Law Technology

What is Your Average Case Settlement?

I’ve been working with Cheryl Leone of Catalyst Group and one of the metrics that she harps on is the average case settlement. After being an injury lawyer for a period of time, I’ve noticed that if I divide the cases into smaller, medium and more substantial cases that they tend to follow the same pattern.

For example, I know any case over $100,000 will require filing suit and conducting discovery. The only way a larger case will settle early is if we clearly have a $250,000 case with only $100,000 insurance coverage. On the sizeale cases, we know that we’ll have to do our work.

Before, I had grouped cases into various categories to determine projected settlement dates and cash flow. So I wondered why the average case settlement was important. When I thought about it, it became obvious.

Let’s say your firm resolves 100 cases in a year. Will you do better if you resolve 100 cases with an average of $7,500 a case, or if you average $50,000 a case?

Yes, I know. It’s crass to boil things down to money. But, you have to. You spend a lot of time and effort in becoming a lawyer, in hiring staff, in buying office equipment and having a fully functional office. Shouldn’t you help the people that need your help the most? Shouldn’t you be helping people with more significant injuries if you can?

Case selectivity sounds ugly, but it isn’t. Clarence Darrow didn’t spend his career resolving traffic tickets and if he did, we would never have heard his name.

By tracking your average case settlement, you should be able to watch it go up and know that you are helping people that are moe significantly injured and being more profitable at the same time.

Full post as published by South Carolina Trial Law Blog on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).