This paper provides estimates of courts’ delay, a methodology to measure delay, and an explanation of the consequences and the policies available to reduce it. The types of legal disputes and the shortage of settlement rates are evidences of endogenous demand-inefficiency motivated by the law, the courts and the practices of the legal profession. Other topics addressed, though with less extension, are the social costs of justice —including public expending, private costs and indirect or hidden costs caused by an inadequate justice system—, and a preliminary assessment of productive efficiency due to organizational, managerial, technological and governance problems.