Rockpoint Legal Funding has officially published the results from its 2025 Lawsuit-Duration Index, which happens to be a first-of-its-kind analysis that ranks U.S. states by the average time it takes a routine civil lawsuit to reach resolution.
Going by the available details, this particular report takes into account thousands of line-items including trial-court dashboards, annual judiciary reports, and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) case-flow datasets, thus expanding the understanding on calendar realities behind America’s crowded dockets.
Talk about states where cases take the longest, we begin from New York, which takes about 30 months due to dense commercial caseloads, and heavy discovery. In case this wasn’t bad enough, there is a “deferred note-of-issue” system that gives parties up to a year to certify readiness, stretching the calendar even further. The stated delay comes despite New York’s Differentiated Case Management (DCM) rule setting a target of 15 months from filing to judgment,
Next up, there is California, suffering from 24 months of delay. The factors behind relate to large jury pools, complex consumer statutes, and pandemic-era continuances that have not fully cleared. Markedly enough, even though unlimited -jurisdiction civil matters must, by statewide standard, wrap up within two years, fiscal-year dashboards show that fewer than 80 percent of cases hit the 24-month mark, with the remainder spilling into a third year.
Then, there is Florida, where the report discovered average delay of 20 months, as circuit-court dashboards reveal that barely half of ordinary negligence and contract suits close inside 18 months. Surely, the Supreme Court did adopt aggressive case-management rules in 2023, but having said so, trial-level clearance rates are still catching up, and hurricane-related insurance litigation continues to clog calendars.
Another one joining the list would be Illinois, a state which has 18 months delay on an average. For better understanding, Cook County alone processes more than 250 000 civil filings a year.
Expanding upon the state’s reality in this regard, while medical-malpractice caps were struck down a decade ago, lengthy expert-witness phases keep many cases open well past the 1½-year horizon set by the state’s Time-Standards order.
To round off the top 5, we have Texas. In essence, Texas struggles against an average of 14 months in regards civil court cases, and the same is made evident by the way a statewide “Age of Cases Disposed” audit for fiscal year 2023 shows that 58 percent of district-court civil cases are resolved inside a year.
A humble faction of 12 percent cases were found to finish within 18 months, but the rest would go onto last for much longer, reaching upon a weighted average of 430 days. Throughout the state, urban districts with multicounty venues (Harris, Dallas, Bexar) emerged as ones posting the slowest numbers.
Turning our attention towards the repercussions of these delays, the first one would be direct expense. You see, U.S. tort system cost $443 billion in 2022, making up around 2.1 percent of the total GDP, according to the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform.
Next up, there is consequential business impact, considering protracted litigation discourages expansion in plaintiff-friendly states and inflates liability-insurance premiums, with costs ultimately passed to consumers.
Personal hardships were also found to be a challenge. We get to say so because plaintiffs waiting years for compensation often face medical bills, lost wages, or repair costs they cannot defer.
“Justice delayed shouldn’t be justice denied,” said Maz Ghorban, President of Rockpoint Legal Funding. “Our non-recourse advances give injured people the breathing room to see their cases through rather than settling early for pennies on the dollar.”
