The US is losing its 'experienced core' of advocates as the number of jury trials continues to decline significantly, a leading legal academic warned conference delegates.

Over the past 40 years, jury trials in the US federal courts have tumbled from 11.5% of civil cases in 1962 to 1.8% in 2002, with the drop most steep since 1985. There has been a corresponding plunge in federal criminal jury trials - in 2002 there were 30% fewer annually than there were in 1962.


'We are losing the experienced core of lawyers who know how to try a case before a jury,' said Professor Stephen Landsman of Chicago's DePaul University College of Law. 'And we are replacing them with litigators who are nothing more than highly-paid paper pushers.'


Prof Landsman said there were many theories on the causes of the rapid decline in civil and criminal jury trials, but no conclusive answers. The number of jury trials had plummeted despite a growing population and legal profession, and a steadily rising US gross domestic product.


He suggested that one of the main causes could be the increasing use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), in particular mediation. He cited the fact that recent legislation enforced the use of various forms of ADR on consumers to settle disputes.


At the same time, the use of arbitration, the form of ADR that most closely resembles traditional courtroom trials, had also dropped significantly, he said.


Professor Landsman warned delegates that in addition to a deskilling of advocates, the bench was also suffering from the lack of jury trial experience. In 1963, on average a district judge sat for 39 days a year in a jury trial; in 2002 that average figure had tumbled to just slightly more than 13 days.