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Which Arkansas counties are the most litigious?

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I've posted before about the upcoming launch of Docket Dog, a case watching service for Arkansas state court cases. To me, one of the interesting things coming out of Docket Dog is the ability to look at different metrics for case filings in Arkansas.

I have been learning the Python programming language, which has some good visualization tools available for it. My latest exploration has been using Python to create state maps. I found this awesome tutorial by a guy with an equally-awesome name (Nathan, of course!). I also wanted to view metrics per capita, so I downloaded the latest US Census data.

I wanted to figure out which Arkansas counties were the most sue-happy. So, looked at the total number of cases filed in each county, divided by the population, and plotted the result. Each color band is a multiple of the average for that year.

2015 cases per capita. Click to enlarge.

2014 cases per capita. Click to enlarge.

2013 cases per capita. Click to enlarge.

2012 cases per capita. Click to enlarge.

2011 cases per capita. Click to enlarge.

2010 cases per capita. Click to enlarge.

What do you make of this? Clark County, my old stomping ground, is average from 2010 to 2012, but is well above that the last couple of years.

Why do you think certain counties are more litigious than others?

How long will my case take?

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Nathan here. I'm back for a guest post with some new tricks I've learned at my new job from some of the researchers at UAMS. I've having a blast getting an inside look at cutting-edge biomedical research. This post looks at some data visualization about the time it takes to resolve civil tort cases in Arkansas.

Background:

One of the researchers has a master's degree in computer science, and I picked his brain a little bit about what software packages he likes to use. He prefers python to Perl (which I like) because python's research libraries are easier to use.

I took his recommendations to heart, and I've been tinkering around with the Anaconda python distribution with data I've gathered for another project I'm working on releasing very soon: Docket Dog. It's an Arkansas state court notification system. I used the data mining application Orange to perform some data visualization on the types of civil cases my dad and brother handle.

Arkansas Tort Case Length Analysis:

I took a look at over 98000 tort cases available electronically from the Administrative Office of the Courts for which I could calculate an end date. This is what the time frames look like:

Pendency of Arkansas tort cases in years. The scale is 20 years wide. Click to enlarge.

As you can see, civil court cases can take several years to resolve. We'll see what the averages look like here in a few minutes with another chart.

In the meantime, there are several interesting patterns that appear in this chart. For instance, on the first line for product liability cases, there are several vertical bands around 9, 12, and 14–16 years. I haven't looked into this, but I suspect each band probably represents a settlement of a specific type of cases, like Firestone exploding tire cases, Pinto exploding car cases, or something similar.

The declaratory judgment (dec action) line is notably shorter overall than the others. Again, I haven't researched this further, but I would expect this is due to the fact that dec actions don't involve juries and are usually about a specific question of law. For instance, lots of dec actions involve whether there is insurance coverage for a particular event or not (the hilarious Luther Sutter v. Dennis Milligan dec action notwithstanding). 

Now, on to the next chart. This is called a box chart:

Comparison of median Arkansas tort case values over the last 20 years. Click to enlarge.

This chart is broken up into quartiles. The light blue box represents 50% of all cases. So, 50% of motor vehicle collision (MVC) cases are decided within 2 years, with the median value being 1.6 years. (Median means the middle value; if there were 101 cases, for instance, the median value would be the 51st value). The average MVC case length is shorter at just over 1 year.

The dark blue lines represent maximum values, excluding outliers. The dots out to the right of the graph represent those outliers, which extend out to 20 years.

What's the bottom line? For 3/4 of tort cases, you can expect resolution to take at least 6 months to 3 years. Another quarter of cases take up to 4 years or so. And, there are always outliers that can take many, many years to reach ultimate resolution.

What questions do you have about this analysis?

So Long, Farewell

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Today marks my last day at the Chaney Law Firm. I've accepted a position at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock. I'll be working in the Biomedical Research facility in the Office of Research Regulatory Affairs, which assists the UAMS research community.

I'm very excited — I've long been interested in the convergence of law, medicine, and technology. My favorite class at W&L School of Law was Professor Timothy Jost's Medical Technology and the Law. It's the only class where I actually referred to my law school notes while handling a case. Here at the Chaney Law Firm we focus on medical technology tools (see the sidebar at right/bottom) that help our clients get well and prove the extent of their injuries. I hope this move will allow me to continue helping even more Arkansans receive the very best of medical treatment.

With my move, the Chaney Law Firm will no longer be handling patent and trademark matters. If that's why you've come to our site, give the firm a call and we can steer you to someone who can help meet your needs.

Thanks to Dad, Mom, Hilary, Taylor, and all our wonderful staff for making the last 6+ years great. It's been a joy to be able to walk to work and see my folks on a daily basis, and I appreciate their support as I move towards a new chapter. Maybe they'll even let me come back and guest post every once in a while.

One love.

Ugly Sweater Contest Winner

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Folks in downtown Arkadelphia were giving the members of the Chaney Firm some strange looks around lunchtime today. On the line during the Ugly Sweater Contest was a $25 gift card to local coffee shop Java Primo. Here are all the contestants:

There's a pretty hilarious bonus video as well:

Here are the results of the firm vote:

Contest Results

  • Votes
  • Votes

Who do you think should have won?

Nathan selected as a 5-time Super Lawyer

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Nathan was again selected as one of Super Lawyers' Rising Stars for 2015 for the fifth year running. Super Lawyers is a nationwide "rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process is multi-phased and includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations.

Super Lawyers magazine features the list and profiles of selected attorneys and is distributed to attorneys in the state or region and the ABA-accredited law school libraries. Super Lawyers is also published as a special section in leading city and regional magazines across the country."