I was involved in a small lawsuit over the sf rental market. We sued our landlord. That turns into over $45k in hard costs fronted by our lawyers if I remembe

I was involved in a small lawsuit over the sf rental market. We sued our landlord. That turns into over $45k in hard costs fronted by our lawyers if I remember correctly. Take depositions for example: even ignoring the cost of our lawyers in a room for a full day, there's a court recorder at $1k/day, a $300 transcript, proofing by us and our lawyers, lunches, travel, etc. Each of us did 1.5 to 2 days of depositions since each deposition is 8 hours on the clock but less in practice. Then there's things like process serving fees and filing fees ($1600 alone to request a jury trial). Depositions from two of us, the landlord, his partner, a property inspector (and his inspection and report fee), a real estate valuation expert (including his fee to value the rental in the first place), and you'd be surprised how quickly this stuff adds up. Now imagine suing billion dollar corporations with huge internal counsel with incentives to run the clock every step of the way to make it maximally expensive to sue them. And those companies have dozens of involved internal parties, many of whom may not even work there anymore, or who have travel costs, etc. And that's before you get to multiple $500+/hour expert economic valuation experts.