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Lawyers, judges look to save the disappearing trial
When Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the United States in 1831 to study American social and political institutions, he was fascinated by a uniquely American practice of using ordinary people to administer justice. The curious tactic, as he chronicled in his famous Democracy in America, created a judiciary strongly moored to the customs and common sense of its citizens. ... Had de Tocqueville embarked on his famous journey 175 years later, he would have encountered a legal landscape more expansive and intricate in every way -- populated by more lawyers, more judges, more litigation and higher stakes -- expansive, that is, in every way but one. ... In 1962, trials resolved 11.5 percent of federal civil cases, according to a 2004 ABA-funded study by Marc Galanter, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. By 2004, that percentage had dropped to 1.6 percent, according to the most recent statistics available from the Administrative Office for the U.S. Courts. "This is part of more than a 100-year-long process," said Stephan A. Landsman, a professor at DePaul University College of Law, who has also conducted extensive research on the topic. "Even over the course of the 19th century, you can see the precentage of cases going to trial declining. But now, we're talking about a disappearance thing."
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