Murillo Gutier | murillo@gutier.adv.br
Abstract
This article examines the systematic devaluation of attorney’s fees awarded due to defeat in the Brazilian Judiciary from a psychoanalytic perspective. Although Article 85 of the CPC establishes precise rules — with express percentages, graduated brackets, and a prohibition of equity in high-value cases —, the STJ has already established 43 binding theses on the subject, a statistical volume that reveals a mismatch between normative clarity and concrete application.
The analysis draws on the concept of defense by devaluation (devaluation defense) from Melanie Klein and on the Lacanian theory of envy, to demonstrate that the discretionary reduction of attorney’s fees is not a mere technical error, but a psychic symptom: the attempt to neutralize the narcissistic pain caused by the existence of the good object — the lawyer’s remuneration.
The article analyzes the institutional costs of this symptom — the impoverishment of legal certainty, the artificial inflation of litigation, and the institutional solitude of the lawyer — and proposes as a way out the conversion of envy into gratitude, which translates, on the institutional plane, into compliance with the law and the recognition of advocacy as a function coessential to Justice.
Keywords: Attorney’s fees. Art. 85 CPC. Tribunalization. Envy. Devaluation. Melanie Klein. Lacan. Psychoanalysis and Law. Legal certainty. STJ.