Everyone thinks the U.S. is the most litigious, but some data suggests we rank in the middle

My friend Jeff Hodge, Executive Director – Corporate at doeLEGAL, wrote a fascinating blog post about law suits per person in major countries. He cites research in Christian Wollschlager, Exploring Global Landscapes of Litigation (Nomos 1998) and testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary in 2004 by Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor at Cornell.

For a fuller list of countries, see Jeff’s post. In short, over a decade ago Germany came tops in this dubious metric, with 123.2 cases per 1,000 people. The US, in the middle, had 74.5 cases per 1,000; and France was the lowest, at 40.3 cases.

Not having reviewed the underlying data and methodology, all I can say is that if the cases against corporations are roughly similar in scope and expense across countries this information should make law department managers of litigation re-think where their litigation load and cost arises.