English Rule? American Rule? Alaska Rule?

A recent Letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal (pdf) raises the point that loser pay laws will shorten the length of litigation, and lessen the overall caseload of our courts, by giving the litigants the incentive to do so. The author correctly points out that the incentive is not currently there. In fact, in many types of circumstances, there is an incentive to file more lawsuits and drag them out.

I have been working against the current for over a year now on researching, drafting and drumming up support for a hybrid law that will achieve the same goals. Although I come at this problem with a different perspective than does the author of the article, I think we both arrive at the same result.