Economic incentives of legal fees to public attorneys under the Brazilian Civil Procedural Code

Abstract

Among the legal changes brought by the Brazilian Civil Procedure Code of 2015, there is a section that ruled that the attorneys’ fees shall be paid to public attorneys when any governmental entity is the wining party in a lawsuit. The present article analyses the incentives that such rule created to the public attorneys’ performance, based on the theory of the Economic Analyses of Law. Among the preliminary conclusions, is the inference that such rule created low and negligible incentives to the performance of federal government’s public attorneys and created high and significant incentives to municipal and state public attorneys, who are encouraged to perform in a way to maximize their individual gains, even when it is contrary to the public’s interest.