Businessmen do not litigate. They have better things to do. They mediate. They have businesses to run. They cannot spend months in trial preparation and then a week or more in the trial itself. And then possibly more time on post-trial motions and appeals. Not to speak of attorney fees and court costs.
No. There are sales to make, contracts to sign, loans to secure. Litigation is paralysis.
In 2007 (the earliest full year for which data exist) Tennessee concluded 20,051 trials (419 by jury, and 19,632 by judge trial only). In 2016 Tennessee concluded 15,278 trials (269 by jury and 15,009 by judge trial only). This means that over this space of ten years resolutions by trial fell off by 4773 cases, or some twenty-four percent.
The lion’s share of the decline, in my opinion, is due to increased mediation in these ten years.
Bill Swann graduated from Harvard College in 1964, was a Fulbright Scholar to Austria the following year, and received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1971 (Germanic Languages and Literatures). He received his law degree from the University of Tennessee in 1975, clerked for the Tennessee Court of Appeals, and was in private practice until l982. In that year he was elected as one of the seven Circuit Court Judges for the Sixth Judicial District of Tennessee (Knox County). He was re-elected to three successive eight year terms, retiring in 2014 after thirty-two years on the bench. Writing two weekly newspaper columns for a number of years, as well as various articles in legal publications, he has published poetry in Hamburg’s Die Zeit and in Homeworks: A Bookkeeping of Tennessee Writers (UT Press 1996). He is the author of three books:
The Techniques of Softening: E.T.A. Hoffman's Presentation of the Fantastic
Five Proofs of Christianity
Politics, Faith, Love: A Judge’s Notes on Things That Matter
He is a faculty member of the National Judicial College and the Tennessee Judicial Academy. He is a Rule 31 Listed General Civil Mediator, and currently tries cases statewide as a retired designated judge when needed by the Administrative Office of Courts.
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Judge Bill Swann 