Recent judicial disclosures show huge declines in all areas.

Citing the "serious constraints" of the second year of the pandemic, the federal judiciary this week released new data showing huge drops last year in civil filings across the court systems and most areas of the law.

Meanwhile, the number of federal cases still pending at the close of the last fiscal year made a double-digit jump, while new criminal case filings edged up compared to 2020.

The Federal Caseload

By the numbers

11%

Filings with the U.S as defendant

31%

New RICO-related cases

41%

Diversity of citizenship cases

6%

Drug offense defendants

28%

Business bankruptcy petitions

Source: 2021 Annual Report of the Director, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts

In her introduction to the report, Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf, who heads the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, cited a slew of unique challenges: the largest criminal prosecution in U.S. history stemming from the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol; emergency requests for new judgeships following a major state-to-federal jurisdiction shift; and new security measures necessitated by the SolarWinds cyberattack, among others.

But the central theme of the report was a major slump in activity across nearly every part of the federal judiciary, from pretrial services to bankruptcies to multi-district litigations. Across all 94 district courts, new civil case filings dropped 126,014 — a staggering 27 percent — to 344,567. That change brought the per-judge caseload to 509, down from 695 in 2020.

In the 12 regional courts of appeals, new filings fell 8 percent to 44,546, with drops occurring in civil matters, original proceedings and administrative agency cases. Appeals by pro se litigants, which represent almost half of new filings, were down 9 percent.

Reflecting COVID-related slowdowns, the total number of pending civil cases and criminal defendants was up 12 percent at the end of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. While new criminal cases increased nearly 1 percent, 84 percent of all federal judicial districts had smaller caseloads involving individuals with limited financial resources.