In house legal staff dramaticaly lowers the costs of this sort of thing. A non-lawyer paralegal secretary does 99% of the work. Things like slip& fall cases are so routine, the paperwork and filings are mostly boilerplate. The paralegal asks the supervisor, "should we use defense #a3c on this, or #ac7?
Meanwhile the plaintiff, who is of MUCH more limited means must hire a lawyer at retail.
The corporation lawyers often use that as the only leverage needed to make a case go away. They simply keep delaying progress in the case by filing extensions, which cost them relatively nothing, while it makes the plaintiff run out of money to pay THEIR lawyer. A case can be strung along for YEARS this way.