How long do federal lawsuits take?
Median time from filing to resolution for U.S. federal civil cases, by type, from the public court record. Pick a case type for the full range, how those cases end, and durations by court.
| Case type | Cases | Median | Slowest 10% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prisoner petitions | 573,280 | 191d | 2.8 yr | details → |
| Personal injury (federal) | 361,087 | 1.3 yr | 4.5 yr | details → |
| Civil rights litigation | 333,512 | 189d | 2.3 yr | details → |
| Employment litigation | 319,326 | 280d | 2.3 yr | details → |
| Breach of contract | 308,088 | 273d | 2.3 yr | details → |
| Social Security appeals | 204,499 | 1.0 yr | 1.6 yr | details → |
| Other torts (federal) | 196,477 | 189d | 1.9 yr | details → |
| Trademark & copyright | 184,565 | 161d | 2.0 yr | details → |
| Other federal statutory | 121,321 | 227d | 3.1 yr | details → |
| Immigration litigation | 102,310 | 86d | 314d | details → |
| Real property (federal) | 68,192 | 173d | 2.6 yr | details → |
| Patent litigation | 46,705 | 212d | 2.8 yr | details → |
| Antitrust litigation | 5,020 | 1.8 yr | 8.0 yr | details → |
Unlike most published figures, these are censoring-honest: still-pending cases are counted (Kaplan–Meier), so slow cases can't quietly vanish from the percentiles. Cross-checked against the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts' own published statistics.
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Source: data/fjc/civil.parquet (Federal Judicial Center), cleaned by Tertius · model tertius-acta-3. Filing-to-termination durations for U.S. federal civil cases. Observed historical data, not a prediction of any specific case, and not legal advice.