Court delay frustrates economic behavior. This paper examines the nexus between the case disposition time and the availability of prior court decisions for the civil law. We model litigation as a rent-seeking game, and find that prior court decisions curb strategic behavior in similar cases. Thus, the excessive use of party resources in litigation, such as time, is reduced if prior decisions clarify the interpretation of the law. Using judge-level data, we provide empirical evidence on a potential role of such ‘precedents’ for case disposition time in a civil law country. Our results show that the availability of prior decisions contributes to a significant reduction in disposition time. Moreover, the reduction in the duration of trials becomes stronger when the stock of previous court decisions grows. We conclude that the utilization of prior judicial decisions plays a crucial role for the efficiency of justice also in civil law countries.