The cliché — “justice delayed is justice denied” — is so worn out that it is rhetorically dead. In a brief, at a podium, before a jury, on its own, it may be counter-productive and unpersuasive.
The tragedy is that, as we all know, the cliché has more than a hint of truth to it. Lawyers and courts sometimes try to “get creative” and reach resolution of difficult cases more quickly than our system normally does (an attempt at such a speedy resolution of asbestos cases was nixed by the U.S. Supreme Court 14 years ago here), but, inevitably, the wheels of justice often move very slowly.
Here is a scheduling order, issued this past week, for an asbestos lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota in 1991. If the case ever gets to trial, there may be lawyers and other participants at trial who were not born when the case was filed.