> In the United States, the general rule is known as the "American Rule" - each party typically pays their own attorney's fees and court costs, regardless of who wins the case. This is different from many other countries that follow the "English Rule" where the losing party pays the winner's legal fees.
For the curious, one reason for the difference in rules is the different approaches to enforcing rights.
In the US there is a tendency to make private civil suits for damages a big part of this, and to rely less on government agencies to investigate and take enforcement actions.
In much of the rest of the world the is more of a tendency to have government agencies handle it. It's enough of a difference that people in the rest of the world often don't even know that a private civil suit is an option. (You can see this with GDPR. Article 79 gives individuals a right to sue, but most people seem to think their only option is to complain to a government data protection authority).
Anyway, since the US is depending on private civil suits to enforce rights the English rule of winner pays could greatly discourage those who are not well off (who are often the people most likely to have their rights violated) from suing when their rights violator has significantly more resources.
> In the United States, the general rule is known as the "American Rule" - each party typically pays their own attorney's fees and court costs, regardless of who wins the case. This is different from many other countries that follow the "English Rule" where the losing party pays the winner's legal fees.