The Hot Seat: Q&A With Jon Echols As Oklahoma Moves To Establish Business Courts

Oklahoma is taking steps to create specialized business courts, a top priority for Governor Stitt.

Jon Echols, the chairman of the business court task force, discusses the rationale behind this initiative, the task force's recommendations, and the path forward for the legislation.

Q: Why is there a business court task force in Oklahoma?

According to Jon Echols, the business court task force was established during last year's budget negotiations, when Gov. Stitt made it clear that creating business courts was one of his top legislative priorities for the next session.

"It's about making us a more friendly business environment. So he asked me to help him write a bill."

Echols said that the goal is to improve the state's business climate by efficiently handling complex business litigation, such as shareholder disputes and other commercial cases that often backlog the regular court system.

Q: How will the business courts be structured?

Echols said that the business courts will be part of the regular district court system, but with specialty judges who have experience in complex commercial litigation.

"It's a regular court, it's a district court. Still judges, lawyers, but dealing with complex business matters, shareholders, without getting too boring, shareholder derivative suits, complex litigation cases that are backlogging our regular courts."

The aim is to provide fair and efficient decisions on these types of cases, while also making the litigation process cheaper and faster for businesses.

Q: What has the task force accomplished so far?

Echols states that the task force has unanimously passed recommendations for the business courts, which they believe would make Oklahoma's system one of the best in the nation, "other than maybe Delaware."

He has also had productive discussions with key legislators, including Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton and several representatives, about crafting the final legislation.

"We have excellent leadership in the Oklahoma legislature. The names I just mentioned, I have a lot of faith in what they're going to be able to do, and we look forward to continuing to meet as a task force, to be a resource for them," Echols said.

Q: What's next for the business court initiative?

Echols is confident that legislation will be filed in the next legislative session, with initial drafts expected within the next month. He believes that with "brave leadership," the business court bill will pass.

"I firmly believe there will be bills filed next session. So I bet a month from now, we're going to see the initial drafts, and we're going to be able to talk about this every step of the way," Echols said.

The task force will continue to serve as a resource for the legislature as they work on the final legislation.