This paper explores litigants’ use of the possibility to contractually re-allocate legal fees, that is, to (potentially partially) opt out of the American rule. In our screening framework with two defendant types, the plaintiff prefers offering contract proposals with fee-shifting to settling with only the defendant with a weak case when the share of that defendant type is high. In the contract, the plaintiff offers to the defendant with the strong case that the litigant defeated in court bears all legal fees (i.e., proposes a switch to the English rule). The possibility to contractually re-allocate legal fees turns out to be irrelevant for cases involving a defendant with a weak case because the plaintiff always settles with this defendant type. Importantly, we show that the private use of the contracting opportunity differs from the socially optimal use.

本文探讨了诉讼人对合同规定的法律费用重新分配的可能性的利用，即（可能部分）选择退出美国规则。在我们针对两种被告人类型的筛选框架中，当该被告人类型所占份额较高时，原告宁愿提供带有费用转移的合同建议，而不是仅与案情较弱的被告人和解。在合同中，原告向被告提供有力的证据，证明在法庭上败诉的诉讼方应承担所有法律费用（即，建议改用英国规则）。合同规定的重新分配法律费用的可能性对于涉及弱势被告的案件而言是无关紧要的，因为原告始终以这种被告人和解。重要的，