A faster legal system?
Feb. 5th, 2018 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtbcI have noticed that some government services seem to badly need some consultant to turn up with an application of queueing theory: from my view in the waiting room watching visitors waiting to be being called to kiosks the service often seems to have so nearly enough capacity that I wonder if routinely providing just that little bit more would tip the balance and allow enough slack in the processing pipeline that backlog rarely much accumulates. Often these services are the kind of necessary administrative chore for which more supply is unlikely to cause correspondingly more demand.
Regardless of defendants being offered bail I expect that it is so unpleasant to be awaiting trial for a crime that society should put some effort into minimizing that delay. Of course, in preparation for trial various people must do various things, often in response to each other. Still, I wonder how far short the process falls of nearing its theoretical minimum duration for the same work done: if often what blocks participants from working on the case is only workload from other cases and, if so, if some small increase in capacity may yield large gains.
The question of preventable delays comes to mind also with my having had some involvement in some routine property conveyancing in England recently. The process took around five months in all from offers being accepted to exchange of contracts. In Ohio when we bought our house it took but a fortnight from offer to final paperwork: this included surveyor, water testing, soil testing, mortgage finalization, all manner of steps swiftly arranged and executed at low cost. I confess that were I to have the courage to enter the mire of English conveyancing then I would be sorely inclined to respond to late discoveries of various nitpicks with a suggestion that the person who discovered them can do what they like about them but the offer on my side is not changing: it is all
Regardless of defendants being offered bail I expect that it is so unpleasant to be awaiting trial for a crime that society should put some effort into minimizing that delay. Of course, in preparation for trial various people must do various things, often in response to each other. Still, I wonder how far short the process falls of nearing its theoretical minimum duration for the same work done: if often what blocks participants from working on the case is only workload from other cases and, if so, if some small increase in capacity may yield large gains.
The question of preventable delays comes to mind also with my having had some involvement in some routine property conveyancing in England recently. The process took around five months in all from offers being accepted to exchange of contracts. In Ohio when we bought our house it took but a fortnight from offer to final paperwork: this included surveyor, water testing, soil testing, mortgage finalization, all manner of steps swiftly arranged and executed at low cost. I confess that were I to have the courage to enter the mire of English conveyancing then I would be sorely inclined to respond to late discoveries of various nitpicks with a suggestion that the person who discovered them can do what they like about them but the offer on my side is not changing: it is all
as is. Further, various anecdotal evidence makes me wonder if in many cases it would be cheaper overall for a party to just volunteer to cover the new cost rather than pay their solicitor to negotiate about it.
