Multitasking Slowed Judges Down

Italian judges who succumbed to pressure to start more cases took longer to clear each case, according to a study published by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, showing that multitasking reduced work output.

The research team started with a database of 58,280 cases heard by an Italian court focused on labor issues over six years. They reviewed data related to 31 judges who had been on the job at least a year and worked full-time. Judges are assigned cases through a random-selection process, so each likely got a similar mix of cases. Besides pressure from the lawyers and parties involved to get a case started, judges also faced criticism from an oversight board if they did not do so within 60 days of assignment.

The study says, "the slowest Judge 30 keeps on average 275 files… open on his desk while (the fastest) works on only 116 cases at the same time," the authors report. "In general, those who 'keep more pots on the fire need more time to complete meals.' It is important to keep in mind that these differences emerge among judges of the same office, who work in exactly the same conditions, with the same secretarial assistance and with a very similar workload in terms of quantity and quality."

As those facts suggest, judges who opened fewer cases completed more per quarter and had a smaller backlog left over at the end of each quarter. The fastest judge had an average backlog of 230 based on his 116 open cases, while one of the worst had a backlog of 545 and kept 258 open.

Though the data did not include traits like age and gender, the researchers were able to guess at some other possible factors and test for impact on the results:

• Ability—based on the number of hearings required to close a case.
• Effort—the number of hearings (not cases) scheduled by the judge within an average quarter.
• Quality—the number of cases appealed.

Ability and effort had no significant link, positive or negative, to speed. However, shorter total case times were linked to fewer appeals, suggesting that multitasking also might reduce quality.

The authors conclude, "Judges who are induced to juggle more tasks… require more time to complete the cases assigned to them."

Source: Coviello, D., A. Ichino, and N. Persico (2010), "Don't Spread Yourself Too Thin: The Impact of Task Juggling on Workers' Speed of Job Completion," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 16502.