Perhaps the plaintiff should be required to contribute all the legal fees for the defendant (up to a maximum). If the defendant loses the lawsuit, he must pay the plaintiff back for his own legal fees in addition to the damages that he must pay.
I've suggested before in other threads that legal fees should be contributed to a shared pool and divided equally between both parties, with some minimum contribution set based on income and net worth. This would allow a defendant who is decidedly in the right to survive an attack by a significantly larger plaintiff.
That would be great except the defendant still has to pay up front.
Actually it's not great since a disproportionate part of the outcome of legal proceedings is luck, just like all of life.
legal proceedings works - just that it is really really expensive. Justice is expensive.
What about this: you drag me to court, you ask me X millions in damages; if you lose, you owe me X millions. Now that's a lawsuit I would pay for upfront if I think I'm in the right. Even better: many lawyers would probably fight to get my profitable suit pro-bono so they can cash in a big chunk of the eventual damages I would get.