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Judge Theresa Lazar Springmann: Jury Instructions and Conference

The Court does not require the submission of general or preliminary jury instructions. The parties are responsible for providing the Court with all substantive instructions regarding the claims and defenses in the case. Where possible, these instructions should come from the Federal Civil Jury Instructions of the Seventh Circuit (Proposed).

All proposed final jury instructions (with authorities) and verdict forms are to be exchanged between the parties and filed with the Court at the time of the Final Pretrial Conference. In addition to filing electronically, parties are requested to submit courtesy copies in Word Perfect or Microsoft Word format to Judge Theresa Lazar Springmann's Chambers email address.

The Court will prepare a proposed set of jury instructions which it will provide to the parties after all the evidence has been submitted. The Court will conduct an informal conference with counsel to review the instructions. The Court will then give the parties an opportunity to make a record of objections in open court.

The final jury instructions will be displayed to the jury by the ELMO system during their reading. The jury will also receive a set of the final instructions to use during deliberations.

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