve got a family law case, divorce, custody, paternity, child support, all those matters in Tulsa County District Court on Docket F, then your judge is going to move and be Judge Deborrah Ludi-Leitch.
Judge Ann Keele is assigned to the family division or was assigned to the family division. She is moving to the protective order docket in courtroom 111. So Judge Ann Keele is going to be handling protective orders.
Special Judge Kasey Baldwin is assigned to the criminal division. She’s going to be handling the preliminary hearing docket replacing Judge Tanya Wilson. Tanya Wilson then is moving to the criminal division, handling the misdemeanor docket as well as the misdemeanor domestic violence docket. Replacing Judge Anthony Miller, who is going to become a floater judge in that area.
Special Judge Travis Horton is going to be assigned to the family division. This is assigned to all the cases on docket B. So, if you have a family law case on docket B, then your judge is going to move from Judge Baldwin to Judge Horton as part of that order of January 11th of 2023.
Additionally, special Judge Loretta Radford, previously assigned to handle the preliminary hearings, is replacing Judge Guten in Courtroom 344. I guess that was effective in November of last year, but those are some of the changes. If you’ve got a new judge, you want to be aware of that. It can be difficult, particularly if you’re in the middle of a hearing. Sometimes if you’re in the middle of a hearing, the prior judge will complete that hearing. That’s the best way to handle it. But in Tulsa County with how busy they are with all these cases, you do see a lot of different things happen.
If you’ve got questions on how this reassignment of judges may affect your case, you may want to talk to an attorney about that to get specific legal advice privately and confidentially. To get that scheduled with an Oklahoma court lawyer at my office you go online to makelaweasy.com.
