What Is Happening to State Trial Court Civil Filings?

A fundamental assumption of court administration since its creation as a
profession has been the inevitability of growth. There will always be more
cases. This will require ever larger courthouses, more judges, more staff, newer
technology, and larger budgets. But what does recent history tell us about civil
filings?

What Is Happening to State Trial Court Civil Filings?: The
Unsolved Riddles reviews the experience of five states over the
last 16-41 years. The findings are confounding and perplexing. Civil filings are
not inexorably rising. There was a surge around the Great Recession, but civil
case filing levels in state trial courts are at or below levels 20 years ago.
Per capita filings have dropped more steeply. Per capita civil case filing
levels vary widely, both within states and across states, and cannot be
predicted from population levels. Legislative changes affecting court
jurisdiction and procedures, such as increasing the limit of the amount in
controversy in small claims court, seldom have the expected effect. Case
management programs have unintended consequences. Efforts to assist
unrepresented litigants have not reversed the decline in small claims filings.
State trial courts need to identify more relevant case type categories, track
filings levels in greater detail, and pay attention to the impact of legal and
procedural changes on filing levels. Finally, courts should realize that filings
are a valuable performance measure of public trust and confidence in the
judiciary.