Issues raised by costs and funding are of great significance in countries that have during the past decades reformed their civil procedure rules to reduce delays and costs. The article provides a general overview of distribution of legal costs in Finland. The emphasis is on the rule that determines the liability for a loser to reimburse a winner. The primary concern of the observations is with the fact that litigation costs are unpredictable and sometimes even undisproportionate. Yet the system shifts nearly all of the litigation costs to the loser. A positive remark is the fact that there is an exception rule that makes ex officio judicial control possible and coud, to some extent, assure equality of arms between litigants of widely differing resources. However, in practise, it seems that the rule is too complicated and is not working effectively. The legal analysis focuses on the question whether cost shifting rules in reality constitute serious barries for access to court and thus endanger private people´s access to justice by limiting their individual rights.