Litigation costs arise from legitimate lawsuits, rarely frivolous ones

The Federal Judicial Center surveyed 278 Federal district court judges, according to a piece in Bus. Insurance, April 11, 2005. The study is cited by critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s ranking of the best and worst state legal systems in America, (See my post of May 17, 2006 on the judicial hellholes.). “Seventy percent of the [judges] called groundless litigation either a ‘small problem’ or a ‘very small problem’ and 15% said it was no problem at all.”

If the Judicial Center’s survey passes methodological tests and the quote accurately conveys the findings, then law departments cannot cloak budget excesses in the whole cloth of litigation-crazed plaintiff’s lawyers.