Would California be better off adopting Colorado's system of special water courts to best remedy the cost, complexity, and delay of water rights adjudication? While Colorado's water courts offer many benefits, including aligning water divisions with watersheds and publishing a useful resume, California is likely better off focusing instead on improving existing institutional tools for several reasons. First, there is little evidence indicating California has lifted the wariness it showed against special water courts when it kyboshed this very proposal in 2005. This resistance suggests California may make more progress by focusing on making tangible improvements in other ways. Second, Colorado's water courts do not serve as a panacea against cost and delay on the contrary, not only is Colorado grappling with similar issues despite operating special water courts, but commentators have also suggested that it should even consider adopting some features of California's administrative permitting system to improve flexibility. Third, the underlying causes for cost, complexity, and delay in Californian water rights adjudication differ from those in Colorado, and therefore demand different solutions than water courts. Given California's unique features, the causes of costs, complexity, and delay pertain to civil procedure machinery and underlying substantive water and groundwater doctrines. Fourth, from a cost perspective, California's existing investment in functionally equivalent or similar tools may support the case to continue this path, although the real test is a cost-benefit analysis between setting up water courts and improving existing institutions. Therefore, in remedying cost, delay, and complexity of water rights adjudication, California will likely make more progress by focusing on improving the functionality of existing tools rather than courting the idea of water courts any longer. Specifically, California will likely benefit from doing the following: (1) remove the underlying causes of these three problems; (2) reflect on the appropriateness of adopting certain useful features of Colorado's system and do so; (3) assess and improve the effectiveness of existing institutions like the complex civil litigation pilot project to tackle these three problems; (4) evaluate any inherent biases in designing institutions for water rights adjudications; (5) continue to bolster judicial education; (6) extend education efforts regarding water rights adjudication to the wider citizenry; and (7) tackle root causes that spawn water rights litigation and improve water planning. In sum, opening the mind to other attractive models is helpful. However, we should not rush to adopt them blindly. Trying to plug them in at home like appliances into outlets will only get us burned. instead, we can help ourselves by first reflecting critically to understand our own needs and then assessing whether we are better served by adopting other models or declining them in order to cultivate a solution that truly addresses our needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]