Litigation

Patrick Hindert has published the third "wikipedesque" installment of "Growing the Structured Settlement market". For the third post of a series one would think that Hindert would have at least shared an idea. He fails in this regard. Hindert doesn't say much of anything he hasn't said already and more importantly continues to fail to address his postulate that factoring is route one to industry growth.

On August 7, 2008 this author has posted Issue of Factorability of Structures to Become More of a factor in Court Approvals of Settlements For Minors. If you have not read it please do. Make no mistake folks, Hindert's friends in the factoring industry are not structured settlement thought leaders.  They are the "cash now pushers" feeding on addicts, HIndert, a modern version of PT Barnum twirling his baton, and the vig takers are the embodiment of "all is not what it seems".

Hindert's cites of Towers Perrin is telling. Hindert states "Towers Perrin discontinued this portion of the analysis in 2002. It was "devilishly difficult" according to Sutter, "primarily because we lack reliable information from plaintiff attorneys".   THEREIN LIES ONE BIG PROBLEM! The percentages represented Tillinghast's "best estimate" in 2002.

Well guess what, if you talk to plaintiff attorneys and judges you will actually find that there is a major concern over the ease of factoring as I have been writing about for 3 years! What we have at this point is that in a number of cases structured settlements are easy pickings. Heard the other day in a New York Court room in a minor's case where a judge was considering competing proposals between a trust and  a structure. I understand that the only comment that one advisor had to say went something like "I have two words for you your honor...JG Wentworth" and the judge understood perfectly. All the settlement consultant (who did not enjoy a relationship with the plaintiff attorney) ended up with was "a nice day out".

This is real life folks, real financial concerns of plaintiff attorney and judge, real financial loss and waste of time for settlement consultant who had not addressed the issue and had no answers.

One of these days Patrick Hindert, will actually say something of substance that actually relates to the title of his post... "Growing the Structured Settlement Market". Until then, top of the morning to you Pat AND