Pros And Cons Of American Rule

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Team 3 Discussion: The American Rule Pros and Cons

The "American Rule" for lawsuit costs and fees requires each party to pay its own attorney fees regardless of whether they win or lose. The "English Rule", which is used most everywhere else in the world, requires that the loser pay for the winner's fees as well as their own. Is one system better than the other? Let us briefly discuss a few of the pros and cons of the "American Rule" of lawsuit costs and attorney fees payment system.

CON
The "American Rule" invites frivolous lawsuits and creates a bottleneck in the legal system. Because there is no substantial disincentive to file a lawsuit people at large find just about any reason to sue, especially businesses whom are presumed to …show more content…

Moreover, "Many of these parties are seeking to enforce fundamental rights given them by Congress such as workplace, labor or civil rights which they often test in court proceedings." (New Talk; Would "looser pays" eliminate frivolous lawsuits and defenses?"; 2008) Additionally, the American Rule leaves the lawyer's fees to be freely bargained between the lawyer and his client. Whereas if a client feels that she stands, for whatever reason, a better chance of winning her suit by contracting the services of a high price lawyer of her choice she then has the freedom to do that. As John Fabian Witt, Professor of Law at Yale Law School explains "As soon as you adopt the English rule of loser-pays, then courts will have to monitor and rule on the reasonableness of those fees." Under the English rule the defendant may spend a large sum of money in court in a victory only to have their legal fees deemed "unreasonable" by the court leaving them to pay the bill. You might win the lawsuit but you still loose. Finally, from a business perspective; under the English Rule the idea of becoming a lawyer and opening a practice seems a lot less lucrative and somewhat riskier than opening a practice under the American Rule legal fee payment

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