IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/albaec/2015_008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financially-Constrained Lawyers

Author

Listed:
  • Landeo, Claudia

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

  • Nikitin, Maxim

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

Abstract

Financial constraints reduce the lawyers’ ability to file lawsuits and bring cases to trial. As a result, access to justice for true victims, bargaining impasse, and care taking incentives for potential injurers might be affected. We present the first cradle-to-grave model of legal disputes involving financially-constrained lawyers, third-party lawyer lending, and asymmetric information. In equilibrium, access to justice is denied to some true victims and bargaining impasse occurs. We demonstrate that policies that relax lawyers’ financial constraints might be welfare reducing if the positive impact on access to justice is weak and the potential injurers are overdeterred.

Suggested Citation

  • Landeo, Claudia & Nikitin, Maxim, 2015. "Financially-Constrained Lawyers," Working Papers 2015-8, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2015_008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~econwps/2015/wp2015-08.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hillinger, Claude & Lapham, Victoria, 1971. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal: Comment by Two Who are Unreconstructed," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(6), pages 1403-1405, Nov.-Dec..
    2. Deb, Rajat & Pattanaik, Prasanta K. & Razzolini, Laura, 1997. "Game Forms, Rights, and the Efficiency of Social Outcomes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 74-95, January.
    3. Claudia M. Landeo, 2018. "Law and economics and tort litigation institutions: theory and experiments," Chapters, in: Joshua C. Teitelbaum & Kathryn Zeiler (ed.), Research Handbook on Behavioral Law and Economics, chapter 9, pages 247-268, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Hylton, Keith N, 1993. "Litigation Cost Allocation Rules and Compliance with the Negligence Standard," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 457-476, June.
    5. Claudia M. Landeo & Maxim Nikitin & Scott Baker, 2007. "Deterrence, Lawsuits, and Litigation Outcomes Under Court Errors," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 57-97, April.
    6. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2014. "The Effect of Third-Party Funding of Plaintiffs on Settlement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2552-2566, August.
    7. Kathryn E. Spier, 1992. "The Dynamics of Pretrial Negotiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 93-108.
    8. Peter A. Diamond, 1967. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparison of Utility: Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(5), pages 765-765.
    9. Dominique Demougin & Felix Maultzsch, 2014. "Third-Party Financing of Litigation: Legal Approaches and a Formal Model," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 60(3), pages 525-553.
    10. Landeo, Claudia M. & Nikitin, Maxim & Babcock, Linda, 2007. "Split-awards and disputes: An experimental study of a strategic model of litigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 553-572, July.
    11. Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, 2001. "Any Non-welfarist Method of Policy Assessment Violates the Pareto Principle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 281-286, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Landeo, Claudia M. & Nikitin, Maxim, 2018. "Financially-constrained lawyers: An economic theory of legal disputes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 625-647.
    2. Landeo, Claudia & Nikitin, Maxim & Izmalkov, Sergei, 2012. "Playing against an Apparent Opponent: Incentives for Care, Litigation, and Damage Caps under Self-Serving Bias," Working Papers 2012-15, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 01 Oct 2012.
    3. Claudia M. Landeo, 2018. "Law and economics and tort litigation institutions: theory and experiments," Chapters, in: Joshua C. Teitelbaum & Kathryn Zeiler (ed.), Research Handbook on Behavioral Law and Economics, chapter 9, pages 247-268, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Mongin, Philippe, 2019. "Interview of Peter J. Hammond," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 50, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    5. Landeo, Claudia M., 2009. "Cognitive coherence and tort reform," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 898-912, December.
    6. Landeo, Claudia M., 2009. "Tort Reform, Disputes and Belief Formation," MPRA Paper 13453, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Julia Shamir & Noam Shamir, 2021. "Third-party funding in a sequential litigation process," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 169-202, August.
    8. Chopard, Bertrand & Cortade, Thomas & Langlais, Eric, 2010. "Trial and settlement negotiations between asymmetrically skilled parties," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 18-27, March.
    9. Antill, Samuel & Grenadier, Steven R., 2023. "Financing the litigation arms race," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(2), pages 218-234.
    10. Campos, Sergio J. & Cotton, Christopher S. & Li, Cheng, 2015. "Deterrence effects under Twombly: On the costs of increasing pleading standards in litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 61-71.
    11. Cary Deck & Paul Pecorino & Michael Solomon, 2024. "Litigation with negative expected value suits: An experimental analysis," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(2), pages 244-278, June.
    12. Schwab, Christian & Tang, Hin-Yue Benny, 2011. "Die Steuerungswirkungen unterschiedlicher Prozesskostenregelungen: Ein Überblick zum Stand von Theorie und Empirie [The economic effects of alternative fee shifting rules: A review of the theoretic," MPRA Paper 32746, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Friehe, Tim & Pham, Cat Lam, 2021. "Accident avoidance and settlement bargaining: The role of reciprocity," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    14. Landeo, Claudia & Nikitin, Maxim, 2015. "Effective Labor Relations Laws and Social Welfare," Working Papers 2015-11, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    15. Koçkesen, Levent & Usman, Murat, 2012. "Litigation and settlement under judicial agency," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 300-308.
    16. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell, 2005. "Economic Analysis of Law," Discussion Papers 05-005, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    17. Wohlschlegel, Ansgar, 2014. "The Appeals Process and Incentives to Settle," MPRA Paper 59424, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Friehe Tim & Miceli Thomas J., 2017. "A Note on Trial Delay and Social Welfare: The Impact of Multiple Equilibria," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, March.
    19. Kathryn E. Spier, 2003. "“Tied to the Mast”: Most-Favored-Nation Clauses in Settlement Contracts," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 91-120, January.
    20. Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci & Bruno Deffains, 2007. "Uncertainty of Law and the Legal Process," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(4), pages 627-656, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Access to Justice; Social Welfare; Lawsuits; Litigation; Deterrence; Third-Party Litigation Funding; Third-Party Lawyer Lending Industry; Bargaining; Asymmetric Information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2015_008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joseph Marchand (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deualca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.