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And this applies to the whole justice system, regardless if it's a criminal or civil issue. In civil cases this is used as leverage by wealthy people. The weal

And this applies to the whole justice system, regardless if it's a criminal or civil issue. In civil cases this is used as leverage by wealthy people. The wealthy can sustain a legal battle for as long as they want. They know that if their opponent isn't as wealthy, they'll be forced to settle, even for an unreasonable amount, just because they won't be able to afford defending themselves properly. For reference, a decent civil attorney in a major city in California will charge $250-500/hour, which ends up being around $5k/month to defend pretty much any civil lawsuit. A lawsuit that goes to trial will take 18-24 months, so you'll end up paying $90-120k just in legal fees. There will also be $10-20k in additional court fees and other expenses, not to mention your time. At the end of the day, if you defend a civil lawsuit and you flawlessly "win" the case, after about 2 years of manufactured stress, you'll be down $100-150k. That's what it costs to prove you are innocent and walk away "free" (free to be sued again). Btw, in civil cases, if you cannot afford a lawyer, the system won't appoint one for you, you will have to defend yourself (which judges and lawyers hate, and will very much play against you in court). Also, even if you can represent yourself, the court fees won't necessarily be waived ($2-3k), and you'll have to fund your own discovery (which can be insanely expensive, depending on the case). Then if you are defending as a corporation (llc, c corp, etc), you must have a lawyer. So basically if someone knows that your company cannot afford to hire a lawyer, they can sue you and force you to pay up or go bankrupt - then during bankruptcy they can keep going after you personally, and even after bankruptcy they can sue you again.

indymike 7y ago
In civil cases this is used as leverage by wealthy people. The wealthy can sustain a legal battle for as long as they want. They know that if their opponent isn't as wealthy, they'll be forced to settle, even for an unreasonable amount, just because they won't be able to afford defending themselves properly. Hmm. Every civil case I've been involved with was decided not by relative wealth, but by the strength of the case. In every case, the less wealthy party won, and the wealthy party got stuck with legal fees. In many cases, the less wealthy person was represented by a lawyer who was paid mostly on contingency.
- ta1234567890 7y ago
  If both parties have enough money to litigate, the relative wealth might not matter as much. But if one of the parties cannot afford to litigate, they are screwed. Considering that 40% of Americans can't even afford a $400 unexpected expense[0], it means most people are extremely vulnerable to legal liability, as they would barely be able to afford maybe 1 hour of consulting with a lawyer. My guess is that you've mostly dealt with people and companies that had the money to go through the legal system. Most people don't. Also, in my experience, it is very (extremely?) rare to find a lawyer that will work on a contingency basis, especially on short notice. So unless you know it's coming, and you've already spent the time to interview a bunch of lawyers (most of which are not even going to give you the time of day without having an open case) ahead of time, then you'll most likely be out of luck when you get served and have 30 days to respond (and if you don't respond they get a default judgement against you). You just can't deny that the (American) legal system is, in practice, based on money and resources, rather than on justice and fairness. 0: https://abcnews.go.com/US/10-americans-struggle-cover-400-emergency-expense-federal/story?id=63253846 https://abcnews.go.com/US/10-americans-struggle-cover-400-em...
  - indymike 7y ago
    Stereotypes are horrible and often used as an substitute for reason. Lawyers will take a solid case on contingency especially against "deep pockets". People have families and friends. People can change their spending habits. Courts exist to bring disputes to a just resolution. The whole meme that justice is only for the rich and average people can't fend for themselves is intellectually lazy and relies on generalization.
    - ta1234567890 7y ago
      Well, my personal experience is in direct opposition to what you are exposing here. I've been dealing with a vindictive plaintiff for a few years now. No lawyer will take a case on a contingency basis, especially against a plaintiff with "deep pockets", if there's no money to be made (which is usually the case when you are on the defending side). Let me illustrate, let's say a company gets a loan from a creditor, then the company fails to pay, the creditor sues, the company doesn't have the money to pay. At this point lawyers see that there's no money to be made and will rarely touch the case. The defendant is out of luck and will most likely have to file for bankruptcy (which at the minimum will cost $10-15k in legal fees, so it might not even be an option). As long as the creditor wants to keep spending money, they can keep going after the company, its founders and directors. Most lawyers will say that it doesn't make sense because the creditor is very unlikely to recover anything. But if the creditor still wants to spend the money, the defendants will be forced to keep paying to defend themselves for as long as the creditor attacks them, even if they didn't do anything wrong or ilegal and they prevail in the end. So most lawyers will recommend to settle and pay the creditor, because you'll have to spend about $100k defending yourself anyway, hence you might as well pay that in a settlement and not go through trial. Lawyers will also note that 90%+ of cases settle. In the end the company officials/founders might unfairly pay a bunch of money to someone, just so they can get rid of them. Then, even after the defendants pay, everyone might have lost a bunch of money and not found any justice whatsoever. Now, regardless of the example above. It costs about $5k to file a lawsuit and about $50-150k to go through with it. How many people have the means to pay for that? I'd say very few.
gamblor956 7y ago
This is literally the exact opposite of my past experience as a trial lawyer. The strength of the parties cases matters 10000x more than the amount of money they had. In fact, excessive spending was usually associated with worsened outcomes for the spending party.
- ta1234567890 7y ago
  You are right, if the defending party has enough money to defend, then the case will mostly be decided on the abilities/experience of the lawyers and the merits of each side. But what happens when the defendant just simply doesn't have the money to defend themselves in court? Have you represented a client in court for free for 2 years and paid for their court fees and discovery? You've also probably dealt mostly with relatively rational people in good faith. But when you have someone who's very vindictive or irrational, acting in bad faith and with a lot of money, it can be terrifying to be on the receiving end, and you can feel absolutely hopeless if you don't have the knowledge or money to defend.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    That's an interesting argument. In the "loser pays" system lawyers are encouraged to take on cases even if the defendant can't afford the legal fees. From the perspective of a lawyer an innocent defendant is basically a cash cow.
- srtjstjsj 7y ago
  Can you share your data? Are you sure of the direction of causality, unbiased conditioning, and magnitude of impact? If I were really wrong, I'd want to spend a lot of money so soften my outcomes, even if the result is still worse than if I weren't wrong. You need to condition on guilt before comparing outcomes.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    My data is actual real world experience. There are studies out there confirming my experience but as I don't currently have access to a law library you'll have to look them up on your own.

