What Is A “Managerial” Judge?

In the course of researching a question about judicial discretion, I recently came across an article discussing “managerial” judges.  The author, quoted below, argued that managerial judges are dangerous and something which should be discouraged, if possible.  Is this fair?

The term “managerial” judge was reputedly coined in a 1982 Harvard Law Review article by Judith Resnick, entitled, ironically, Managerial Judges.  She used the term to describe a judge who employs “hands-on supervision of cases from the outset, using various procedural tools to speed the process of dispute resolution and encourage settlement.”   Thornburg, “The Managerial Judge Goes To Trial,” 44 U. Rich. L. Rev. 1261 (2010) (citing Resnick’s article).

This definition sounds neutral and constructive enough.  But trial lawyers who have lived with a case presided over by a managerial-style judge know they can be difficult, unpredictable and downright scary. The key to their danger lies in the phrase “using various procedural tools.”  Consider some examples.  The simplest I can think of was a judge who, seeing that the parties were disinclined to seriously discuss settlement, scheduled a lengthy trial to start on December 26th, the day after Christmas.  Other judges routinely withhold or time issuance of rulings to impose maximum leverage on one or both parties to come to the bargaining table.

When I was a first year lawyer I witnessed a California Superior Court judge order the entire legal staff of a Big Three automobile manufacturer to travel from Michigan to California to attend a settlement conference the next day because the judge felt the car maker was not being appropriately generous in settlement negotiations.  Put yourself in the shoes of the car maker’s lawyer (my boss at the time) telling our client over the courthouse pay phone (this was in the early 90s) to round-up her colleagues, pack a bag and get to the airport!

I’ve seen and heard of other judges doing radical things with discovery or the presentation of evidence, like completely rearranging the order in which the parties presented their respective cases to the jury.  This seems less calculated to pressure settlement negotiations, and more to fit the judge’s personal vision of how the case should progress.

Whatever the purpose, there is no question that, at least in Federal District Court and California civil courts (where I practice) judges possess enormous discretion to dictate, with extreme detail if they desire, how a case progresses from filing to resolution.  The question is whether judges who seize this discretion and micro-manage cases are furthering or hindering justice.

In my next post, I’ll explain why I think the parties to a lawsuit actually benefit from being assigned to a judge with a managerial style.