Greedy Trial Lawyer
Why Are Civil Trials Declining? Not A Difficult Answer
Category: In Your Face
Legal Underground raises the question: why are the numbers of civil trials steadily declining in both state and federal courts? While there may be numerous causes contributing to the decline, there is one mammoth force that is relentlessly seeking to end civil trials and to deny access to the courts. That force is the insurance-business complex. We were once warned by a great Republican president of the military-industrial complex. However, for over 20 years that same Republican Party has been the political arm of the insurance-business complex. The motto, "What is good for insurance companies and for business is good for America" might even replace "In God We Trust" on our currency if this force is not tethered.
Justice and access to a functioning court system require that there be opposition to continued tort reform that, in actuality, is a form of simultaneous immunity and government subsidy of giant corporations.
Posted on Legal Underground:
TRIALS SCARCE, SAY TRIAL LAWYERS . . . . Here are some statistics from yesterday's Wall Street Journal article about vanishing trials--
Since the 1980s, civil trials have been steadily declining;
In 1984, there were 14,300 civil trials in federal courts; last year, there were only 5,500;
Though state-court disputes increased 165% between 1976 and 2003, the number of trials dropped 34%.
The article, available only with a WSJ subscription, says that some large firms are seeking pro bono work to give their associates trial experience. There's no word on how the partners in large firms are getting trained, though the article implies partners lack experience too. One general counsel says, "There are a lot of name-brand firms with big litigation departments, but they never go to trial and are petrified of it." A second general counsel says, "A number of large firms have lost their trial edge."
Sounds a bit harsh to me. On the other hand, I wasn't practicing in the 70s or 80s, so I lack personal knowledge of what life was like back in litigation's glory days. One thing I've heard from people who were there is that lawyers didn't do as much discovery. Civil cases were handled more like criminal cases. Not every document was uncovered. Not every witness was deposed. These days, the increased focus on discovery probably makes settlement more likely, since there is so much more information available to the parties about the likely range of verdicts.
The Wall Street Journal cites two different possible explanations for the decline in civil trials, both of which put the Journal's tort-reform bias on display: a fear of large verdicts by defendants and more frequent dismissals of lawsuits relying on "junk science."
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