In any gathering of lawyers, the discussion inevitably turns to what’s happening at the courthouse. Are case filings up? How many cases are actually being tried? Of those, how many were tried to a jury? Is there any way to predict the odds of winning a motion for summary judgment? While these questions stroke lively cocktail conversation, the truth remains that the vast majority of cases are not judicially decided. Since September 2010, the Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) has been gathering and reporting data that may inform these questions. Local luminaries have also prodded us to focus on empirical data. Mediator Tommy Smith started writing about the decline of jury trials in 2007 when the data was much harder to accumulate. His article followed a provocatively titled piece “The Vanishing Trial” in the top empirical legal publication three years before. United States District Judge Xavier Rodriguez has watched and commented on trends and, in 2014, added a well-reasoned article titled “The Decline of Civil Jury Trials.”

 

Conclusion

Both civil and family case filings in Bexar County ticked up in 2015 over 2014. Civil filings increased 5% over the five-year study period, while family filings remained constant. Most civil cases resolved consensually during the litigation process, leaving 1,223 (8.81%) to be disposed of by bench trial, 234 (1.69%) by summary judgment, and 48 (0.35%) by jury verdict. Contested family law cases were almost entirely resolved by bench trial. While the number of civil juries selected continued downward (-29.29%) the number of jury verdicts stabilized (-9.09%) over the five-year period. Summary judgment dispositions declined in civil (-43.04%) cases over the five-year period and most of those (54.70%) were in consumer-commercial-debt cases. Excluding contract cases, which together accounted for 64.10% of summary judgment dispositions, there were 84 dispositions equally spread between injury and other cases. Disposition by summary judgment was also down in family cases (-40.0%), but the number is almost meaningless since there were three summary judgment dispositions in most years of the study.

From this dizzying data, we can see that jury verdict dispositions seem to have stabilized in Bexar County since the “vanishing trial” articles appeared a decade ago, and those bellwether cases no doubt inform how thousands of other cases are voluntarily resolved. These data prove how prophetic Tommy Smith and Judge Xavier Rodriguez were years ago. Thanks to their efforts and OCA’s recent data base, empirical data can inform our water cooler discussions and the market for the vast majority of cases that resolve without contested disposition.

 

Don Philbin was named “Lawyer of the Year” in San Antonio by Best Lawyers® (2014, 2016), was recognized as the 2011 Outstanding Lawyer in Mediation by the San Antonio Business Journal, is one of eight Texas lawyers listed in The International Who’s Who of Commercial Mediation, and is listed in Texas Super Lawyers. He is an elected fellow of the International Academy of Mediators, the American Academy of Civil Trial Mediators, and the Texas Academy of Distinguished Neutrals.

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