We consider a simple model of litigation contests in which each party dedicates both “case-advancing” efforts that directly increase her probability of winning, as well as “adversarial” efforts, which harm her opponent’s strategy and decrease his likelihood of prevailing. Our model characterizes adversarial litigation efforts and the equilibrium investment in such efforts by both parties, subject to the value of winning and the costs of adversarial efforts vis-à-vis case-advancing ones. We find that litigation will always involve adversarial efforts if awards are sufficiently high, and that litigation in which most efforts are adversarial is a plausible scenario. Furthermore, in a relatively symmetric litigation that involves high awards, adversarial efforts increase the parties' likelihood of reaching a settlement agreement. In asymmetric cases, however, the existence of adversarial efforts inhibits settlement irrespective of the awards at stake.

我们考虑一个简单的诉讼竞赛模型，其中每一方都致力于直接增加其获胜概率的“案件推进”努力，以及损害对手策略并降低其获胜可能性的“对抗性”努力。我们的模型描述了对抗性诉讼努力和双方在这种努力中的均衡投资，取决于获胜的价值和对抗性努力相对于案件推进的成本。我们发现，如果裁决足够高，诉讼总是会涉及对抗性的努力，并且大多数努力都是对抗性的诉讼是一种可能的情况。此外，在涉及高额赔偿的相对对称诉讼中，对抗性努力增加了双方达成和解协议的可能性。