31.6% are dismissed as settled. Most of the rest end on a dismissal or a ruling before trial. For anyone pricing legal risk, how and when a case ends matters more than who would win at trial.
Half close in under nine months. The slowest tenth run past three years.
Time to resolution is the lever that turns an ending into a return. Capital committed to a matter that runs three years earns a very different rate than the same outcome in nine months. This is the distribution most underwriting never sees.
Same matter, different venue, a different bet.
Dismissed-as-settled shares range from 12.6% in the D.C. Circuit to 52.9% in the Third, and median time to close from 135 to 458 days.
Median time to close runs from 135 days in the Third Circuit to 458 days in the Fourth. Venue is not a footnote. It is a primary input.
How a case ends and how long it takes both depend on the case type.
Product liability and pharmaceutical matters run about three years at the median (1,103 and 1,048 days). Patent and contract close in about 217 and 250 days. Pricing that ignores the timeline misprices the asset.