While establishing case intake procedures and systems will yield more leads to your law firm, creating an in-house, case evaluation committee can potentially increase your average settlement significantly. However, any resulting success depends on how a law firm values its cases.

Typically, lawyers will have varying assessments on a case’s value despite being presented with the same facts of the case. The variation in dollar amounts comes down to the lawyer’s experience and risk tolerance.  One attorney could value a case at $70,000 simply because their risk tolerance is lower, and they are comparing it to previous cases with similar parameters. However, an attorney with a higher risk tolerance may value the same case at $150,000 because they see that there’s additional workup which can be done to exponentially increase the settlement value.

According to Chad Dudley, managing partner at Dudley Debosier Injury Lawyers, “As soon as you have more than one attorney in your office, there’s the possibility that they will look at the value of a case differently, and that problem exponentially increases every time you add an attorney.”

The key to leveraging an in-house case evaluation committee is to have the attorney with the highest risk tolerance on the committee set the case value. That attorney may see opportunities other colleagues overlook, which could be worked up to maximize the settlement value.

Without a committee, the law firm may miss out not only on the opportunity for more revenue, but also for the client. Additionally, higher settlement amounts could lead to more exposure in the marketplace and minimize the chance of potential clients ‘shopping’ their case around.

Establishing a case evaluation committee, where the attorney with the highest risk tolerance consults and sets case value for the firm’s cases is a key that could quickly increase revenue and growth.

Click above to watch this 3-minute video, featuring Chad Dudley – managing partner at Dudley DeBosier Injury Lawyers.

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