EP 43: How Do You Determine the Value of a Catastrophic Case?

Welcome to the catastrophic comeback podcast with American Injury Lawyer Clark speaks, helping you find hope, purpose and joy after a catastrophic injury.

Hi, welcome to catastrophic comeback. I'm continuing my conversation with Jeff Watson managing partner at Speex. Law Firm. Jeff, I want to talk to you for a few minutes about case value. You know, when we, when we sit down with somebody who's been catastrophically injured, you know, they're worried about their future, they're worried about their independence, they're worried about their families. A lot of times there are people who work hard they have their part of their identity is to be able to take care of their families and provide for them, and and they're worried that that's under attack that's threatened, rightfully so. And what they want to know is, how much is this case worth? And you know, and that kind of thing. So talk to me for a minute about case value under those circumstances, when you meet with somebody early on in the case, who's just been catastrophically injured, traumatic brain injury, paralysis, lost limb, you know, Loss level and something like that. Do you know what the value is?

Not that early on. I mean, any lawyer that tells you, they can predict what your case is worth in the first week doesn't know what they're doing. There's no way to tell that until you know how that person treats how long they treat, whether they get well, whether they don't get well, what kind of permanent disabilities they might have. You know, we don't often know until sometimes we're deep into the case that a particular expert is required, you know, different things happen as you're developing the case. So you don't know it up front, you kind of develop that as the case is going on. So when I try to be upfront with people say, hey, you know, it's too early, I don't know what your case is worth right now. You know, I'll let you know, when I feel like we've got our hands around this, and it's further down the road. But, you know, that's where you've got to trust that your lawyer is going to develop it to the maximum that they can, when

you bring up a good point. It's not just a matter of waiting and seeing what the value of this case is. It's some of that, and really, a lot of that is within the control, or at least the influence of the lawyer or law firm that's handling the case. Is that right? Yeah, for

sure. I mean, you know, I've had cases that when they came in the door, it looked like it was a $50,000 car wreck. And as I got investigating it, you know, we get to know these clients personally, you know, once I got to investigating it, and looking at what this person was actually going through, I realized, you know, there's a huge economic impact here to this case, that, that we're not evaluate, and it's not just, you know, the fact that they were out of work for six months, you know, this is, is going to affect the rest of their life, you know, and so it's finding that expert that can come in and quantify that. And, you know, this particular case, I'm thinking about, we did that, and the economic report, you know, I'm thinking is 50,000, our case, economic report is going to come back and it's going to be, you know, $50,000, came back at 1.1 million. And I was like, Whoa, I mean, you know, and this is not a, this is not somebody just making up something. This is an economist, a well respected economist who's like a professor at universities, and he works for plaintiffs, he works for a defense he works for, like, he's a well respected guy, and he's coming up with an economic impact. And then we start digging around and we find out well, there's going to be future medical care, there's disabilities, you know, different things in this case that that develop it. And now, that case went from being a case that it looked like an ordinary case. You know, I daresay most lawyers would have looked at that case and thought this is an ordinary case, let's, you know, they're, well, let's get the medical bills, record Senate office make a demand for 100,000. And we'll sell it for 50. You know, and good job. That would not be a good job, you know, because this case had far more reaching, you know, but I was able to recognize that because we do these cases all the time, and I can kind of see, you know, now that not every case is like that sometimes the 50,000 our case is 50,000. Or sometimes a case will come in and it looks like it's 50,000 and it's actually less because there are different things and past medical records or treatment or things that go into the case. But you know, most of the time we're trying to build value in these cases, get the maximum out we can for the clients. And part of the trick That is recognizing when there's something underneath the surface. That's a big deal. And that's not always easy to spot.

