Upon the filing of the appropriate materials, including a brief containing a statement of the facts, list of legal issues, case law, and certain required documents such as expert reports, either party can schedule a pre-trial conference.

At the pre-trial conference, a Judge will assess whether the matter is ready for trial and may set trial dates. Until recently, if the matter was not considered to be ready for trial because certain procedural steps remained to be completed, the Judge would generally decline to set down trial dates and would take on a pseudo-Case management role, issuing directions to the parties for completion of outstanding tasks so that a trial can eventually be set once all outstanding matters were completed. Recently, practice has changed and Judges have become very willing to schedule trials even where there are clearly additional steps to be taken before the parties are ready for trial.

Furthermore, trial dates are now being scheduled much nearer in the future: 12 to 18 months from the date of the pre-trial conference, rather than 2-3 years. This has been achieved by the court double and even triple booking the same Judge and/or court room to hear multiple trials at the same time on the theory that most matters will settle before trial.

The pre-trial conference Judge will also commonly encourage settlement. Such discussions at a pre-trial conference are without prejudice.