Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article provides perceptions of some of the underlying causes of the “litigation explosion” that courts in the United States currently face. Americans are turning to courts for the solution to problems that formerly were provided by other institutions or resolved informally. Litigation has also been encouraged by court decisions in new areas of the law, oftentimes remedying long-suffered injustices. Taken up as well are various remedies to ease the overload on courts and to broaden the access to justice for all citizens. Measures to keep unmeritorious cases out of court, as well as efforts to broaden the range of dispute resolution forums, are discussed. Some disputes now in the courts do not need the full range of court services and in fact may be more effectively resolved elsewhere.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

1. Edmund Burke , Selected Works, ed. W. J. Bate (New York: The Modern Library, 1960), p. 127.

2. Alexis de Tocqueville , Democracy in America, vol. I, ed. Phillips Bradley (New York: Vintage Press, 1955), p. 290.

3. B. H. Hill , “Notes on the Situation” (Augusta, GA: 1867).

4. Jethro K. Lieberman , The Litigious Society (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 187.

5. Model Code of Professional Responsibility and Code of Judicial Conduct, American Bar Association, Aug. 1980 DR 7-103 (A), p. 37.

6. Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 88 (1934).

7. Earl Johnson, Jr. , Courts and the Community (monograph prepared for Conference on State Courts: A Blueprint for the Future), Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State Courts, 1978, pp. 16-17.

8. Frank E.A. Sander , “Varieties of Dispute Processing,” in The Pound Conference: Perspectives on Justice in the Future, eds. A. Leo Levin and Russell R. Wheeler (St. Paul, MN: West, 1979), p. 65.

9. Sander, p. 84.