1932

Abstract

The phenomenon Marc Galanter famously termed the vanishing trial has been widely explored by scholars of law and politics, particularly as the continued decrease of trials in court raises concerns about access to justice and legal recourse in the United States. But a lingering question remains: Where have trials gone? This article argues that we need to diversify the potential range of explanations for the vanishing trial by taking an interbranch perspective that brings to bear the ongoing tension between legal and other forms of dispute resolution and governance. Given that courts are but one venue in which disputes are resolved, this approach expands upon the thesis that disputes have not disappeared but rather have been diverted elsewhere. I argue that reframing the conversation in this way stands to generate a revised set of explanations for this trend that are worthy of future research.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-050420-024038
2022-10-18
2024-04-25
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/lawsocsci/18/1/annurev-lawsocsci-050420-024038.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-050420-024038&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Ashcroft v. Iqbal 556 U.S. 662; 2009.)
  2. Banks T. 2017. Civil trials: A firm illusion?. Fordham Law. Rev. 85:1969–86
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Barnes J, Burke T 2015. How Policy Shapes Politics: Rights, Courts, Litigation, and the Struggle Over Injury Compensation New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  4. Barnes J, Burke T. 2020. Untangling the concept of adversarial legalism. Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 16:473–87
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly 550 U.S. 544; 2007.)
  6. Berrey E, Nelson R, Nielsen LB. 2017. Rights on Trial: How Workplace Discrimination Law Perpetuates Inequality Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  7. Bloom A. 2020. Injury and injustice. Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 16:241–56
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bone R. 1999. The process of making process: court rulemaking, democratic legitimacy, and procedural efficacy. Georgetown Law Rev. 87:887–955
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Burbank S. 1996. Procedure and power. J. Leg. Educ. 46:513–17
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Burbank S. 2004. Vanishing trials and summary judgment in federal civil cases: Drifting towards Bethlehem or Gomorrah?. J. Empir. Leg. Stud. 1:3591–626
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Burbank S, Farhang S. 2014. Litigation reform: an institutional approach. Univ. Pa. Law Rev. 162:95–160
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Burbank S, Farhang S. 2017. Rights and Retrenchment: The Counterrevolution Against Federal Litigation New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
  13. Burke F. 2002. Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights: The Battle Over Litigation in American Society Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press
  14. Burns R. 2013. Advocacy in the era of the vanishing trial. Kans. Law Rev. 61:893–904
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Cent. Popul. Democr 2019. Unchecked Corporate Power: Forced Arbitration, the Enforcement Crisis, and How Workers Are Fighting Back Washington, DC: Cent. Popul. Democr. https://www.populardemocracy.org/Unchecked-Corporate-Power
  16. Chayes A. 1976. The role of the judge in public law litigation. Harvard Law Rev 89:71281–316
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Chemerinsky E. 2010. The Conservative Assault Against the Constitution New York: Simon & Schuster
  18. Chemerinsky E. 2017. Closing the Courthouse Door: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press
  19. Chen MH. 2014. Governing by guidance: civil rights agencies and the emergence of language rights. Harvard Civ. Rights Civ. Lib. Law Rev. 49:291–342
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Clark T. 2010. The Limits of Judicial Independence New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
  21. Colvin AJS. 2018. The growing use of mandatory arbitration Rep., Econ. Policy Inst. Washington, DC: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-growing-use-of-mandatory-arbitration-access-to-the-courts-is-now-barred-for-more-than-60-million-american-workers/
  22. Dodd L. 2015. The rights revolution in the age of Obama and Ferguson: policing, the rule of law, and the quest for accountability. Perspect. Politics 13:3657–79
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Edelman L. 1990. Legal environments and organizational governance: the expansion of due process in the American workplace. Am. J. Sociol. 95:1401–40
