european-union
Why would a lawyer accept a case that involved only $1.50 USD?
<p><a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0813349842" rel="noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>The European Union: Politics and Policies</em> (2017 6 edn)</a>. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4UdaDwAAQBAJ&amp;lpg=PT93&amp;ots=FPFhEFW2kP&amp;dq=%22labor%20flexibility%20and%20wage%20flexibility%20within%22&amp;pg=PT138#v=onepage&amp;q=%22marx%20brothers%22&amp;f=false" rel="noreferrer">pp 159 Bottom - 160 Top</a>.</p>

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  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/U2SyX.jpg" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/U2SyX.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
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<p>To wit, how did Costa find a lawyer for such a picayune quantum? I'm cynical and reckon that only a few are open-handed; most aren't. I can conceive only two reasons:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Was Costa simply lucky to have chanced on a big-hearted lawyer?</p></li>
<li><p>Another motive may be the lawyer's  longing to argue at the CJEU? </p></li>
</ol>

<ol>
<li>The amount at stake (e.g. $1.50) does not need to relate to the amount the lawyer gets paid. One could sue for $1.00 for the sake of proving they are right, pay $x,000 in legal fees, win and feel rewarded.</li>
<li><p>Lawyers can have motives to perform services other than financial gain, such as:</p>

<p>— practice</p>

<p>— publicity</p>

<p>— sympathy to the party they represent</p>

<p>— sharing the same views/principles as the party they represent and achieving personal pride by winning the case.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>For the same reason that lawyers took the case <em><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/taniguchi-v-kan-pacific-saipan-ltd/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Kouichi Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd</a></em>, 566 U.S. 560 (2012), a $5,257.20 bill of costs dispute, to the U.S. Supreme Court. (A discussion of the lawyer's motives in that case can be found <a href="https://washparkprophet.blogspot.com/2012/02/scotus-takes-up-525720-bill-of-costs.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.)</p>

<p>It was what is called a "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_case_(law)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">test case</a>", where the stakes in the particular dispute are low, but the legal principle to be resolved has broad application to many disputes large and small.</p>

<p>This kind of litigation behavior (i.e. spending far more money litigating a case than the individual dispute merits) is sometimes called "strategic litigation" behavior. Sometimes that term is referred to in the sense of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_litigation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a pattern of litigation designed to promote human rights</a> (synonymous with "impact litigation"). But, the term is also used more broadly, to refer to any lawsuit brought primarily to set a precedent rather than due to the stakes in the particular dispute at hand.</p>

<p>"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_litigation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Tactical litigation</a>", in contrast, is used to refer to the practice of pursuing a lawsuit because it will delay some action from being taken or make it costly to do so, in which the litigant doesn't care about the outcome on the merits, which is in some ways the opposite of "strategic litigation" in which the outcome on the merits has greatly exaggerated importance relative to the dispute in question.</p>
