The economic factors are totally different here, but still it reminded me of:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2690799

quote:

"See the following paper for an economic analysis of trial by battle:

http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/LEO....

I particularly liked this quote: "[I]t's reasonable to expect to find a large number of retained legal representatives under a legal system in which people feel that their property rights are constantly threatened by rent-seeking litigiousness or in which rampant rent-seeking opportunity gives them an incentive to behave litigiously themselves. The rarity of retained champions in medieval England therefore suggests that rent seeking under trial by battle wasn't rampant.'"