The National Arbitration Forum Blog

$10,000,000?

One lawyer speculates on the cost impact of courtroom inefficiencies in his recent post on New York Personal Injury Blog. Eric Turkewitz tells a story of how one courtroom in Brooklyn is beset with inefficiencies that waste over $10 million in legal time. He claims that the court mandates legal counsel to arrive all at one time, resolve issues, and wait in line, sometimes several hours, for a court order to be issued.

He estimates 200 hours of wasted time a day, or 50,000 hours per year, and at $200 per hour, what he designates an average hourly attorney's fee, the inefficiently organized courtroom is wasting $10 million in legal fees that are being paid by the parties. These parties are often consumers, employees, or other ordinary Americans who cannot afford to pay an attorney for time spent waiting.

Turkewitz makes a few suggestions. One suggestion we have is to encourage more efficient dispute resolution processes, like private arbitration. Arbitration avoids these time-wasting scenarios. In arbitration, parties have the option to submit their claims in writing or by phone so that they do not have to miss work or pay an attorney hundreds of dollars to attend on their behalf.