This pocket guide provides a basic overview of the issues judges can expect to face when assigned a capital habeas case. It begins with appointment of counsel, budgeting concerns, and stays of execution. It then summarizes the primary procedural considerations that affect habeas cases - successive petitions, petition timeliness, state remedies exhaustion, procedural default, and amending a petition.

This manual provides trial judges a handbook on managing civil cases. It sets out a wide array of case-management techniques, beginning with early case screening and concluding with steps for streamlining trials and final disposition. It also discusses a number of special topics, including pro se and high visibility cases, the role of staff, and automated programs that support case management.

Among the reasons that courts issue protective orders in both civil and criminal cases is to keep discovery confidential on a showing of good cause. Experience has proved confidentiality protective orders to grease the wheels of discovery in many cases. The protective orders discussed in this pocket guide are different from sealing orders that protect the courts' own records and protective orders that protect information from discovery.

A joint project by the National Center for State Courts, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, and the Federal Judicial Center, this pocket guide provides information on the coordination and management of related cases that are pending simultaneously in both state and federal courts.