What are the costs of litigation? David M. Trubek the author of The Costs of Ordinary Litigation breaks down litigation into "events" to answer this question. Through a study that randomly sampled civil cases from federal district and state courts, data has been complied and broken down into categories or stated differently into "events of litigation." [1] The study's data focuses on an attorne...

The early literature on litigation and settlement assumed that a plaintiff’s threat to litigate is credible only when her litigation value—the difference between the expected judgment and her litigation costs—is positive. More recently, however, Bebchuk (1996) has suggested that even if the plaintiff’s litigation value is negative, divisibility of her litigation costs may render credibility to ...

This article discusses a simple proposal that could reduce litigation costs in the country by about half, yet without compromising the functioning of the liability system in a significant way. Under the proposal (1) only half the cases brought before a court would be randomly chosen for litigation, and (2) damages would be doubled in cases accepted for litigation. The first element of the propo...

Studies suggest that income replacement is low for many workers with serious occupational injuries and illnesses. This review discusses three areas that hold promise for raising benefits to workers while reducing workers' compensation costs to employers: improving safety, containing medical costs, and reducing litigation. In theory, workers' compensation increases the costs to employers of inju...

Thirty years ago, rising health care costs sparked a panic in state legislatures. 1 As a result, states began looking for ways to tame increasing health care costs. 2 Many, including insurance companies and health care providers, attributed the rising costs to increased litigation, excessive jury verdicts, and rising insurance premiums. 3 As a result, legislatures turned to statutory caps on no...

We develop a model linking maximum damage awards available to plaintiffs in wrongful termination lawsuits, workers’ propensity to sue as a function of experience, and returns to experience. Using Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data on protected-worker discrimination complaints and labor-market data from the Current Population Survey, we examine how returns to experience among protected...