Order

NANCY J. KOPPE, Magistrate Judge.

Pending before the Court is a letter, which the Court is attaching to this order. As a threshold matter, except with respect to limited circumstances not pertinent here, "an attorney . . . must not send case-related correspondence, such as letters, emails, or facsimiles, to the court. All communications with the court must be styled as a motion, stipulation, or notice, and must be filed in the court's docket." Local Rule IA 7-1(b). The parties violated this rule by delivering the instant letter to the undersigned.1

Given that the parties have not filed a proper notice or stipulation, the Court would be within its discretion to strike the letter. See Local Rule IA 7-1(b). Nonetheless, the Court will address the substance thereof as a one-time courtesy to the parties. The letter indicates that the parties were not able to schedule private mediation to be conducted by March 22, 2019, and have instead scheduled it for April 4, 2019. The parties ask the Court to vacate the settlement conference tentatively set for March 28, 2019. That request is hereby GRANTED and the settlement conference is VACATED. The parties shall file a status report regarding the mediation no later than noon on April 5, 2019. Nothing herein impacts the trial date or any pretrial deadlines.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dear Magistrate Koppe:

First, the parties would like to apologize for the inconvenience our prior request caused the Court. There was no acceptable excuse for the late request to vacate the Settlement Conference.

Pursuant to the Order [Docket No. 33], please allow this correspondence to serve as notification that the parties were not able to schedule a private mediation prior to March 22, 2019. However, the parties are able to schedule a mediation in the afternoon of April 4, 2019, which would allow another of Defendant's cases to be mediated in the morning of that day, and allow the Defendant to participate in another Federal Court Settlement Conference in a third one of its cases [Fisher v. Target, 2:17-cv-02099-MMD-VCF] the following date with Magistrate Ferenbach, on April 5, 2019.

While the parties understand that the Court has set aside March 28, 2019, for a Settlement Conference, the parties firmly believe that this matter will be resolved at private mediation, and would request that the private mediation in this case be allow to move forward on April 4, 2019, and the parties ask that the time that it had set aside for a Settlement Conference on March 28, 2019 be vacated.