Why Does it Take So Long for My Case to get to Trial?

Why Does it Take So Long for My Case to get to Trial?

Kevin R. Harper & Jonathan A. Dessaules

Dessaules Harper PLC

www.dessaulesharper.com

Clients frequently wonder why their case seems to be taking so long to get to Court – this is understandable considering the perception generated by popular television shows that trial begins about 45 minutes after the client first visits her attorney. Unfortunately, in the real world the legal system is fraught with delays, many of which are not in the control of the lawyers involved. Some of the issues that keep your case from getting to court quickly are discussed below:

Start-up

First, at the outset of a new case lawyers need to spend some time familiarizing themselves with the parties, facts and legal issues before preparing a complaint or answer on the client’s behalf. After the complaint is filed, defendants must be located and served, after which they are afforded several weeks to file an answer.

Discovery

Next, the discovery phase of litigation is time consuming, especially in Arizona. Following an answer, both parties have 40 days to prepare and serve initial disclosure statements, after which the real discovery delays begin. Schedules of parties, witnesses, lawyers and courts all play a role in the inevitable delays associated with the discovery process. There are also legal intervals for parties to respond to discovery and take depositions. Motions involving discovery, evidentiary and legal issues also must be set according to the court's busy schedule thereby adding to the delays of litigation.

Courts

Additionally, courts enjoy an unconditional right to manage the cases that come before them. To be efficient, and recognizing that many cases settle at the last minute, courts frequently set several different trials on the same date. Thus, five to ten cases on a court’s docket may have the same trial date. If more than one case remains as the trial date approaches, one case is tried at that time and the remaining cases are reset to a new date. Because most courts set trial dates many months ahead of time, the new trial date may be several months in the future. It is not unusual for a trial to be reset more than once before finally the case finally comes before the court.

Many courts, including the federal courts in Arizona, also handle civil and criminal cases. Because the United States Constitution requires that criminal defendants be given a speedy trial, criminal cases usually take precedence and will require that a civil case be rescheduled if the civil trial date conflicts with a criminal trial date.

People

Understandably, more complicated cases take longer to prepare for trial. The number of parties and issues involved also affect the length of litigation. Virtually all lawyers handle many cases at the same time and thus the schedules of the various lawyers involved play a role in the time it takes for a case to get to trial. When expert witnesses are necessary, this time is extended even further. Experts are usually busy with their own professional lives and must carefully budget and schedule their time wisely. Thus, even when the parties and their lawyers are anxious to move the case, experts can cause additional delays.

The availability of witnesses for trial also may affect the delays associated with bringing a case to trial. If a critical witness is out of town, sick or otherwise deemed legally unavailable, the case cannot proceed and must be delayed until that witness can appear or their testimony can be perpetuated.

Given all of the above reasons, clients should not automatically assume that their lawyer is the cause of the delay in getting the matter to trial.  In fact, most lawyers would love it if their cases proceeded more swiftly through the system.  Although efforts can be made to expedite your case, clients should understand that lawyers usually have very little control over how long it takes to get your case to trial.