Lawsuits are already weapons. This isn't obviously a massive enhancement. At most, it increases costs by a factor of 2 for rich defendants, while greatly improving (if it works as planned!) the position of poor defendants.

OK. So the English rule is a weakened version of this; we should expect to see great improvements from it, since between it and contingency-fees and class-actions, poor defendants have much greater financial wherewithal than their poverty would allow. Do we see great improvements? If we don't, why would we expect your full-strength treatment to work?

And if we can't justify it on any empirical grounds, why on earth would you put it forward on theoretical grounds when a minute's thought shows multiple issues with it, to say nothing of how one would actually enforce equitable spending? (The issue would seem to be as difficult & tricky as enforcing campaign finance laws...) And if I, an utter layman to the law, can come up with flaws you seem to acknowledge as real, how many ways could a legal eagle come up with to abuse it?

Well, a lot of what you're pointing out here is the result of other systemic problems that need other systemic fixes.

That's pretty lame. Reminds me of Yvain's "Solutions to Political Problems As Counterfactuals":

"She said that instead of a flashy and expensive public awareness campaign, the real solution was for binge drinkers to take responsibility for their own actions and learn that there were ways to have fun that didn't involve alcohol.

This struck me as a misguided line of thinking. Consider this analogy: pretend that the city government was, instead, increasing the number of police to prevent terrorist attacks. And that the writer was arguing that no, we shouldn't get the police involved: the real solution was for terrorists to stop being so violent and attacking people. This would be a weird and completely useless response."