In a press release from the California Courts, it is reported that Court Filings are down. This is part of a continued decline over the past decade as stated, but doesn’t automatically mean less workload for the courts. The study cites that it is more of the lower workload cases being filed in courts such as small value civil cases and small claims cases. The majority of other cases being filed are still very time intensive for Judges and courtrooms and staff which still leaves a need for more Judges to handle the overall case load.
The article reports that over the last 10 years there has been a 26% decline in filings and when they recently compared to national averages they saw a similar trend. Despite the decline the total number of cases filed over the 10 years period were over 6.8 million. With the average filing fee of $250- the current standard petition fee of $435 it still amounts to a large revenue source for the State.
