Because of the court budget crisis which has pushed the courts to cut back important services to attorneys and the public in general, many courts including Probate Court have adopted procedures to help alleviate court congestion by having qualified attorneys serve as pro tem judges and discovery facilitators without pay or “pro-tem”. These are good programs. Our firm participates in these programs. It is hoped that attorneys will not attempt to “game” the system and abuse these services in an attempt to delay a case from moving forward in the system. An example of this would be to object to discovery such as a subpoena knowing that the issues would not be handled by the judge but referred to a pro-bono attorney to handle initially before it gets to a judge if needed and simply cause delay.
