Abstract

On July 1, 2015, the Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County (“Superior Court”) implemented a specialized commercial court (“Commercial Court”) as a pilot project. The goal of the Commercial Court was to meet the unique needs of business cases by assigning them to judges with substantial commercial and civil case management experience. Specialized rules governing the assignment and management of Commercial Court cases were developed by the Superior Court and implemented as Experimental Rule 8.1 of the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure. Three judges were initially assigned to the Commercial Court. The Commercial Court was authorized to conduct a three-year pilot project.

To assist in assessing the performance of the Commercial Court, the Superior Court contracted with the National Center for State Courts (“NCSC”) to advise on the identification of appropriate performance measures and to assist in the analyses of those measures. The NCSC provided a final report focusing on those cases as well as offering conclusions and recommendations for Superior Court leadership on managing Commercial Court caseloads and judicial assignments. Like the Review Committee report, this report incorporates findings from the previous progress reports, including insights from the attorney survey responses and the attorney/litigant focus group comments.

This abstract has been taken from the author's introduction.

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

12-2018

Publication Information

National Center for State Courts (2018)

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