DESPITE the rising costs of settlement agreements, taking a case to trial still exceeds the price of cutting a check.

Although every case differs, attorneys say that opting to settle will shave al least one-third, and frequently more, off the expense of a lawsuit. Attorneys" fees, insurance coverage and the risks of a jury' verdict often supersede the desire to prove who's right.

"If the difference is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, almost any sophisticated business litigator will say, "If the parties work hard, we should be able to settle this case,'" said Jeffrey Riffer, a partner of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro LLP. "In the long run, it's economics."

The highest cost in trying a case is attorneys' tees. At $300 to $400 per hour, paying a lawyer can account for hundreds of thousands of dollars of an overall trial cost.

"The attorneys' costs are so huge today it's almost insane," said Joel Grossman, former deputy general counsel of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and now at ADR Services Inc., a private arbitration and mediation firm. "There's no way to intelligently litigate a case where there's less than a couple of hundred thousand dollars involved. It doesn't make any sense."

In divorce cases, emotional issues often cloud decisions about settling. But once the dust has settled, taking the case to trial often proves too costly even for the wealthiest of clients.