[lotu]

That crazy cost is part of why I've been thinking we should have some equiviliant of a public defender for civil matters. The idea is the plaintiff would have to pay for the defendant's lawyer up to the cost he is paying for his lawyer, but only if the defendant chooses to use the presumably less good public defender. This wouldn't change anything when a large company or rich person is the defendant, as they won't want to user the public defender, unless the lawsuit was so frivolous the company would rather not spend any money on it. The biggest down sides would be when two ordinary people sue each other, I don't think this is a big deal because poor people tend not to sue other poor people outside of small claims court, and if they do they better be planing to get much more than twice their lawyer cost.