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Edelman L. 1992. Legal ambiguity and symbolic structures: organizational mediation of civil rights law. Am. J. Sociol. 97:1531–76
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Eisenberg T, Lanvers C. 2009. What is the settlement rate and why should we care?. J. Empir. Leg. Stud. 6:1111–46
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Engel D. 2016. The Myth of the Litigious Society: Why We Don't Sue Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  27. Engel SM. 2011. American Politicians Confront the Court: Opposition Politics and Changing Responses to Judicial Power New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
  28. Engstrom N. 2018. The diminished trial. Fordham Law Rev 86:2131–47
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Epp C. 1998. The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  30. Epp C. 2009. Making Rights Real: Activists, Bureaucrats, and the Creation of the Legalistic State Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  31. Estlund C. 2018. The black hole of mandatory arbitration. N.C. Law Rev. 96:679–710
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Farhang S. 2010. The Litigation State: Public Regulation and Private Lawsuits in the U.S. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  33. Feeley M, Rubin E 1998. Judicial Policy Making and the Modern State: How the Courts Reformed America's Prisons New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
  34. Friedman L. 2004. The day before trials vanished. J. Empir. Leg. Stud. 1:3698–703
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Frymer P. 2003. Acting when elected officials won't: federal courts and civil rights enforcement in US labor unions. Am. Political Sci. Rev. 97:483–99
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Frymer P. 2008. Black and Blue: African Americans, the Labor Movement, and the Decline of the Democratic Party Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  37. Galanter M. 1974. Why the “haves” come out ahead: speculations on the limits of legal change. Law Soc. Rev. 9:195–160
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Galanter M. 2004. The vanishing trial: an examination of trials and related matters in federal and state courts. J. Empir. Leg. Stud. 1:3459–570
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Galanter M, Cahill M. 1994.. “ Most cases settle”: judicial promotion and regulation of settlements. Stanford Law Rev. 46:1339–91
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Galanter M, Frozena A. 2014. A grin without a cat: the continuing decline and displacement of trials in American courts. Daedalus 143:3115–28
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Gardner P. 2018. Moving litigants to enforce public goods: evidence from employment, housing, and voting discrimination policy. The Rights Revolution Revisited: Institutional Perspectives on the Private Enforcement of Civil Rights in the U.S. L Dodd 70–99 New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Giles M. 2005. Opting out of liability: the near-total demise of the modern class action. Mich. Law Rev. 104:373–430
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Giles M. 2014. Operation arbitration: privatizing medical malpractice claims. Theor. Inq. Law 15:67196
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Gillman H. 2002. How political parties can use the courts to advance their agendas: federal courts in the United States, 1875–1891. Am. Political Sci. Rev. 96:511–24
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Graber M. 2008. The countermajoritarian difficulty: from courts to congress to constitutional order. Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 4:361–84
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Gross J. 2015. Justice Scalia's hat trick and the Supreme Court's flawed understanding of twenty-first century arbitration. Brooklyn Law Rev. 81:1111–48
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Hacker J, Pierson P. 2011. Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richerand Turned Its Back on the Middle Class New York: Simon & Schuster
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Haltom W, McCann M. 2004. Distorting the Law: Tort Reform, Mass Media, and the Social Production of Legal Knowledge Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  49. Hollis-Brusky A. 2015. Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  50. Horton D, Chandrasekher A. 2015. After the revolution: an empirical study of consumer arbitration. Georgetown Law J 104:57–124
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Kagan R. 2019. Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ. Press. , 2nd ed..
