Numerical aspects of business court specialization

Jurisdiction specialization is a topic of interest in the administration the justice system. Pros and cons have been vastly discussed, but few papers discuss the pratical details connected to the application of this policy. In this study, we discuss the creation of business courts in the County of São Paulo Brazil, and introduce innovating data analysis methodologies for solving pratical problems. In São Paulo, new courts, specialized or not, must follow two main criteria. New courts must have a minimum number of lawsuits per year and must have some estimate of the future worka load. In the performed analyses, we found evidence that a business lawsuit requires almost twice the amount of effort of a common lawsuit. By correcting the volume of lawsuits, based on a matter-treatment model, we arrived at the conclusion that two business courts can handle the existing demand adequately. Also, we were able to develop a robust methodology to verify if and how business courts should be created.