Most lawsuits and criminal cases settle, so when one goes to trial, something specific has broken down. Roughly 90 to 95 percent of U.S. cases resolve through negotiation, plea deals, or mediation, and only about 1 percent of federal civil cases and 2 percent of federal criminal cases end with a verdict.1Bureau of Justice Assistance. Plea and Charge Bargaining Research Summary Cases go to trial instead of settling when the parties disagree about the facts, read the law differently, can’t close a gap on money, refuse to compromise for reasons that aren’t purely financial, or decide the stakes are high enough to justify the risk of a verdict. Trials are expensive, slow, and unpredictable. When both sides can realistically assess the likely outcome, they usually find a way to agree. The cases that reach a courtroom are the ones where that assessment has failed.
The Parties Tell Different Stories About What Happened
The most straightforward reason a case goes to trial is a genuine factual dispute. In a car accident lawsuit, both drivers might insist they had the green light. In a criminal case, the defense might produce an alibi witness who directly contradicts the prosecution’s evidence. When conflicting testimony and physical evidence leave no common ground, there is nothing for a settlement to build on.
The trial process exists for exactly this situation. Witnesses take the stand, face cross-examination, and a judge or jury decides who is more believable.2United States Department of Justice. Trial
Factual disputes play out differently in civil and criminal cases because the burden of proof is different. Criminal prosecutors must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard in the legal system. Civil plaintiffs only need to show their version is more likely true than not, a standard called preponderance of the evidence.3U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont. Burden of Proof – Preponderance of Evidence That gap matters in settlement talks. A criminal defendant who believes the prosecution can’t clear the reasonable-doubt bar has a rational reason to reject a plea and insist on trial. The same facts in a civil case, where the plaintiff only needs to tip the scales slightly, might push a defendant to settle. When one or both sides misjudge how the evidence will land under the applicable standard, the case ends up in court.
The Parties Read the Law Differently
Sometimes both sides agree on every fact and still disagree about the legal consequences. Two businesses might sign the same contract, acknowledge the same events, and fight over whether those events triggered a particular obligation. A regulation might clearly exist, and both sides might admit what was done, but they read its scope differently.
These disputes are less about credibility and more about persuading a judge that one legal interpretation is correct. A trial focused on legal interpretation can also produce something a settlement never does: a binding precedent that clarifies the law for future disputes. For parties who care about the broader rule, not just the immediate outcome, that precedent alone can justify the fight.
Legal interpretation also carries a longer tail. A factual verdict is typically final, but a ruling on what a statute means is exactly the kind of issue appellate courts review. Appeals turn on whether the trial judge applied the law correctly, not on re-weighing witness testimony. If the losing side believes the trial court got the law wrong, the case can stretch months or years longer, and that possibility sometimes makes the winning side more willing to negotiate a post-trial settlement than wait for an appellate ruling.
The Numbers Are Too Far Apart
Even when liability isn’t seriously contested, cases stall because the parties value them differently. In a personal injury lawsuit, the injured person might calculate their medical bills, lost income, and pain at $800,000. The defendant’s insurer might see the same claim as worth $150,000. A gap that wide doesn’t close through a few rounds of negotiation. Each side’s number is typically backed by expert analysis that confirms what they already believe, which only hardens the positions.
Insurance dynamics drive a lot of this. An insurer’s job is to minimize payouts, and adjusters are trained to start low. When the insurer’s internal valuation is far from the claimant’s, negotiation can feel futile from the start. Occasionally the problem isn’t disagreement on value but outright denial of the claim, leaving trial as the only path to recovery.
In criminal cases, the valuation gap shows up in plea negotiations. A prosecutor might offer a guilty plea to a reduced charge carrying two to five years. The defendant might be willing to plead only if the deal involves probation or less than a year.4United States Department of Justice. Plea Bargaining When the two sides can’t bridge that sentencing gap, the defendant exercises the right to trial.
One financial factor that often gets overlooked is prejudgment interest. In many civil cases, interest begins accruing on the claimed damages from the date of the demand or injury, not from the date of the verdict. A defendant who refuses to settle and then loses may owe the original judgment plus years of accumulated interest. That ticking clock creates real pressure to resolve cases early, and defendants who ignore it sometimes find the final number at trial significantly larger than the last settlement offer on the table.
