How would a poor person be able to sue now? They don't have the money to hire a good lawyer. If the lawyer is working on contingency, then they are only going to take cases they are pretty sure they are going to win anyway, so they will still take cases where 'loser pays'. Granted, a contingency lawyer is probably going to need a higher guarantee of victory in a 'loser pays' system in order to agree to the case, but I don't think that would be a HUGE factor.