In civil cases they're used by those who can afford them to oppress those who can't.
Lawyers follow the doctrine that both sides need representation in criminal cases but time spent is still weighted to those who pay.
Lawyers claim a position of moral neutrality when picking a side as part of a process which compensates each side differently.
One dramatic way to reform the system is to enforce an equal budget to both sides of a case in civil and criminal cases. If someone pays for thousands of hours of legal representation to attack you, you should be able to spend that money on legal representation too.
All too often defending a case is not worth the price.
Anecdotally I'd actually like to bring a case against my landlord but the similar cases against them have been sat for years and often time out due to technicalities when someone can't afford yet another solicitors letter.
No, I'll install a better designed browser instead.