Rule 3.2 Standard

The Duty to Expedite Litigation

Model Rule 3.2 consists of one sentence: "A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to expedite litigation consistent with the interests of the client."¹ To expedite a case is to move it forward promptly instead of letting it stall. The sentence pairs a duty with a limit. The duty is one of effort, measured by reasonableness: the lawyer must take steps that carry the case toward resolution. The limit is the client's interests: the effort must be consistent with them, so the duty gives way where speed would actually harm the client.

Lawyers set the pace of a case. They decide when to file, how quickly to answer discovery, and whether to ask for more time. Under Rule 4.2, the anti-contact rule, a lawyer may not communicate about the subject of the representation with anyone the lawyer knows to be represented by counsel in the matter, unless that person's lawyer consents, so the parties deal with one another through their lawyers.² Because the case moves through counsel, its pace is counsel's to control. An unnecessary postponement costs the opposing party money and takes a place on the court's calendar, yet the lawyer who causes it may bear none of that cost. Rule 3.2 places the responsibility on the person who holds the controls. It asks for reasonable efforts rather than maximum speed because a command to hurry would collide with the lawyer's obligation to prepare a case properly.

Questions on this rule tend to turn on one inquiry: did the delay serve a real purpose beyond delay itself? A postponement that lets the lawyer gather evidence or protect the client has one. A postponement that exists only to postpone does not. The first subsection below shows how to judge whether conduct is a reasonable effort. The second takes up the client-interest qualifier and the limit it places on the duty.

Reasonable Efforts Standard

A delay falls short of Rule 3.2 when no substantial purpose other than delay supports it. The rule requires reasonable efforts, so the practical task on an exam or in a disciplinary matter is deciding whether a given delay meets that mark.³ The commentary frames the decision objectively: the answer depends on what a competent lawyer acting in good faith would believe, not on what the particular lawyer privately intended. The question is narrow. Would such a lawyer believe the step served some substantial purpose other than delay? If so, the lawyer has made reasonable efforts even though the step slowed the case. If not, the step is the kind of postponement the rule exists to stop.

The test looks to purpose because delay and preparation are tangled together in almost every step a lawyer takes. Retaining an expert, waiting for medical records, rescheduling a deposition around a witness's surgery, and asking for time to answer a complex discovery demand all push the case back. A rule that asked only whether delay occurred would penalize ordinary diligence and pressure lawyers to rush work the client's interests require them to do carefully. Asking instead whether a substantial purpose besides delay supports the step separates the postponement that comes with preparation from the postponement that is the whole point of the step. The length of the delay does not decide the matter. A long continuance to obtain an essential expert report has a legitimate purpose; even a brief postponement whose only function is stalling does not.

The objective formulation also solves a problem of proof. Motive is private, and a lawyer accused of stalling can almost always claim an innocent one after the fact. If discipline turned on the lawyer's actual state of mind, the rule would be nearly impossible to enforce against anyone with a plausible explanation. Measuring the step against a competent lawyer acting in good faith ties the inquiry to the facts that existed when the step was taken. A pretextual reason that no careful lawyer would credit earns no protection, and a lawyer with a genuine reason need not prove anything about his or her own state of mind.

The clearest failure is a string of requests with nothing behind them. The facts below show how the four moves resolve it.

Each extension might look routine if examined alone, which is why step two asks what the request accomplishes rather than how ordinary it sounds. A request that is routine in form but empty in purpose is still a request for delay and nothing more.

An exam stem that pairs a postponement with a sympathetic reason is really asking whether the reason is real, and the answer changes the outcome completely.

The error to avoid is treating any resulting delay as the violation. The rule does not demand speed at all costs, and a lawyer who needed the time for a real reason has made reasonable efforts even though the case slowed. The rule targets delay that exists for its own sake. A separate limit on the duty arises when moving fast would itself work against the client, and the next subsection takes it up.

Client-Interest Qualifier

Rule 3.2 ends with the phrase "consistent with the interests of the client," and that clause marks the outer boundary of the duty to expedite.⁵ The first half of the rule tells the lawyer to move the case along; the second half requires those efforts to fit what the client needs. The clause exists because the lawyer's obligation to the client is the larger one, and speed has value only so long as it does not cost the client something worth protecting. A client whose trial date arrives before an essential expert finishes work, or before key records are gathered, loses more from a rushed schedule than any gain in efficiency repays. The qualifier lets the lawyer decline to hurry in those circumstances without breaching the duty.

The word interests has its own limit, and the limit matters because delay nearly always helps somebody. A defendant who owes money keeps the use of it for as long as the case drags on, and a party who fears an adverse witness gains each time that witness's testimony is pushed back. If any client preference for delay counted as an interest under the rule, the final clause would swallow the duty, because a lawyer could always point to a client who wanted more time. The qualifier therefore covers only legitimate interests, and the commentary to Rule 3.2 places outside that category a client's wish to realize a financial or other benefit from otherwise improper delay.⁶ This reading fits the objective test from the prior subsection, which asks whether a competent lawyer acting in good faith would see a substantial purpose other than delay. A client's instruction cannot supply that purpose by itself, because the purpose must serve the client's legitimate position in the case.

Seen from outside, a refusal to speed up and a request to slow down can look alike, so the facts that separate them deserve attention.

The difference between the two scenes lies in what the delay protected. In the first, declining to accelerate preserved the client's ability to put on its defense. In the second, delay preserved only money the client would otherwise have paid out, and a lawyer who follows that instruction carries out an improper wish rather than serving a legitimate interest. The usual exam error is treating the client's instruction as the end of the analysis, on the theory that the lawyer must do what the client asks. Ask instead whether the interest behind the delay is one the rule recognizes.

The qualifier is also the part of the rule most open to abuse. A lawyer who wants to justify a delay can reach for the final clause, and a client who wants delay will usually say that delay serves its interests. That is why the legitimate-interest limit matters so much. Later sections take up the specific kinds of delay the commentary treats as improper, and then show, through Rule 26(g) and the sanctions provisions, where the pressure against stalling in practice comes from.