A Tale of Two Courts: Litigation in Alameda and San Benito Counties

American scholarship has lavished most of its attention on appellate courts, paying little attention to courts on the bottom rungs of the ladder. This is true of studies of both past and present courts. But the trial court is the court with the most direct contact with the man in the street, for both civil and criminal matters. Here he meets the law face-to-face. And, although federal courts are certainly important, state trial courts handle by far the larger volume of work.