As in other jurisdictions, business courts in the United States are specialized courts for legal cases involving commercial law, internal business disputes, and other matters affecting businesses. They are generally trial courts that primarily or exclusively adjudicate internal business disputes and/or commercial litigation between businesses, heard before specialist judges assigned to these courts. Business courts may be further specialized, as in those that decide technology disputes and those that weigh appeals. Alternative dispute resolution and arbitration have connections to business courts.
Background
Business courts and commercial courts are specialized courts for cases involving commercial law, internal business disputes, and other matters affecting businesses.
The courts of the United States are closely linked hierarchical systems of courts at the federal and state levels. The federal courts form the judicial branch of the U.S. government and operate under the authority of the United States Constitution and federal law. The state and territorial courts of the individual U.S. states and territories operate under the authority of the state and territorial constitutions and state and territorial law.
Business and commercial courts Business courts in the United States are trial courts that primarily or exclusively adjudicate internal business disputes and/or commercial litigation between businesses, heard before specialist judges assigned to these courts. They have been established in approximately twenty-seven states. In some cases, a state legislature may choose to create a business court by statute. In other cases, business courts have been established by judicial rule or order, at the state supreme court or trial court level. Georgia created a statewide business court by constitutional amendment.
Types of jurisdictional models In virtually all cases, the jurisdiction of the court to hear certain cases is limited to disputes that are in some way related to "business" or commercial disputes, and generally fall into two categories: (1) those courts which require that cases have an additional complexity component; and (2) those courts which establish jurisdictional parameters (i) through a defined list of case types (ii) combined with a specified minimum amount of damages in controversy, irrespective of complexity.
In New York, for example, the trial level Supreme Court Commercial Division follows the case type and jurisdictional amount in controversy model, giving jurisdiction over 12 listed business and commercial case categories while setting out monetary thresholds ranging from $50,000 in some counties to $500,000 in Manhattan. The Massachusetts Superior Court's Business Litigation Session (BLS) includes a jurisdictional list of case types, but instead of focusing on monetary thresholds as a gatekeeping mechanism, cases are included only where "the BLS in the sound discretion of the BLS Administrative Justice, based principally on the complexity of the case and the need for substantial case management," selects a case for inclusion.
There are mixed models as well, with some mandatory case type categories specifically listed, and other discretionary types requiring an element of complexity. The Maryland Circuit Court's Business and Technology Case Management Program includes certain "presumptive" mandatory case types, while others categories require a judge to more subjectively determine if they are complex enough to include on the docket. North Carolina's Business Court has a similar mixed model that makes jurisdiction mandatory if the listed commercial case type is over $5,000,000, but discretionary if under, as well as a seldom used rule allowing judicial discretion.
History of business and commercial court creation and development The modern creation of specialized Business Courts in the United States began in the early 1990s, and has expanded greatly in the last thirty years. Business courts (which are often business programs or divisions within existing trial level courts) are operating (as of October 2024) in New York County/Manhattan, and 10 other jurisdictions throughout New York State as the New York Supreme Court Commercial Division, Chicago, North Carolina, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Orlando, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Tampa, Florida, Michigan, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Metro Atlanta regionally and statewide via the Georgia State-wide Business Court, Delaware's Superior Court and Court of Chancery, Nashville, Tennessee, Indiana, Phoenix, Arizona, Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as Utah and Texas.
In 2023, Utah adopted legislation creating a statewide Business and Chancery Court, which became operational on October 1, 2024. In 2023, Texas' governor signed legislation creating a trial level Business Court, and an appellate business court (that also hears disputes over the constitutionality of state statutes), the Fifteenth Court of Appeals. These courts have been open for cases since September 1, 2024. In August 2024, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the appellate business court's creation.
While Wisconsin still has the remnant of a business court as of October 2024, by a 4–3 vote its Supreme Court issued an order on October 7, 2024, ending the assignment of new cases to the commercial court pilot project, first established by that court in April 2017.
Delaware's Court of Chancery, the pre-eminent court addressing intra-business disputes, has functioned as a business court of limited jurisdiction for over a century. However, its traditional equity jurisdiction has evolved and expanded since 2003 to include technology disputes, some purely monetary commercial disputes, and to expand its role in the alternative dispute resolution of business and commercial disputes. This includes the use of mediation, Masters in Chancery to adjudicate matters, and agreements to make decisions non-appealable.
