In every high-volume personal injury practice, it is essential to strike a balance between working efficiently to keep cases moving toward resolution while using care not to overlook significant facts that add to the value of each and every case. These facts can pertain to liability or damages, as well as other factors, such as a client’s witness potential and total available insurance coverage. These are the primary things that impact the settlement or resolution value of cases, and within them are what we refer to as “Value Drivers.” For lawyers and paralegals who handle high caseloads, significant facts can sometimes get lost in the voluminous notes recorded on each file. We’d like to share a tried-and-true method of ensuring that what’s really important never gets lost or buried within the notes, but rather is quickly and easily identifiable in every case through the proper use of your case management system.
As personal injury lawyers, our goal is to ensure our clients receive fair compensation for their losses and damages. Maximizing the value of each case is not only beneficial for our clients, but also essential for maintaining a successful and profitable practice. By identifying and properly utilizing value drivers, we can effectively argue for higher settlements or verdict amounts.
Value Drivers are the facts, qualities, events, or triggers that drive up the value of a case to the next level. They are the key pieces of information that make a case stand out and justify a higher settlement or verdict amount. These could be anything from clear liability to high medical bills, severe injuries, or even a sympathetic client story. Identifying these value drivers is crucial for maximizing the value of every case.
Value drivers can be liability-related factors such as gross negligence or aggravating circumstances like DUI, texting while driving, or damages-related things, such as specific injury symptoms, brain injuries, sensory loss, radiating pain, as well as the diagnostic test results that confirm these findings.
As we know, soft tissue neck or back injuries often resolve with a brief course of conservative treatment such as physical therapy, but this is not always the case. Sometimes, our clients' injuries develop into significant and even permanent problems, and when they do, we must have a system in place for recognizing them immediately. Some examples of soft tissue value drivers are positive MRIs, epidural injections, and surgeries.
In serious injury, non-soft tissue cases, fractures, severe scarring, loss of use of an organ or limb, etc., may also be considered value drivers. These, too, can be tracked in discrete data fields in a case management system. However, we have found that the risk of failing to maximize case value is much more likely in soft tissue injury cases. Therefore, we recommend beginning your data-tracking journey with soft-tissue value drivers.
We recommend using a method to systematically isolate value drivers on all auto and personal injury cases in your case management system. By singling out this data, separate and apart from freeform text or notes in the system, value drivers become easily identifiable and reportable. Most case management systems either provide these data fields or allow users to add user-defined custom fields. Once a custom field is added, management should make users aware that the new field now exists and what the specific expectation for populating each field is.
Once you’ve isolated each value driver in a discrete data field, the task of reporting on this critical information becomes much easier. Many leading case management systems offer advanced reporting and dashboard functionality within their platforms. Make sure you create reports that include any user-defined fields you've created to track value drivers. Firm managers, attorneys, and paralegals should all be given access to run their own reports so that they can easily spot cases with value drivers and give them the attention they may need. Firms that have not yet implemented a case management system may opt for a lower-tech approach like an Excel sheet. While this option isn't ideal, it still provides a means by which to capture, track, and report on critical case data.
Value driver reports can provide a wealth of information to you. They can help you identify patterns and trends in your cases, such as which types of injuries or liability factors tend to garner higher settlements. With this information, you can better assess potential settlements and negotiate with insurance companies more effectively. Some important things value driver reports can show are:
These are the soft tissue cases that have the potential to develop into significant, high-value cases and should be flagged as such in each lawyer’s case inventory. These cases may require more attention from the attorney and may need to be prepared for litigation early rather than likely to settle before litigation.
Imagine being able to instantly produce a list of all clients who have had a positive MRI but no injections. Or a list of clients who have had injections but no surgery. Or a list of clients who have had surgery and where policy limits are $500,000 or more? All of this is readily available at the click of a button when you take the time to isolate and track value drivers in your system.
Once our clients have concluded their course of treatment and all records are received, it’s time to draft the demand. In a high-volume, fast-moving practice, it is too easy for meaningful information that should be emphasized in a demand brochure to get buried deep within the file notes and sometimes be missed. By building out your system to capture the most important value drivers, and developing reporting to easily retrieve it, you can greatly reduce the risk of missing anything!
Attorneys and paralegals should be encouraged to run their value driver reports on a regular basis while their clients are treating to ensure the potential for treatment gaps are eliminated and that clients are receiving the treatment they need from the right providers. When done properly, this system increases the likelihood that every client receives the right treatment at the right time until they reach maximum medical improvement.
In addition to isolating value drivers to track damages, you may also want to track liability factors and coverage information the same way. By doing so, you are isolating your case’s strengths, which can be easily summarized and retrieved at the click of a button when it’s time to prepare the demand, enter settlement negotiations, or begin trial prep.
Overall, understanding and effectively using value drivers is an essential skill for any personal injury lawyer, and incorporating this practice into your case management system can greatly benefit both your clients and your firm's success. Keep track of those value drivers and watch as they drive up the settlement or resolution values in your cases! Keep on striving towards maximizing case value, one value driver at a time.
At Vista, we are dedicated to helping your plaintiff’s personal injury firm achieve similar success. Our goal is to empower you with the tools and insights necessary to enhance your practice. By assisting you in tracking key value drivers and building comprehensive reports, we enable you to retrieve crucial data that can inform your decision-making process. This approach not only streamlines your operations, but also strengthens your case strategies. For more information on how to get started with this valuable initiative, please don’t hesitate to contact us! We’re here to support you every step of the way.