One Side Won’t Budge
Not every trial is driven by a rational disagreement. Sometimes a party goes to trial because of conviction, stubbornness, or a goal that settlement can’t accomplish. A plaintiff might sue not primarily for money but to force public accountability. A corporate defendant might refuse to settle because paying any amount feels like admitting fault, even when the math clearly favors writing a check. Personal injury lawyers see this regularly: a defendant with solid reasons to settle who simply cannot accept that they did something wrong.
High confidence produces the same result through a different route. A criminal defendant who genuinely believes a jury will acquit may reject a plea offer even when conviction would mean a dramatically harsher sentence. A plaintiff with a sympathetic story and strong evidence might turn down a reasonable settlement because they expect a jury to award far more. Both sides are making a bet. Sometimes the bet is well-founded. But confidence has a way of distorting risk assessment, and the cases that go to trial on the strength of one side’s self-assurance are often the ones where the outcome surprises everyone.
The Trial Penalty in Criminal Cases
Criminal defendants face a pressure that doesn’t exist in civil litigation: the trial penalty. Defendants who go to trial and lose routinely receive sentences far longer than what they were offered in a plea deal. At the federal level, trial sentences can be several times higher than plea sentences for the same offense. That gap is one reason about 90 to 95 percent of criminal cases resolve through guilty pleas.1Bureau of Justice Assistance. Plea and Charge Bargaining Research Summary
The result is a paradox. Defendants have a constitutional right to a trial, but exercising it carries an enormous personal cost if things go wrong. Prosecutors can leverage this gap by offering relatively lenient plea terms early, knowing that the risk of a much harsher sentence after trial pushes most defendants to accept. The defendants who do reject the plea and proceed to trial tend to fall into a few groups: those who are genuinely innocent and have no reason to plead guilty, those who believe the prosecution’s evidence is weak, and those who would rather gamble on acquittal than accept any conviction at all. For each, the calculation makes sense on its own terms, even though the odds of a longer sentence are real.
Privacy Pulls in Both Directions
Settlements can be confidential. Trials cannot. Testimony, exhibits, and the verdict all become part of the public record. For businesses worried about trade secrets, for individuals who want to keep personal matters private, and for defendants who don’t want the details of an allegation publicized, that distinction pushes toward settlement.
A settlement agreement can include a confidentiality clause preventing either party from disclosing the terms or even the fact that a settlement was reached. That kind of control is impossible once a case goes to trial. On the other hand, some plaintiffs actively want the publicity. A consumer who believes a company sold a dangerous product might prefer the public exposure of a trial to a confidential payout. When one party needs privacy and the other wants a spotlight, the conflicting goals can themselves be the reason the case ends up at trial.
Cost and Time Push Almost Everyone to Settle
Money is the single biggest reason most cases settle. Preparing for trial means depositions, expert witnesses, document review, and weeks of attorney time. A federal court survey of major companies found that average outside legal fees in large cases routinely exceeded $1.5 million.5United States Courts. Litigation Cost Survey of Major Companies The United States also follows the American Rule: win or lose, each side pays its own attorney. Even a defendant who wins at trial walks away with a legal bill and no way to recover it from the other side.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 adds another layer. A defendant can make a formal offer of judgment before trial, and if the plaintiff rejects it and then wins less than the offer at trial, the plaintiff gets stuck paying certain costs incurred after the offer was made.6Legal Information Institute. Rule 68 – Offer of Judgment The rule exists specifically to pressure plaintiffs into settling rather than holding out.
Time compounds the expense. Federal civil cases that reach trial take roughly two years from filing to verdict, and some districts take significantly longer. The cases that proceed to trial despite all of this are the ones where the stakes are high enough to justify the expense, or where the parties are too far apart for cost alone to force a deal.
Courts Actively Try to Prevent Trials
The court system itself has a strong interest in settlement. Judges carry heavy caseloads, and every case that settles frees resources. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16 gives judges broad authority to hold pretrial conferences aimed at facilitating settlement. A judge can require that the attorneys and a party representative be available to discuss resolution, and can direct the parties to use special settlement procedures authorized by local rules.7Legal Information Institute. Rule 16 – Pretrial Conferences; Scheduling; Management
Many state and federal courts also require parties to attempt mediation before a trial date will be set. These sessions put both sides in a room with a neutral third party whose job is to help them find common ground. Mediation doesn’t always work, particularly when the parties are there because a court told them to be. But even unsuccessful mediation sometimes narrows the issues and forces each side to confront the weaknesses in its position. By the time a case actually reaches trial, it has usually passed through multiple filters designed to make trial unnecessary, and each one failed. That’s what a trial really represents: a dispute that survived every ordinary tool the legal system uses to resolve it.