indymike 7y ago

In civil cases this is used as leverage by wealthy people. The wealthy can sustain a legal battle for as long as they want. They know that if their opponent isn't as wealthy, they'll be forced to settle, even for an unreasonable amount, just because they won't be able to afford defending themselves properly. Hmm. Every civil case I've been involved with was decided not by relative wealth, but by the strength of the case. In every case, the less wealthy party won, and the wealthy party got stuck with legal fees. In many cases, the less wealthy person was represented by a lawyer who was paid mostly on contingency.

ta1234567890 7y ago
If both parties have enough money to litigate, the relative wealth might not matter as much. But if one of the parties cannot afford to litigate, they are screwed. Considering that 40% of Americans can't even afford a $400 unexpected expense[0], it means most people are extremely vulnerable to legal liability, as they would barely be able to afford maybe 1 hour of consulting with a lawyer. My guess is that you've mostly dealt with people and companies that had the money to go through the legal system. Most people don't. Also, in my experience, it is very (extremely?) rare to find a lawyer that will work on a contingency basis, especially on short notice. So unless you know it's coming, and you've already spent the time to interview a bunch of lawyers (most of which are not even going to give you the time of day without having an open case) ahead of time, then you'll most likely be out of luck when you get served and have 30 days to respond (and if you don't respond they get a default judgement against you). You just can't deny that the (American) legal system is, in practice, based on money and resources, rather than on justice and fairness. 0: https://abcnews.go.com/US/10-americans-struggle-cover-400-emergency-expense-federal/story?id=63253846 https://abcnews.go.com/US/10-americans-struggle-cover-400-em...
- indymike 7y ago
  Stereotypes are horrible and often used as an substitute for reason. Lawyers will take a solid case on contingency especially against "deep pockets". People have families and friends. People can change their spending habits. Courts exist to bring disputes to a just resolution. The whole meme that justice is only for the rich and average people can't fend for themselves is intellectually lazy and relies on generalization.
  - ta1234567890 7y ago
    Well, my personal experience is in direct opposition to what you are exposing here. I've been dealing with a vindictive plaintiff for a few years now. No lawyer will take a case on a contingency basis, especially against a plaintiff with "deep pockets", if there's no money to be made (which is usually the case when you are on the defending side). Let me illustrate, let's say a company gets a loan from a creditor, then the company fails to pay, the creditor sues, the company doesn't have the money to pay. At this point lawyers see that there's no money to be made and will rarely touch the case. The defendant is out of luck and will most likely have to file for bankruptcy (which at the minimum will cost $10-15k in legal fees, so it might not even be an option). As long as the creditor wants to keep spending money, they can keep going after the company, its founders and directors. Most lawyers will say that it doesn't make sense because the creditor is very unlikely to recover anything. But if the creditor still wants to spend the money, the defendants will be forced to keep paying to defend themselves for as long as the creditor attacks them, even if they didn't do anything wrong or ilegal and they prevail in the end. So most lawyers will recommend to settle and pay the creditor, because you'll have to spend about $100k defending yourself anyway, hence you might as well pay that in a settlement and not go through trial. Lawyers will also note that 90%+ of cases settle. In the end the company officials/founders might unfairly pay a bunch of money to someone, just so they can get rid of them. Then, even after the defendants pay, everyone might have lost a bunch of money and not found any justice whatsoever. Now, regardless of the example above. It costs about $5k to file a lawsuit and about $50-150k to go through with it. How many people have the means to pay for that? I'd say very few.

gamblor956 7y ago

This is literally the exact opposite of my past experience as a trial lawyer. The strength of the parties cases matters 10000x more than the amount of money they had. In fact, excessive spending was usually associated with worsened outcomes for the spending party.

ta1234567890 7y ago
You are right, if the defending party has enough money to defend, then the case will mostly be decided on the abilities/experience of the lawyers and the merits of each side. But what happens when the defendant just simply doesn't have the money to defend themselves in court? Have you represented a client in court for free for 2 years and paid for their court fees and discovery? You've also probably dealt mostly with relatively rational people in good faith. But when you have someone who's very vindictive or irrational, acting in bad faith and with a lot of money, it can be terrifying to be on the receiving end, and you can feel absolutely hopeless if you don't have the knowledge or money to defend.
- imtringued 7y ago
  That's an interesting argument. In the "loser pays" system lawyers are encouraged to take on cases even if the defendant can't afford the legal fees. From the perspective of a lawyer an innocent defendant is basically a cash cow.
srtjstjsj 7y ago
Can you share your data? Are you sure of the direction of causality, unbiased conditioning, and magnitude of impact? If I were really wrong, I'd want to spend a lot of money so soften my outcomes, even if the result is still worse than if I weren't wrong. You need to condition on guilt before comparing outcomes.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  My data is actual real world experience. There are studies out there confirming my experience but as I don't currently have access to a law library you'll have to look them up on your own.