Judicial Procedural Involvement (JPI): A Metric for Judges’ Role in Litigation, Settlement and Access to Justice
47(3) Journal of Law and Society 468-498 (2020)
31 Pages Posted: 28 Feb 2018 Last revised: 17 Feb 2023
Date Written: February 28, 2018
Abstract
We examine judges’ role in civil litigation by studying empirically the relationship between judicial procedural involvement (JPI) and lawsuits’ mode of disposition (MoD). Furthermore, we propose JPI as a metric for the allocation of judicial attention to litigants. Applying the framework to Israeli trial court data, we find that 60 per cent of cases included JPI (through hearings and rulings on motions) whereas 40 per cent involved only the court’s institutional function. By juxtaposing JPI and MoD data, we shed light on the scope of judicial involvement in settlements, the ratio between judges’ normative public-life function and their problem-solving function, and other pertinent questions. Since nowadays lawsuits are rarely adjudicated, trial rates are low, and litigants in person (pro se litigants) are common, we argue that access to justice should also be construed in terms of access to judicial attention throughout the proceeding, which is readily measurable through JPI.
See PDF for an extended abstract.
Keywords: court, litigation, judges, settlement, access to justice, procedural justice, judicial attention, vanishing trial
JEL Classification: K40, K41
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation