Did a little trial prep this morning for my trial scheduled Thursday in Marshalltown. The pretrial order states that we are fourth up. I have been told I need to call the county attorney's office Monday and possible later in the week also to determine if any of the three ahead of us will go to trial or they have settled. This does not seem to be a very efficient manner of running a trial docket. Of course, the judge is not inconvenienced, but if you have witnesses, it can be quite costly and very annoying to witnesses who plan on attending then are told it will be some other date. It is the maxim of minimizing the inconvenience to the court while maximizing the inconvenience of the litigants.