And wouldn't this be a great way for lawyers to earn lots of fees by encouraging poor people to sue rich people.
Much simpler is simply get rid of personal lawyers. The adversarial model is not the only option. You can do like small claims court and have the judge act as a truth finder.
The court could hire a lawyer if the judge feels that assistance is needed (for complex cases).
Under a pooled system, you could ante in 10k and if the opposition needs more money to defend themselves than 5k, they have to give you monetary ammunition as well! This prevents being nuked into settlement by being outspent, despite an otherwise sound claim. (Which definitely happens right now)
Typically a husband must pay a high powered lawyer for his wife, if his salary is higher.
Today, if I can spend $1K on legal fees and want to sue someone with a $1M budget, I'll just lose. To compete with that, I'd have to pony up $1M up front and hope I win to recoup my costs afterwards.
The alternative model is this:
Step 1) A lawsuit is filed
Step 2) Each party puts double the money they are willing to spend into the "pot". So if you have a $1M budget, you have to put $2M in. The counter-party willing to spend only $1K puts $2K in.
Step 3) The court takes the available funds from the pot evenly to the two participants, giving each one the same amount as the larger "willing to pay" amount specified.
So in this example: The poor guy seeking justice spends gets a refund of $1K (spending a net of $1K) and his lawyers receive $1M from the pot. The rich arsehole also gets $1K back and his lawyers get $1M from the pot.
I'm not saying this is a perfect system, but it would allow poor people to sue rich people and not be at a massive disadvantage.
Which is why nothing like this has any chance of happening.