If the growth in the economy is accompanied as already indicated, by an increase in the demand for the resolution of disputes and the growth in recorded crime and associated demand for criminal proceedings, then expenditure on judicial services, in common with other forms of government expenditure embodying personal services, must have a tendency to rise at a faster rate of growth than national expenditure. In practical terms, this means that the problem of overcrowded courts is not going away. Although demand for judicial services may consistently outstrip legal productivity, society will not devote an ever larger share of the economy to the law. In the end, some disputes will not make it to the courthouse. Any effort to make the legal system less wasteful can thus reap considerable rewards both economically and as a matter of justice.
Appellate courts are a particularly critical bottleneck.
The hierarchical structure of appellate courts limits their physical capacity to resolve disputes. The apex, of each jurisdiction's system, this Court and the highest court of each state, has a fixed capacity to decide cases. The most obvious reform, increasing the number of judges on these high courts, does not easily or even necessarily increase the output of this court. While an increase in judges would decrease the per judge load of opinion writing, it would not decrease the time and effort necessary to reach a collective decision by this body. In fact, increasing the numbers would probably make such collective decisions more difficult and time consuming.