State and federal courts leaning more heavily on magistrate judges

As a form of help for litigants in county and federal courts across the country, magistrate judges act as a quasi-right-hand-assistant to elected judges.

Though not elected by their constituents, these judges work in tandem with elected judges to handle both civil and criminal proceedings, easing the heavy burden brought on by increasing case filings each year.

For decades, the United States government has acknowledged the need for additional judicial staff to maintain both local and federal courts.

“Lawyers and parties who have watched their cases progress through the federal courts no doubt can attest to the fact that more commonly it is the magistrate judges, rather than the district judges, who assume active, pretrial roles in case management and settlement the mainstay of modern federal court civil practice,” wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge Tim A. Baker in a 2004 edition of the Valparaiso Law Review.

And while the duties of elected judges are crucial to the fabric of a docket, magistrate judges have become an increasingly prominent thread.

According to data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, magistrate judges in federal district courts disposed of more than 1.3 million civil and criminal matters in 2024, a 9% increase from 2023.

Magistrate judges in Indiana

Around 140 magistrate judges operate in county courts across Indiana. The highest number of judges is concentrated in Marion County, where 40 magistrates serve in the county’s circuit, superior, and family law courts.

On the federal level, seven magistrate judges operate in the Northern District Court, while eight operate in the Southern District.

In Indiana, magistrate judges are appointed to county courts by the respective county’s judges. Hamilton County has five magistrate judges, who were appointed by judges in the county’s eight superior and civil courts.

David Najjar, a Hamilton Superior Court judge, works with several magistrate judges on both civil and criminal matters.

Najjar himself served as a magistrate judge from 2005 to 2017. While magistrate judges have more authority over cases nowadays, that wasn’t always the case.

“When I first started, almost all of my orders had to be reviewed and counter-signed by an elected judge,” Najjar said.

Now, “most of the powers that a judge has, a magistrate also has,” he said.

Indiana state magistrate judges gained more authority on cases they oversaw beginning in 2020, when legislators passed an amendment to Indiana code that addresses their role. The amendment ultimately states that, apart from judicial mandate, a magistrate judge has the same powers as an elected judge.

Najjar said his time as a magistrate judge prepared him to move into an elected position in 2017. When he served as a magistrate judge, the cases he was assigned were ultimately up to the elected judges’ discretion, so he gathered experience in several different matters.

He now entrusts the magistrate judges he works with to handle a variety of cases, too, but likes to assign cases that play to the judges’ strengths.

“I work, I think, pretty closely with the magistrates that serve the Hamilton County courts to try to give them some of the variety that I had as magistrate as well and so I can make their experience not so mundane,” he said.

The duties and limitations of federal magistrate judges are laid out under the Federal Magistrates Act of 1968 in Article I of the Constitution.

Like state magistrate judges, federal magistrate judges are appointed by their respective district court judges. Full-time judges serve renewable eight-year terms, while part-time judges serve four-year terms.

Each of the 94 district courts under the federal system utilize their magistrate judges differently, but in Indiana’s southern district, judges are primarily used for preliminary and pretrial matters in both civil and criminal cases, said Judge Baker.

“If you’re a civil litigant, in almost every case, unless you go to trial, the only judicial officer you’re ever going to see is the magistrate judge,” he said.

While civil cases are typically tried by district court judges, magistrate judges can preside over trials if all parties consent to it.

Indiana’s southern district court has an active docket compared to other district courts around the country, Baker said. As of March 2025, the court had over 10,700 pending cases, according to data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

To compare, Indiana’s northern district court had just over 2,600 cases pending as of March, data shows. Baker said one reason for the large caseload can be attributed to prisoner litigation. The southern district has several institutions within its jurisdiction, including the New Castle and Pendleton correctional facilities.

So far this year, the southern district court has seen nearly 1,700 prisoner petition filings for civil cases, compared to the northern district’s 771.

Baker values his role as a magistrate judge because he’s often the only judicial face a litigant will ever see. In a recent case he oversaw, a plaintiff sent him a thank you letter after a particularly taxing case.

“When you see things like that, you know that what we do really does make a difference… that always makes you feel good and reinforces that what we do here is so important,” he said.

Judicial challenges

Both state and federal judges have faced notable challenges in their work in recent years, namely heavy caseloads for judges in each county.

The Indiana Judicial Branch’s 2024 Weighted Caseload Measures, which compares trial court caseloads across the state, shows that in several counties, courts need more judges than they have.

The state measures these caseloads by tracking the average amount of time each case takes to complete. Judicial officers are asked to track the time they spend on case-related activities, like trial preparation, orders, and settlements, to inform the measurement.

Beyond that, the state compares the “severity of need” for each county, comparing how many judicial officers serve each county to the number of judicial officers needed based on the number of new cases filed in that court during a calendar year.

The “utilization” presented in the state’s data represents the relationship between the number of cases filed and the number of judicial officers available.

In 2024, Vigo County ranked #1 for severity, reporting 7.20 available judges compared to the 10.30 needed.

As reflected in federal data, district court judges are also dealing with heavy caseloads across the board.

A remedy to solve that, the JUDGES Act of 2025, is currently pending before Congress.

Under the bill, the JUDGES Act would add 66 federal judgeships to district courts across the country, including one in Indiana’s southern district.

The 2024 version of the bill, which was co-sponsored by Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young, was vetoed by former President Joe Biden in December.

The act has been widely supported by district court judges across the country.

“The strain of operating in excess of full capacity for an extended period of time continues to exhaust the ability of judges and staff to respond in a timely and appropriate fashion to the cases that are filed here and further hinders the court’s ability to respond to its caseload efficiently. In the end, it is the litigants of the Southern District of Indiana who suffer when there is a delay in deciding their cases. As such, the Southern District of Indiana urgently needs the additional judgeship that the JUDGES Act would provide,” southern district court Chief Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said in November when showing her support for the 2024 act.

Beyond the already existing caseload, judges in the southern district have faced more strain with the federal vacancy left by Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson, who assumed senior status in July 2024.

The vacancy has yet to be filled.

Baker acknowledges the heavy workload, but it doesn’t necessarily phase him.

“The caseload has always been heavy,” he said. “When we have fewer judicial officers, everybody has to pull harder on the laboring oar. That’s just the way it is.•