Don't see the big deal. Isn't the golden rule "those with the gold make the rules"

I mean, who really cares about the poor anyway...

Time to buy shares of Nasdaq: SWHC.

Ridiculous. It's already so expensive to litigate that many times valid claims are not pursued because, by the time the lawyers (sorry, Jack) are paid, it's not worth the effort.

Great, the doors to the courthouse remain open. For who? The wealthy. The gulf between the rich and the rest of us just increased. Creditors and the insurance industry are loving this development. The number of default judgments will increase and all those added costs will be passed on to the party who could not afford to litigate. The added fees do not end with the filing, most motions now require a filing fee, and to respond or defend against a motion - a defense filing fee. Can't afford to pay it, do not qualify for a waiver - you lose. Now pay the court costs and move along.

"Lemman said the new fees still don't cover the true costs of seeing a lawsuit to trial, where it may consume days of judge and staff time. But he said the state hasn't intended to cover those costs, instead believing that the state's courts are an essential service that should be funded with taxpayer dollars."

Factually speaking, this is all flawed, of course. As a civil defense attorney who goes to trial a lot, relatively speaking, I've been to trial 9 times this year, in a year where I've handled a couple of hundred cases or so. Which jives with what I've heard, that over 95% of civil cases settle well short of trial.

In the meantime, parties bear all sorts of costs. Filing fees, answer fees (which I'm not complaining about), costs related to discovery and depositions and experts and arbitrations or mediations, none of which really relate to any drag on the courts at all. In my trials this year, I've accounted for roughly 22 days of judge and/or staff time this year. They would all be there anyway, of course. The jury fee is picked up by the parties, and since the courts don't seem to be buying them lunch anymore, it seems like not a lot of money is lost there.

This is a system to tax people who want to use the courts for more than they ought to be taxed. Strictly speaking, why should a person with whiplash be expected to fund public defense? Why should a defendant, dragged into court not by their choosing, be forced to fund the justice system?

I'm all in favor of participants paying some costs to cover the expenses related to their involvement. But, really, justice needs to be accessible to everyone, on both sides of cases, and breaking the bank to get access is ridiculous and unfair.