Panel to study the steady disappearance of jury trials.

If you've gotten a civil case to a jury trial in either federal or Florida courts lately, you're in quite a minority. That also applies to criminal cases, although your chances of arguing before a jury are slightly better.

Determining whether that's a good thing for the justice system--and more particularly the public's faith in that system--is the charge to the new Committee to Study the Decline in Jury Trials. The committee was authorized, at the behest of President-Elect Mayanne Downs, at the board's Amelia Island meeting last month.

It was reviewed and recommended by both the Program Evaluation Committee and the Budget Committee.

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Downs said she became interested in the issue at a recent 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judicial Conference after hearing a conversation between U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Federal Southern District Court Judge Stanley Marcus, and Bar Board of Governors member David Rothman.

"I was very intrigued by the conversation because there is a dramatic decline in civil and criminal trials," she said. "You can say on the surface, 'Great, more cases are being resolved.' But the impact is more than just cases being resolved."

One major way law develops is through jury trials, Downs said, and fewer trials also means reduced opportunities for women and minority lawyers. It could raise questions about such fundamental issues as rights to jury trials in criminal cases. Fewer trials also affects such mundane things as the Bar's certification program, because many areas require increasingly hard to get trial experience, she noted.

"Maybe we will look at it and conclude that nothing can be done or should be done, but there's a big impact happening out there," Downs said. "It seems to me we should take a good hard look at it so we're not surprised if impacts and ramifications occur over time. I want to always say, yes, we saw it coming."

The push to look at the decline in jury trials started with a talk Judge Marcus gave at a legal symposium in 2008. He noted that in the past 20 years, while the number of civil and criminal cases had increased in both state and federal courts, the number of cases actually going to trial had dropped significantly.

And while all the reasons for that decline might not be bad, such as the increased use of mediation and arbitration, Marcus said the low number of trials could also undermine public confidence in the judicial system. That's because fewer people...