How To Skip The Litigation Line: Protecting Rights To Judicial Reference In California

Judicial reference is a lesser-known alternative to traditional litigation or arbitration in order to resolve contractual disputes, where parties appoint a private referee to decide the case. Best understood as a hybrid of a court trial and arbitration, judicial reference offers several advantages that make it an efficient and often more desirable dispute resolution mechanism.

Commercial disputes in California are expensive, time-consuming, and unpredictable. Jury trials, in particular, carry the risk of large, unforeseeable verdicts. Court calendars in major California counties remain congested. In FY 2023-2024, there were 4.8 million total cases filed with only 2013 judges sitting on the bench.¹ This means judges have an average of 2,430 cases each. During that same time frame over 98,000 unlimited civil cases (cases over $25,000 at issue) were filed in Los Angeles County alone.