ANALYSIS: Tracking the Incredible Shrinking Lawyer Sanctions

The precipitous drop in mentions of federal court-ordered sanctions against lawyers over the past decade isn’t limited to Rule 11 and inherent sanctions: A further search of federal appeals and district court dockets revealed that mentions of additional types of such sanctions—for vexatious litigation and discovery abuses—have seen an almost identical drop over the past decade.

What’s clear is that there’s been a massive decline, but what’s less clear are the reasons for it. To make matters more interesting, there’s even an outlier—a rule that doesn’t seem to be playing by the rules.

Earlier this month, I wrote that federal ...