  52. Keck T. 2010. The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  53. Kessler A. 2015. Arbitration and Americanization: the paternalism of progressive procedural reform. Yale Law J 124:2973–80
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Kirkland A. 2016. Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury New York: NYU Press
  55. Lahav A. 2017. In Praise of Litigation New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  56. Lahav A, Siegelman P. 2019. The curious incident of the falling win rate. Univ. Calif. Davis Law Rev. 53:1371–427
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Langbein J. 2012. The disappearance of civil trial in the United States. Yale Law J. 122:3522–72
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Marcus R. 2014.. “ Looking backward” to 1938. Univ. Pa. Law Rev. 162:71691–730
    [Google Scholar]
  59. McCann M. 1994. Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  60. Melnick RS. 2018. The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education Washington, DC: Brookings Inst. Press
  61. Mulroy Q. 2018. Approaches to enforcing the rights revolution: private civil rights litigation and the American bureaucracy. The Rights Revolution Revisited: Institutional Perspectives on the Private Enforcement of Civil Rights in the U.S. L Dodd 27–45 New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Noll D. 2017. Regulating arbitration. Univ. Calif. Law Rev. 105:985–1054
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Pollis A. 2017. Busting up the pretrial industry. Fordham Law Rev 85:2097–117
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Ratner M. 2017. Restraining lawyers: from ‘cases’ to ‘tasks.’. Fordham Law Rev 85:2151–73
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Refo P. 2004. The vanishing trial: introduction. J. Empir. Leg. Stud. 1:3v–vii
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Reinert A. 2014. The burdens of pleading. Univ. Pa. Law Rev. 162:71767–92
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Resnik J. 1982. Managerial judges. Harvard Law Rev. 96:374–448
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Resnik J. 1997. Changing practices, changing rules: judicial and congressional rulemaking on civil juries, civil justice, and civil judging. Ala. Law Rev. 49:133–219
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Resnik J. 2004. Migrating, morphing, and vanishing: the empirical and normative puzzles of declining trial rates. J. Empir. Leg. Stud. 1:3783–841
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Resnik J. 2015. Diffusing disputes: the public in the private of arbitration, the private in courts, and the erasure of rights. Yale Law J 124:2804939
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Rosenberg G. 2008. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press. , 2nd ed..
  72. Schlanger M. 2006. What we know, and what we should know, about American trial trends. J. Disput. Resol. 1:35–50
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Siegel A. 2006. The court against courts: hostility to litigation as an organizing theme in the Rehnquist Court's jurisprudence. Tex. Law Rev. 84:1097–202
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Silverstein G. 2009. Law's Allure: How Law Shapes, Constrains, Saves, and Kills Politics New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
  75. Skrentny J. 2002. The Minority Rights Revolution Cambridge, MA: Belknap
  76. Southworth A. 2008. Lawyers of the Right: Professionalizing the Conservative Coalition Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  77. Staszak S. 2015. No Day in Court: Access to Justice and the Politics of Judicial Retrenchment New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  78. Staszak S. 2018. The administrative role of the chief justice: law, politics, and procedure in the Roberts Court era. Laws 7:15
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Staszak S. 2020. Privatizing employment law: the expansion of mandatory arbitration in the workplace. Stud. Am. Political Dev. 34:239–68
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Stipanowich T. 2004. ADR and the ‘vanishing trial:’ the growth and impact of ‘alternative dispute resolution. .’ J. Empir. Leg. Stud. 1:3843–912
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Stone K. 2013. Procedure, substance, and power: collective litigation and arbitration under the labor law. UCLA Law Rev. Discourse 61:136–38
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Subrin S. 1987. How equity conquered common law: the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in historical perspective. Univ. Pa. Law Rev. 135:909–1002
    [Google Scholar]
  83. Subrin S, Main T. 2014. The fourth era of American civil procedure. Univ. Pa. Law Rev. 162:1856–95
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Szalai I. 2013. Outsourcing Justice: The Rise of Modern Arbitration Laws in America Durham, NC: Carolina Acad:.
  85. Szalai I. 2019. The prevalence of consumer arbitration agreements by America's top companies. UC Davis Law Rev. Online 52:233–59
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Teles S. 2008. The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  87. Tushnet M. 2006. The Supreme Court and the national political order: collaboration and confrontation. The Supreme Court and American Political Development R Kahn, K Kersch 117–37 Lawrence: Univ. Kans. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Weinstein J. 1989.. After fifty years of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Are the barriers to justice being raised?. Univ. Pa. Law Rev. 137:1901–23
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Whittington K. 2007. Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency, the Supreme Court, and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  90. Yeazell S. 2004. Getting what we asked for, getting what we paid for, and not liking what we got: the vanishing trial. J. Empir. Leg. Stud. 1:3943–72
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-050420-024038
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error