Optimality of Attorney’s Fee-Shifting Rules: An Empirical Investigation

국문 초록 (Abstract)

민사소송비용 중 상당 부분을 차지하는 변호사 보수에 대한 패소자의 부담 정도는 당사자들의 소송유인에 큰 영향을 미친다. 본고에서는 본안사건 및 소송비용확정사건의 자료를 수집하여 소송가액에 따른 패소자부담 인정비율의 실제적인 수준을 파악하고 나아가 최적인정비율을 추정하고자 했다. 우선 국내 법집행하의 실제인정비율은 ‘미국방식’인 0과‘영국방식’인 1의 사이인 것으로 추정되었다. 관련 법제들을 검토한 결과, 미국 및 영국을 포함한 대부분의 국가에서도 부분적인 인정비율이 적용되고 있는 것으로 관찰되었다. 다음으로 간략한 모형을 활용하여 인정비율이 남소 억제와 정당소송 장려라는 상충된 두 목적과 직결된다는 점을 체계적으로 보인 뒤, 최적성을 갖는 인정비율 수준을 추정했다. 주요 결과로서, 재판받을 권리에 대해 더 많은 가치를 부여할수록 인정비율을 낮출 필요가 있으며, 법률서비스시장이 경쟁적일수록 낮은 변호사 보수하에서 높은 인정비율이 바람직한 것으로 나타났다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Shifting rules of attorney’s fees directly affect the essential aspects of litigation such as incentives to file different lawsuits. We estimate the actual and optimal shifting-ratios of attorney’s fees by utilizing a very unique court dataset from South Korea. First, we found that the actual value of the shifting-ratio is some distance from either 0 (i.e., the American Rule) or 1 (i.e., the British Rule). We observe that this would hold for most countries including even the U.S. and the U.K. worldwide. The optimality is then derived through modeling a tradeoff of deterring the ‘frivolous suit’vs. encouraging the‘ meritorious suit’with the shifting ratios. We reach important conclusions, for example, that the optimal ratio should be lowered in countries with a stronger constitutional belief in the trial right, while it should be raised as the legal services market becomes more competitive.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. Introduction
• Ⅱ. The Literature: Some Clarifications
• Ⅲ. Partial Fee-Shifting, Tradeoff, and Optimality
• Ⅳ. Empirical Analysis
• Ⅴ. Summary and Policy Implications
• References
• 국문초록

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