Other states have a mixed history. In New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, and New Jersey, among other locations with business courts, the original programs have expanded by adding judges and/or by expanding into additional cities and counties. Around 2000, Colorado's Supreme Court studied a business court, but did not pursue it, and the Denver District Court later experimented for three years with a business court, known as the Civil Access Pilot Project. Orlando's business court was restored in October 2019, after an earlier funding shortage.
In 2015, New Jersey's Supreme Court created a statewide Complex Business Litigation Program after having only a few counties with business courts before that. In 2009, Milwaukee's Circuit Court ended a little used business court program, but Wisconsin's Supreme Court implemented a business court pilot program in 2017 which has expanded to a number of circuit courts and judicial districts, which project has now been ended as of October 2024. In May 2024, Oklahoma enacted a law creating a task force to study business courts, but in October 2025 Oklahoma's Supreme Court found the new law unconstitutional. The Hamilton County, Ohio Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati discontinued its Commercial Docket in 2017, but revived it in 2024. In December 2024, a bill was submitted in Montana's Senate to create a specialized court combining business, constitutional, and land disputes within its jurisdiction, which was withdrawn in February 2025.
U.S. complex civil litigation dockets and complex business/commercial cases There is a distinct type of specialized civil litigation docket designed to handle complex litigation, often referred to as complex civil litigation programs or complex civil litigation courts.
At least California, Connecticut, Oregon, and Minnesota courts have created specialized dockets for complex civil litigation within their civil trial courts. These programs define jurisdiction through the complexity of how a case presents itself procedurally and the processes that will be used to manage a case, rather than by expressly limiting jurisdiction to cases with a specific legal subject matter, as business courts do. California's complex civil litigation program provides an example of defining jurisdiction based on litigation process criteria, such as the presence of large numbers of witnesses, parties, and pre-trial motions, and the need for coordination with other cases (though some categories of case types are deemed provisionally complex). California's complex litigation programs are not statewide, but include at least the following county Superior Courts: Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara.
Some complex litigation programs do not have any case type overlap with the kind of cases heard in business courts, such as Philadelphia's Complex Litigation Center which only handles mass tort cases. Other complex civil programs expressly include some business and commercial case types within their jurisdiction, along with more numerous non-business court complex case types, such as Connecticut (which includes complex cases involving "formation, governance, dissolution or transfer of control of business entities," the Uniform commercial code, complex contracts, intellectual property, and business torts), Minnesota (ownership or control of businesses cases), and Lane County, Oregon's Commercial Court that expressly includes within its jurisdiction both commercial and non-commercial complex cases. The San Francisco Superior court complex civil litigation program helps deal with business litigation in that court.
Former Orange County Complex Litigation Program judge Gail A. Andler is a past president of the American College of Business Court Judges (ACBCJ), and a number of California's complex litigation judges (including judge Elihu Berle), and Minnesota complex litigation judge Jerome B. Abrams, have served as Business Court Representatives to the American Bar Association's Section of Business Law. Abrams is a 2023-2024 vice president of the ACBCJ. Berle is also a current officer of the ACBCJ (as of May 2024), has spoken at its judicial education programs, and participated in its first meeting in 2005.American College of Business Court Judges, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Judicial Education Program, Washington, D.C., Advanced Law and Economics Institute, October 30 - November 1, 2005, Judicial Participant List
Technology disputes & cyber courts In the United States and internationally, "[t]he notion of specialized courts to decide technology disputes has a rich history with noteworthy milestones."
Some states have established specialized business and commercial courts that include technology disputes as part of their express jurisdiction. Through legislative effort and court rule, in 2003, Maryland established a Business and Technology Case Management Program. In May 2003, Delaware expanded the Court of Chancery's jurisdiction to include technology disputes. West Virginia's Business Court Division Rules includes technology issues. The Tennessee's Business Court Docket encompasses technology and biotechnology licensing. North Carolina's Business Court jurisdiction includes computer software, information technology and systems, data and data system security, biotechnology and bioscience technology.