Sure. Yeah. Well, so So let me ask you this, in terms of once you have all those pieces of the puzzle in place, you have your assessment in terms of liability. Is it clear? Is it not clear? You have your, you know, if it's if it's companion case, workers comp, and third party liability, you know, all the different, you know, the lost wages, you know, the future impairment, permanent impairment, you know, the, you know, the ratings, you know, the weekly wage, you know, the prognosis, and then in third party liability case, you know, you have your liability assessed, you have your experts in place, you have your future medicals, calculated your economic damages, calculated your causation experts in place, you know, how do you how do you come up with a number at that point in time?

Well, so, I mean, every case is a little bit different. But at that point, we're looking at it from an experienced standpoint, you know, I've had, I've had this exact case, or almost this exact case, over the last 25 years. Or if you count the adjuster days, for 28 or 29 years, I've had it multiple times, I know what this case is worth, because I've seen it before, you know, or I've tried this case in front of a jury. And I've seen what a jury would do. And this county also tried it in this other county over here. And it was a whole different result, because the people in the counties weren't the same, you know. So it's the experience. And then when you take our collaborative effort of all the lawyers here, who've got 25 years and 35 years and 15 years and 20 years and all of this experience, and you put them all in one room thinking through all of the details and logistics of these cases. That's a lot of experience. I mean, that has a lot of people, you know, who who've got an opinion on what this case is worth. And generally when we we do that, and hone in on it, it's remarkable how accurate rails are particularly at these cases.

So I'm thinking of two examples of this. Like, I remember seeing this video of Lane Kiffin when he was a offensive coordinator for Alabama football team, I remember seeing a video where they're starting at the very beginning of the play starts to unfold. And and then Lane Kiffin raises his hands up like touchdown, like he's celebrating. And at first it looks completely out of place until you see the thing develop. And then you see the receiver running down the field completely uncovered. And then the quarterback throws in the ball. And it is a touchdown. He just could see it before then, because he knew he had so much experience. And he knew he and he was involved in the creation and design of the play. Another example might be, you know, when in FL and maybe I'll watch too much football but but in the NFL, where, you know, Tony Romo, who was a very experienced for football player comments on on plays, and he can see them developing before everybody else because of his because of his experience. So when we're trying to forecast the value of a claim, you know, we're trying to look at it ahead and say, Well, if we put all this information in front of a jury in this place, with this judge, and this lawyer, and this plaintiff and this defendant in this fact, and this, and the more information we put into this into our own mental analysis, you know, then then the better, predictable and more predictable, I think the more accurately we can predict what the actual value of this claim is. And then that helps us when it comes to settlement negotiations. Because we can say, hey, you know, we think this case is worth this much money. And we have a high degree of confidence about that. So you can pay us this much money, or you can take the risk of a worse result. And continue observing incurring the defense costs. So, so that's why the predictability of that becomes so important. Let me ask you this. Over time, you know what, you know, and based on that experience, and based on the way that we have done those things, have you found that our ability to forecast if case values is is is good, or what?

Yeah, I mean, I can think of three or four catastrophic cases that we resolved in the last year, all of which were multi billion dollar cases and we predicted sometimes to the penny. It's really crazy like to the penny, we predicted what the result was going to be. Other times you know, we were within You know, a couple 1000 or 10 20,000, or eight a fairly close, but you're talking about millions of dollars in value. And, you know, it's important to know the insurance companies do the same thing. Their lawyers that are working, these catastrophic cases are super experienced. They've tried these cases all over the place. They know what these cases are worth. They've done their jury verdict research like we do. They even have machines, computer systems that they can plug data into that will pop out case values. And they do that for everything from your simple car wreck to your catastrophic cases. And those computers, some of that is the AI that we talked about, you know, where they're pulling all this data from all over the place, and coming

algorithms AI. And when you say AI, artificial intelligence, how does that? How does that come into play here?

