Courts are insanely overburdened now --- backlogs have always been a problem and judges are still dealing with added caseloads from COVID

An already overburdened and backlogged federal court system got worse during the coronavirus pandemic, prompting some legal experts and lawmakers to call for an expansion of the judicial bench. And unlike the deeply divisive idea of packing the with more justices, there’s some bipartisan agreement that lower-court federal judges are overworked and need help presiding over their growing caseload. The Washington Examiner spoke with several attorneys who said the pandemic had a significant impact on delaying cases, compounding the large uptick in pending civil cases. “Backlogs have always been an issue in the civil court system, but they became especially pronounced following COVID,” said Evan Walker, owner of a legal firm in La Jolla, California. In 2020, there were 397,492 pending civil cases filed in federal court. By 2021, the figure spiked to 590,288 pending civil cases, marking a nearly 49% change in one year, according to official U.S. federal judicial caseload statistics. During this period, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the workload of almost all components of the federal judiciary, resulting in the shuttering of some federal courthouses and the reliance on electronic methods to conduct proceedings. The adaptations were not seamless and had the effect of delaying justice. “Not only court employees, but also attorneys and others making use of the courts had to acquire new skills and equipment to handle judicial work remotely,” according to a 2021 U.S. federal court report on judicial caseloads. “Many persons who otherwise would have become involved in litigation or other proceedings during the pandemic likely were unable or unwilling to do so.”