In fact, there is no such thing as "paying legal fees before filing a case". This is just that the court considers that it meets the acceptance conditions after reviewing the prosecution materials in order to facilitate the litigation of the parties, but it may be that the court still needs to go through the examination and approval procedures and cannot give you an acceptance notice immediately. In order to prevent the parties from paying the legal fees next time, they are required to pay them first.
In addition, according to the regulations, if it is a labor dispute case or a case applying for court enforcement, the plaintiff or applicant does not need to pay legal fees in advance. There is no difference between paying legal fees first and paying them later, which means that the court has formally accepted the plaintiff's lawsuit. However, if the plaintiff fails to pay within the specified time and refuses to pay after being urged, the court will dismiss the plaintiff's lawsuit.
According to the provisions of Article 22 of the Measures for Payment of Litigation Fees, the plaintiff shall pay the case acceptance fee within 7 days from the day after receiving the notice of the people's court to pay litigation fees; In a counterclaim case, the party who files a counterclaim shall pay the case acceptance fee within 7 days from the day after filing the counterclaim.
The case acceptance fee for an appeal case shall be paid in advance by the appellant when submitting an appeal to the people's court. If both parties appeal, they shall pay in advance respectively. If the appellant fails to pay the legal fees in advance during the appeal period, the people's court shall notify him to pay in advance within 7 days.
The application fee shall be paid in advance by the applicant when filing the application or within the time limit specified by the people's court. If a party fails to pay the litigation fees within the time limit and does not apply for judicial assistance, or the application for judicial assistance is not approved and fails to pay the litigation fees within the time limit specified by the people's court, the people's court shall handle it in accordance with relevant regulations.