Perhaps the plaintiff should be required to contribute all the legal fees for the defendant (up to a maximum). If the defendant loses the lawsuit, he must pay the plaintiff back for his own legal fees in addition to the damages that he must pay.
I've suggested before in other threads that legal fees should be contributed to a shared pool and divided equally between both parties, with some minimum contribution set based on income and net worth. This would allow a defendant who is decidedly in the right to survive an attack by a significantly larger plaintiff.
That would be great except the defendant still has to pay up front.
Re:Goodbye Popcorn Time
by camillomiller on Saturday March 15, 2014 @04:56AM
(#7404082)
What about this: you drag me to court, you ask me X millions in damages; if you lose, you owe me X millions. Now that's a lawsuit I would pay for upfront if I think I'm in the right. Even better: many lawyers would probably fight to get my profitable suit pro-bono so they can cash in a big chunk of the eventual damages I would get.
Re:Goodbye Popcorn Time
by ElDiablo666 on Saturday March 15, 2014 @01:46AM
(#7403733)
Actually it's not great since a disproportionate part of the outcome of legal proceedings is luck, just like all of life.
Re:Goodbye Popcorn Time
by seferphier on Saturday March 15, 2014 @03:57AM
(#7403992)
legal proceedings works - just that it is really really expensive. Justice is expensive.
Or what about if you treated all law practice as a public service making all lawyers civil servants? The government would pay for the lawyers on both sides, but you wouldn't be able to buy access to a better lawyer. You'd have the problem of excessive lawsuits, but you can counter that with forcing the losing party to pay a big fine that covers the cost of the lawyers. You would also have the problem of how to assign lawyers to cases, but here it might make sense to use a lottery system, where you never know which lawyer you're getting.
Then all lawyers would be equally terrible. I would rather our laws weren't so complex. One start is to prove there is a victim for something to be considered a crime.
Re:Goodbye Popcorn Time
by jessaustin on Sunday March 16, 2014 @10:48AM
(#7409567)
Isn't this the model we're trying to move toward in medicine?
Unfortunately the law has to be complex and extremely detailed. You can't really use vague non specific terms when it comes to defining laws.
Somehow people managed to do just that for thousands of years
If by this you mean your life depends on the mood of your king that day, I'm going to have to disagree.
Another way of looking at it is that, as things stand now, the legal system is just another weapon the rich and influential can use to crush the little man.