The author examines, using legal sociological methods, whether courts exert pressure on litigants in civil proceedings to settle their cases. After presenting the social science background, analyzing the interests of the parties involved in the proceedings, and evaluating the statistics on legal administration, the author presents the results of his own study conducted in 1994 in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland. He concludes that it is not primarily the behavior of judges that creates pressure to settle, but rather institutional pressure factors such as costs, duration of proceedings, and especially the threat of judgment arising from the dual role of judges as both adjudicators and mediators.