Vol. 36, Number 8—August 2004

Case Weights Get Update

The yardstick by which judicial work in the district courts is measured has been updated, and although there are no radical changes, some district courts will see shifts in their weighted caseload per judgeship that could affect recommendations for new judgeships.

Since 1993, the Judiciary has used a set of case weights developed in the early 1990's to estimate the workload of the district courts. These case weights have been revised.

Case weights are a relative measure of the judicial work required by cases of different types. For example, a patent or death penalty case may consume a lot of judge time and have a large weight; by contrast, a student loan case might have a small weight. A case type with a weight near 2.00 is estimated to require twice as much district judge work as the average case.

While the new case weights do not differ substantially from the old weights for most cases, some differences are notable and, depending on a court's case mix, can affect the weighted caseloads per judgeship for some courts. For example, case weights for complex civil litigation such as patent, civil rights, antitrust, and environmental cases are significantly higher. So courts whose dockets are composed primarily of civil cases may see higher weighted caseloads per judgeship. The weights for many types of criminal cases are substantially lower, largely because of the impact of the sentencing guidelines, and the expanding role of magistrate judges in handling preliminary criminal matters. As a result, courts with a higher proportion of criminal filings will see lower weighted caseloads per judgeship.

The new weighted filings per judgeship, based on the new case weights, have already been used as the basis for formulating preliminary district judgeship recommendations for the 2005 Biennial Judgeship Survey. Every two years, the Judicial Conference, through its Judicial Resources Committee, surveys the appellate and district courts to evaluate judgeship needs. This systematic review process involves not only the Conference, but each court and each circuit judicial council and takes into account detailed caseload data and other relevant factors.

"The Committee wanted to ensure that its preliminary judgeship recommendations were based on the most up-to-date representation of the case processing requirements of each case type," explained Judge Dennis G. Jacobs (2nd Cir.), chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Resources.

The update of the case weights began last year, when the Committee and its Subcommittee on Judicial Statistics asked the Federal Judicial Center to conduct a study to revise the weights.

"Because of changes in case law and case management procedures, we were concerned that the old weights no longer accurately reflected the case processing demands of many types of cases," said Subcommittee Chair Judge Wiley Y. Daniel (D. Colo.). "We wanted to update the weights so they more accurately reflect the current judicial workload imposed by cases."

In a departure from the old measurement system that relied on judges keeping detailed time records, the FJC developed the new case weights using an event-based method. This approach combines docketing information from the district courts, objective information from statistical reports, and consensus time estimates from district judges where objective information was unavailable. More than 100 district judges, representing nearly every district court in the nation, participated in the project. Docketing data from more than 297,000 civil cases and criminal defendants also was incorporated.

The event-based method has several advantages: the FJC was able to complete its study in less time than the previous study of case weights, future updating will be easier, and, as new types of civil and criminal filings develop, the method allows greater flexibility in developing case weights for them.

The new case weights, which take effect immediately, take into account how often several events occur in cases, as well as the average time it takes a district judge to handle them. These events include trials and evidentiary hearings; non-evidentiary hearings and conferences; research, reading, and writing on orders responding to particular motions; and preparation for proceedings. In addition, civil case weights account for the impact of multiple parties and class action allegation. New criminal case weights account for the additional time and activity in death penalty cases and proceedings in which interpreters are used, and the time savings when defendants are tried together. Case weights represent average national case processing practices rather than the practices of any individual court.

Sample Changes in Case Weights