Yeah, I mean, they've got computer systems that that can pull case values from across the country, or in that particular jurisdiction where the case is being held, even even as specific as cases against that particular lawyer, or that defendant or whatever? Yeah, I mean, like, they can say, well, if we're dealing with Clark speaks, here's the average value of the cases we've resolved with him versus, you know, John, I'm making this name out with John Smith, or whatever lawyer. You know, they know what the average result is, with John Smith, they know it in the county, they don't want in the state, they know it for this kind of accident with, you know, all these details, they're doing the same things. So if you don't have somebody that does this a lot and their experience, they're going to miss value, the case is going to make it devalued, so high, that it's not realistic to what a jury would actually do. Or, and the case never settles and you try it and you get a bad result. Or they devalue it, and it's too low. And now you've settled for an amount when you should have gotten instead of you settle for 1 million when you should have gotten 10. Right.

Yeah. So I think that's, I think that's important information to, to know. And so it's the, so it's the experience that so when we talk about so we've talked before about, we have an exceptional case, division for these higher value cases, for catastrophic cases, and the process that we go through to build and, and evaluate these different cases. And so as a result of that, I keep a list of all these cases. And it is it is incredible to me, how accurately this team of experienced lawyers is apt at selecting at predicting these and but our job is not necessarily to be right. Our job is to forecast and to build the case, to support, you know, to support those values. And then to let the client make a decision. But that information helps the client make a decision with confidence. Is that right?

Yeah, it's critical. I mean, if the client is trying to decide, should I file this lawsuit or not? Or should I decline this million dollar offer? And take this thing in front of a jury with the risks of that, and the expensive experts testify? Should I take all of that risk? I'm banking on my lawyer being able to tell me, if we take this risk, here's kind of the the worst we could do. And here's the best we could do. And this is kind of where I think this thing is going to land in front of a jury. And you know, that's critical. You know, it's also when you were talking, I was thinking about defense lawyers, you know, I know, you and I both know, a lot of the big defense lawyers here in North Carolina, this area of the country, South Carolina. And those lawyers, because they know what they're doing. If they're talking with a lawyer on the phone, who's throwing around some crazy number that is not realistic at all, either too high or too low, or is too low. Like they know that they know okay, this guy does not know what he's doing. So I'm gonna take this not

gonna say anything, they're just gonna sit back quietly, yeah, play the course close to the vest, and then continue while you make the mistakes that cost your client millions of dollars.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm going to take this guy for a rock, you know, and I'm not the least bit worried about trying this case in front of this guy, or against this guy, you know, but if you know what you're doing, and you've done it before, and they've dealt with you before, you know, they know, oh, like, I know, Clark speaks. Or I know Jeff Watson this way or the other, you know, all, all the lawyers in our firm like, they know who they are. They know they know what they're doing. And they know they'll try case and so it matters from a settlement perspective. And the client ultimately has to rely upon their lawyer to give them accurate information. So

as you're talking, this is what I was thinking. I'm thinking about in every one of these situations where you have, you know, if the only way you get a $10 million outcome, or a $20 million outcome is if you turned down five or you turned down $10 million and turning down $10 million is not an easy thing for anybody to know. You know, and when you do turn down $10 million, you You're nobody knows for sure. But you're going to be dependent on the assessment, the assessment, the value assessment of the guy sitting beside you, or the team sitting beside you. And so it is you want to be able to make that decision with confidence. You know, and, and like when we advise people under those circumstances, we don't say do this, don't do that, you know, because we're respectful of the fact that this, we don't necessarily know for sure, it's not our case, it's not our case. So our obligation is to give them information and opinions and so that they can make good decisions. But those informed they're going to rely on the decision on the information that we give. So that information, you know, everybody might give them the best information that they have. I think that's every lawyer's ethical obligation. But unless you have the experience in dealing with not just k injury injury case, not just cases, and not just injury cases, but catastrophic injury cases and multimillion dollar injury cases, and life changing injuries. I don't know how you, I don't know how you give that give that advice.

