Data proves.

One final element to consider before adding federal judgeships involves the practical needs of the courts themselves. Politics aside, the arguments most assiduously advanced in support of adding seats to the bench focus on difficulties in the timely processing of cases, backed by data indicating that the federal courts have witnessed a significant increase in caseloads. But a closer examination of these data reveals serious reason to doubt the need to add a significant number of judgeships to manage existing caseloads. At the very least, it supports taking a modest approach to the issue rather than rushing to expand the judiciary.

Turning first to the appellate level, advocates of creating additional judgeships have repeatedly asserted that the U.S. courts of appeals are facing a crisis due to the rising number of cases. Yet while the appellate caseload did increase from the 1970s through the 1990s, it leveled off afterward and then began to decline. The number of cases filed in the federal courts of appeals in 2020 was almost 10% below the number filed in 2000.

Not only are case numbers falling, but the time taken to reach decisions is, too. Though termination times rose precipitously in the 1970s, they leveled off during the following two decades and, after an uptick in the early 2000s, have shown signs of trending downward again. Since 2010, the median time for deciding cases in the federal courts of appeals has been lower each year in the past decade (from 2011 to 2020) than it was in the decade's first year. The difference is even more dramatic when compared with termination times from three decades earlier: In 1990, the median time it took the federal courts of appeals to close a case was over 15 months — roughly 69% higher than it was in 2020 and more than double what it was in 2016.