The overwhelming majority of American civil lawsuits end in settlement rather than judgment, and courts actively encourage it — mandatory settlement conferences, court-annexed mediation, judicial pressure to resolve. The trial is the mechanism of last resort, and the system is designed to avoid reaching it.
law
The crafts ordinance
Die Handwerksordnung. German law reserves fifty-three trades to those holding a master qualification, on the stated ground that improper execution endangers health, safety or life. Quality in these trades is not a market outcome. It is a condition of being permitted to work.
The quality officer
The German Qualitätsbeauftragter has authority independent of production management and, in regulated industries, may halt release. The person who defines the process is deliberately placed outside the line that would benefit from bending it.
Plea bargaining
Roughly 97 percent of federal criminal convictions in the United States are obtained by guilty plea rather than trial, and the state figure is not far behind. In 2022, 2.3 percent of federal defendants went to trial.
The constitutional right to a jury is exercised in a small fraction of cases. The American criminal justice system, as it actually operates, is a negotiation system.
The register of trades
Die Handwerksrolle is a public register of qualified craft businesses, maintained by the chambers of crafts. Entry requires the Meister qualification in the relevant trade. You are not a roofer because you roof. You are a roofer because you are in the roll.
The free gift ordinance
Die Zugabeverordnung. The companion law, from 1932, limited free gifts with a purchase. The example used at the time: to stop people buying a bicycle because it came with a kilo of coffee. Repealed on the same day as the Rabattgesetz, and for the same reason — the EU e-commerce directive made it untenable.
The discount law
Das Rabattgesetz. From 1 January 1934 until 25 July 2001, German law restricted the discounts a retailer could give a consumer. Section 2 capped the cash discount at 3 percent of the price.
Germany was the only country in the European Union with a general prohibition on discounts — the government’s own bill said so when proposing repeal. The stated purpose was to stop customers being tempted too strongly by the size of a reduction.
A seventy-year-old law existed on the premise that a price is a fact, and that moving it around is a trick played on the buyer.
The individual case
German administrative and legal language returns to it constantly — im Einzelfall, in the individual case, Einzelfallprüfung, individual examination. The general rule is stated and the particular case is then examined against it.
Proportionality
A constitutional principle in German law with a defined three-part test: suitability, necessity, and appropriateness in the narrow sense. Judgment is required, and the structure within which it must be exercised is itself specified.
Up or out
American law firms, consultancies and accounting firms run partnership tracks on which an associate who is not promoted within a defined period leaves. Standing still is not an available option — it is the definition of failure.