U.S. Admin Office Names ‘Most Productive’ Fed Court  

An interesting report out of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the “front office of the federal judiciary,” has named which national trial courts cut through their caseload the most efficiently, naming the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida as top dog. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog notes that “the Miami-based court was No. 1 in trial hours, No. 2 in hours on the bench, No. 15 in civil trials and No. 5 in criminal trials.”

The report said that the average judge, nationally, spent 364 hours on the bench and 182.7 hours in trial, and conducted four civil trials and 3.5 criminal trials in 2014. Also of interest,  California’s Eastern District was second most productive, but the judges there have been screaming for more resources and waits have reached into years.

The WSJ report included this from the Eastern District: “You are working as hard as you possibly can, and no one seems to recognize the stress it puts us under,” said Chief Judge Morrison C. England Jr. “I may set it for trial in 2016, or 2017, or 2018, but it’s going to get bumped. That’s what happens. It’s frustrating and it’s demoralizing. I can’t get cases out fast enough.” Rationing justice, indeed. Read the Law Blog here.