Rule 8.6.Special Settings

Rule 8.6 is short, but the message is direct: courts do not favor special settings. The rule does not itself define the term, but as generally understood in Georgia practice, a "special setting" is a request to pull a case out of the ordinary rotation and lock in a specific trial date ahead of where it would otherwise fall on the ready list. Whatever the precise request looks like in a given court, this one-sentence rule tells judges — and the lawyers asking them — that this kind of preferential scheduling runs against the grain of how the calendar is supposed to work.

Read alongside the rest of Rule 8, the point fits a broader pattern. The ready list and trial calendar exist to move cases in a predictable order, generally by filing date, with the calendar clerk doing the sequencing. Departing from that order to favor one case is disfavored, so the rule puts a thumb on the scale against granting such a request. It does not forbid special settings outright, but it puts the burden on the party asking for one to justify departing from the normal process.