Abstract: The research object includes social relations emerging in the process of application of facilitated civil legal proceedings in Russia in the late 19th century. The author considers the process of civil legal proceedings optimization, which had been carried out during the mentioned period, and reveals the shortcomings of the reform. The research subject is legal regulation of the facilitated procedure of civil cases consideration in Russia in the late 19th century. Special attention is paid to the judicial practice of application of this procedure, the information about which is contained in the archive materials. The research methodology is based on the system, historical and legal, dialectical, formal-logical methods and the complex approach. The author comes to the following conclusions. Firstly, the attempt to introduce facilitated legal proceedings in Russia in the late 19th century was unsuccessful. Secondly, the legislator had made two key mistakes when establishing the new procedure: the attempt to preserve the general principles of civil proceedings typical for the general order, and to entrust a claimant with the application of facilitated proceedings allowing him a free hand in deciding on the procedure of consideration of the case. Thirdly, the author offers two ways to solve the problem of establishing an effective mechanism of civil legal proceedings optimization: firstly, to establish an imperative list of cases, subject to a facilitated procedure; secondly, to provide for an instrument of economic incentive of facilitated civil proceeding application via establishing a complex system of court costs distribution.