I don't either. I mean, it, it's not, it's not easy for the client to make that decision to turn down $5 million. It's also not easy for the lawyer to recommend to that client that they turned out by $15. It is more comforting for us in this firm, because we've got so many experienced lawyers that when we round table these things we can see if we're offering, like if we're all come to the table with an independent judgment on this on this case, for you know, this client, and and you say, Well, what do you think this is worth? You know, and I say $10 million. And everybody else around the table says $15 million. Okay, well, I'm, I must be like that I'm probably off on this. Because, you know, there's 10 of the lawyers here saying, and they're all in line, like, you know, so it helps us to be able to sort of make sure everybody's on the same page. And we're all kind of evaluating this accurately if that many good lawyers say this is what the value ranges that case, we're probably right on it.

We'll take a break and we'll come back and talk about artificial intelligence. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Welcome to the catastrophic comeback podcast with American Injury Lawyer Clark speaks, helping you find hope, purpose and joy after a catastrophic injury.

Hi, welcome to catastrophic comeback. I'm continuing my conversation with Jeff Watson managing partner at Speex. Law Firm. Jeff, I want to talk to you for a few minutes about case value. You know, when we, when we sit down with somebody who's been catastrophically injured, you know, they're worried about their future, they're worried about their independence, they're worried about their families. A lot of times there are people who work hard they have their part of their identity is to be able to take care of their families and provide for them, and and they're worried that that's under attack that's threatened, rightfully so. And what they want to know is, how much is this case worth? And you know, and that kind of thing. So talk to me for a minute about case value under those circumstances, when you meet with somebody early on in the case, who's just been catastrophically injured, traumatic brain injury, paralysis, lost limb, you know, Loss level and something like that. Do you know what the value is?

Not that early on. I mean, any lawyer that tells you, they can predict what your case is worth in the first week doesn't know what they're doing. There's no way to tell that until you know how that person treats how long they treat, whether they get well, whether they don't get well, what kind of permanent disabilities they might have. You know, we don't often know until sometimes we're deep into the case that a particular expert is required, you know, different things happen as you're developing the case. So you don't know it up front, you kind of develop that as the case is going on. So when I try to be upfront with people say, hey, you know, it's too early, I don't know what your case is worth right now. You know, I'll let you know, when I feel like we've got our hands around this, and it's further down the road. But, you know, that's where you've got to trust that your lawyer is going to develop it to the maximum that they can, when

you bring up a good point. It's not just a matter of waiting and seeing what the value of this case is. It's some of that, and really, a lot of that is within the control, or at least the influence of the lawyer or law firm that's handling the case. Is that right? Yeah, for

sure. I mean, you know, I've had cases that when they came in the door, it looked like it was a $50,000 car wreck. And as I got investigating it, you know, we get to know these clients personally, you know, once I got to investigating it, and looking at what this person was actually going through, I realized, you know, there's a huge economic impact here to this case, that, that we're not evaluate, and it's not just, you know, the fact that they were out of work for six months, you know, this is, is going to affect the rest of their life, you know, and so it's finding that expert that can come in and quantify that. And, you know, this particular case, I'm thinking about, we did that, and the economic report, you know, I'm thinking is 50,000, our case, economic report is going to come back and it's going to be, you know, $50,000, came back at 1.1 million. And I was like, Whoa, I mean, you know, and this is not a, this is not somebody just making up something. This is an economist, a well respected economist who's like a professor at universities, and he works for plaintiffs, he works for a defense he works for, like, he's a well respected guy, and he's coming up with an economic impact. And then we start digging around and we find out well, there's going to be future medical care, there's disabilities, you know, different things in this case that that develop it. And now, that case went from being a case that it looked like an ordinary case. You know, I daresay most lawyers would have looked at that case and thought this is an ordinary case, let's, you know, they're, well, let's get the medical bills, record Senate office make a demand for 100,000. And we'll sell it for 50. You know, and good job. That would not be a good job, you know, because this case had far more reaching, you know, but I was able to recognize that because we do these cases all the time, and I can kind of see, you know, now that not every case is like that sometimes the 50,000 our case is 50,000. Or sometimes a case will come in and it looks like it's 50,000 and it's actually less because there are different things and past medical records or treatment or things that go into the case. But you know, most of the time we're trying to build value in these cases, get the maximum out we can for the clients. And part of the trick That is recognizing when there's something underneath the surface. That's a big deal. And that's not always easy to spot.

