Cases settle mainly when judges threaten an imminent trial date.
Evidence
At that time Judge Walter Jay Skinner had a backlog of more than five hundred cases. Each month, the lottery piled twenty to thirty new cases on top of that backlog. The vast majority of these cases would settle before trial, but they usually settled only after Judge Skinner had met with the lawyers in a pretrial conference and threatened an early trial date. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 454
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in pre-state dispute resolution and private arbitration: judicial backlog as the coercive engine forcing settlement rather than adjudication on the merits. — connects to: Case management duties drive judges to promote settlements over trials. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 569; Setting a firm trial date pushes both sides toward settlement — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1040; Setting a firm trial date pushes litigants toward settlement and forces evidentiary preparation — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2157 (+2 more)
- SEED: Angle: ‘The docket as thumb on the scale’ — how the threat of trial, not the merits, resolves the overwhelming majority of American civil litigation.
Broader Connections
- Setting a firm trial date pushes litigants toward settlement and forces evidentiary preparation
#corroborates(0.95) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2157 - Civil cases are typically settled in the shadow of potential trial
#corroborates(0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2161 - Most civil cases are settled rather than adjudicated through trial
#expands(0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1045