Academic

Since coming to Maryland I have been involved in projects at the city and state level aimed at developing specialized business and/or technology courts.  Many states have created or are contemplating creating such courts, which generally take the form of programs or divisions within existing court systems.  The rationales for such specialty programs include reducing the time and expense associated with complex business litigation, and as a result freeing up time for non-business cases, ensuring that judges develop expertise in business matters (which expertise further expedites such matters while building confidence in the judicial system with respect to those matters), and attracting businesses to the state by increasing confidence in the quality and efficiency of the state courts' ability to handle business litigation.  And of course lurking in the background of at least some of these programs is the hope that, even if they can't be like Delaware, they can at least develop a court system that businesses are not seeking to avoid at all costs--and giving businesses predictability, efficiency and quality certainly helps to achieve this goal.  At this point, while there have been concerns raised about these specialty courts including issues involving whether they could achieve their goals as well as concerns about the appropriateness of focusing on business as opposed to other forms of cases, it seems that such courts have been a positive development.  Maryland' Journal of Business & Technology Law recently created a website that provides information about the various state programs in this area, and tracks some of the key cases that arise from those programs.  Thus, it allows one to see how different states are developing their programs as well as the kinds of cases and issues that arise.  And since many of these programs are evolving, it is interesting to track their development and try to determine what kind of impact these programs have.  In particular, it is interesting to see whether and to what extent these programs can have an impact on the development and predictability of the business law doctrine within the states that have such programs.