Does electronic case-processing enhance court efficacy? New quantitative evidence

Abstract

We empirically investigate the effect of electronic case-processing on court efficacy. We draw on monthly court-level panel data on adjudication and enforcement in Brazilian labor justice, a major pillar of the Brazilian justice system where electronic case-processing is a recent phenomenon and court inefficacy has been a pervasive concern. Using dynamic panel methods and multiple estimation approaches to address endogeneity, we show, first and foremost, that in both adjudication and enforcement a shift to electronic case-processing unequivocally increases judicial productivity and court clearance rate while reducing case disposition times. In adjudication, electronification exhibits diminishing marginal returns: additional electronification does not yield further efficacy gains once the share of electronically-processed court caseload is between 50% and 75%. We do not find similarly stark evidence of plateauing of the effect of electronification in enforcement, a key court activity domain where attaining fully electronic case-processing would thus be especially advantageous. Overall, our findings suggest that electronic case-processing provides one viable path to unclogging courts and enhancing administration of justice.