On both the civil and criminal sides of the street, there is a lot more pressure to resolve cases short of trial. The system just does not have the resources to handle the quantity of trials that it used to handle. One of the beneficial effects of fewer trials is that cases that need to be tried are getting tried much more quickly than 5-10-20 years ago. For example, 15 years ago in Houston it was common to wait 1-2 years for a misdemeanor criminal trial and 3-5 years was not uncommon for a civil trial. Today, most misdemeanor trials occur in 3-6 months and waiting a year is rare. Most civil trials occur in 6-18 months and a three year old case is rare.
Processing cases through the system more quickly is generally beneficial: it saves everyone time and money and gets some kind of result and closure much sooner. Litigation should be an event, not a life project.
Troy
Those who shoot from the hip usually end up just shooting themselves.
Plan the grub and grub the plan.
Where is the party tonight? Who is bringng the drinks?
