Lawyer Training Amid Vanishing Jury Trial
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Lawyers might be able to do something to recover the “vanishing civil jury trial” in federal courts, according to three U.S. district court judges.
Judges Barbara Lynn, Nancy Atlas and Xavier Rodriguez, speaking on June 18 at the State Bar of Texas annual meeting in San Antonio, also discussed initiatives in their courtrooms to help to train young trial lawyers who have fewer trials to handle.
Rodriguez, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, said that in the “heyday of modern litigation” in the 1960s and 1970s, about 15 percent of cases went to jury trials. Today, the number has plummeted to 1.2 or 1.9 percent, he said. The greatest decline is seen in personal injury cases, he said, noting that tort reform caused that trend.
Lawyers might be able to bring back some trials by changing the way they handle cases.
Rodriguez said that 60 to 70 percent of the expense of a case comes from discovery, and the rest comes from pretrial motion practice. Lawyers file motions to dismiss for want of jurisdiction; motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim; motions for summary judgment; and more, explained Rodriguez.
Read more: www.texaslawyer.com/id=1202730152280/Lawyer-Training-Amid-Vanishing-Jury-Trial#ixzz3dtJYz7KV
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