Access to courts and the vanishing trial continued

Since the rights revolution of the 1960s, many of the laws expanding access to courts for civil claims have remained on the books. Today, however, less than two percent of civil cases are decided by trials. What has driven this trend toward the “vanishing trial?” This chapter explores the political and legal efforts to restrict access to courts for civil justice claims since the 1970s and 80s. I demonstrate that actors across government have found success in this pursuit by reshaping procedural and administrative rules in ways that benefit corporate and other defendants over the rights of prospective plaintiffs. While this goal is often attributed solely to the conservative legal movement, I also illustrate the ways in which both opponents and supporters of the rights revolution have been complicit in this project. Finally, I explore the post-2000s manifestations of the anti-litigation agenda with an eye toward answering a crucial lingering question: where have civil trials gone? By taking an interbranch perspective that brings to bear the ongoing tension between legal and other forms of dispute resolution and governance, I expand upon the possibility that disputes have not disappeared but rather have been diverted elsewhere.