6. Effects of the CJRA Pilot Program as a Package
What was the effect of requiring pilot districts to adopt the
package of broadly defined case management principles?
We conclude that the CJRA pilot program, as the package was
implemented, had little effect on time to disposition, costs,
or attorneys' satisfaction or views of fairness.
We based this assessment on statistical analysis of cases in
pilot and comparison districts, on the results of judicial
time studies, and on our survey of judges about how they
managed cases before and after CJRA.
In 1991, before the pilot program was implemented, we
detected no significant difference between pilot and
comparison district cases in time to disposition, lawyer work
hours, satisfaction, or views of fairness.
In 1992-93, after the pilot program was implemented but
before eight of the comparison districts had implemented
their CJRA plans, we still found no significant difference
between pilot and comparison district cases in time to
disposition, lawyer work hours, satisfaction, or views of
fairness.
Figures 3 and 4 illustrate these findings.
Figure 3--Pilot Program Had No Significant Effects: Time and
Cost
Figure 4--Pilot Program Had No Significant Effects:
Satisfaction and Views of Fairness
Figure 3 shows median months to disposition and median lawyer
work hours. In neither case was there a statistically
significant difference between the pilot and comparison
districts. Figure 4 shows a similar pattern of results for
participants' satisfaction and views of fairness.
We believe there are at least four reasons why we did not see
a significant difference between pilot and comparison
districts after the pilot program was implemented.
- Some pilot districts' plans, as implemented, did not
result in any major change in case management.
- Some pilot districts' plans that resulted in major change
in management at the case level did not apply that change to
a large percentage of cases within the district.
- Some changes that were more widely implemented (such as
early mandatory disclosure of information) did not
significantly affect time, cost, satisfaction, or views of
fairness.
- Some case management practices identified as significant
predictors of effects are implemented not at the district
level, but at the case level, and there is much variation in
case management among judges in both the pilot and comparison
districts.
One concern raised about implementing new case management
policies is that benefits such as faster time to disposition
may come at the cost of increased time spent by judicial
officers. To determine if the judicial case management
principles and techniques of the Civil Justice Reform Act
increased the amount of judicial time spent on civil cases,
we conducted a "judicial time study" of time spent on the
cases in our samples of 1992-93 civil filings and compared
the results with data from the judicial time study conducted
by the Federal Judicial Center in the late 1980s.
We found almost no difference in the time spent by judicial
officers per civil case in 1992-93 when compared to 1989.
The difference in the median time reported per civil case was
only one minute; the difference in the mean was six minutes.
In the 1992-93 sample of cases, we surveyed the judge after
case closure and received over 3,000 responses. One question
concerned the difference in case management before and after
CJRA: "Was there a difference in how you and any other
judicial officer managed this case, compared to how you would
have managed it if it had been disposed of prior to
January 1, 1992?"
The vast majority of the judges (85 percent in pilot
districts, 92 percent in comparison districts) answered "no
difference."
Of the 15 percent of the pilot judges who did report a
difference, about half said the new case management policies
and procedures were better than those before CJRA and about
half said they were about the same. None said the new
policies were worse than before CJRA.
Although the pilot program has had no significant effects on
time, cost, satisfaction, or views of fairness, there is some
evidence that another part of the CJRA may have affected the
number of cases pending more than three years in both pilot
and comparison districts. The CJRA requires that "The
Director of the Administrative Office of the United States
Courts shall prepare a semiannual report, available to the
public, that discloses for each judicial officer . . . the
number and names of cases that have not been terminated
within three years after filing." Since public reports on
each judge were required, the total number of all civil cases
pending has increased, but the number of cases pending more
than three years has dropped by about 25 percent from its
pre-CJRA level. Nationwide, about 6 percent of all
terminations (excluding asbestos cases) are more than three
years old. In the pilot and comparison districts, the
percentage of terminated cases more than three years old has
drifted downward since the passage of the CJRA from 6.8
percent in 1990 to 5.2 percent in 1995 (see Figure 5).
Figure 5--Public Reports on Each Judge May Have Decreased
Number of Cases Pending More Than Three Years
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