Procedural events, judge characteristics, and the timing of settlement

Abstract

We draw on a unique, detailed dataset of civil cases adjudicated at a major Belgian court and use the competing risks framework to examine how the timing of settlement depends, first, on the completion of key procedural events and, second, on the characteristics of the adjudicating judge. Congruent with recent research that emphasizes the importance of information flows, we find that the time to settlement is negatively associated with the completion of those procedural events that most effectively facilitate the revelation of new factual information. Consistent with both rational-choice and behavioral theories of litigation, other procedural events are unassociated or even positively associated with the time to settlement. Finally, exploiting the de facto random nature of within-chamber assignment of cases to the serving judges, we find robustly statistically significant evidence of a judge gender effect.