Sure. Yeah. Well, so So let me ask you this, in terms of once you have all those pieces of the puzzle in place, you have your assessment in terms of liability. Is it clear? Is it not clear? You have your, you know, if it's if it's companion case, workers comp, and third party liability, you know, all the different, you know, the lost wages, you know, the future impairment, permanent impairment, you know, the, you know, the ratings, you know, the weekly wage, you know, the prognosis, and then in third party liability case, you know, you have your liability assessed, you have your experts in place, you have your future medicals, calculated your economic damages, calculated your causation experts in place, you know, how do you how do you come up with a number at that point in time?

Well, so, I mean, every case is a little bit different. But at that point, we're looking at it from an experienced standpoint, you know, I've had, I've had this exact case, or almost this exact case, over the last 25 years. Or if you count the adjuster days, for 28 or 29 years, I've had it multiple times, I know what this case is worth, because I've seen it before, you know, or I've tried this case in front of a jury. And I've seen what a jury would do. And this county also tried it in this other county over here. And it was a whole different result, because the people in the counties weren't the same, you know. So it's the experience. And then when you take our collaborative effort of all the lawyers here, who've got 25 years and 35 years and 15 years and 20 years and all of this experience, and you put them all in one room thinking through all of the details and logistics of these cases. That's a lot of experience. I mean, that has a lot of people, you know, who who've got an opinion on what this case is worth. And generally when we we do that, and hone in on it, it's remarkable how accurate rails are particularly at these cases.

So I'm thinking of two examples of this. Like, I remember seeing this video of Lane Kiffin when he was a offensive coordinator for Alabama football team, I remember seeing a video where they're starting at the very beginning of the play starts to unfold. And and then Lane Kiffin raises his hands up like touchdown, like he's celebrating. And at first it looks completely out of place until you see the thing develop. And then you see the receiver running down the field completely uncovered. And then the quarterback throws in the ball. And it is a touchdown. He just could see it before then, because he knew he had so much experience. And he knew he and he was involved in the creation and design of the play. Another example might be, you know, when in FL and maybe I'll watch too much football but but in the NFL, where, you know, Tony Romo, who was a very experienced for football player comments on on plays, and he can see them developing before everybody else because of his because of his experience. So when we're trying to forecast the value of a claim, you know, we're trying to look at it ahead and say, Well, if we put all this information in front of a jury in this place, with this judge, and this lawyer, and this plaintiff and this defendant in this fact, and this, and the more information we put into this into our own mental analysis, you know, then then the better, predictable and more predictable, I think the more accurately we can predict what the actual value of this claim is. And then that helps us when it comes to settlement negotiations. Because we can say, hey, you know, we think this case is worth this much money. And we have a high degree of confidence about that. So you can pay us this much money, or you can take the risk of a worse result. And continue observing incurring the defense costs. So, so that's why the predictability of that becomes so important. Let me ask you this. Over time, you know what, you know, and based on that experience, and based on the way that we have done those things, have you found that our ability to forecast if case values is is is good, or what?

Yeah, I mean, I can think of three or four catastrophic cases that we resolved in the last year, all of which were multi billion dollar cases and we predicted sometimes to the penny. It's really crazy like to the penny, we predicted what the result was going to be. Other times you know, we were within You know, a couple 1000 or 10 20,000, or eight a fairly close, but you're talking about millions of dollars in value. And, you know, it's important to know the insurance companies do the same thing. Their lawyers that are working, these catastrophic cases are super experienced. They've tried these cases all over the place. They know what these cases are worth. They've done their jury verdict research like we do. They even have machines, computer systems that they can plug data into that will pop out case values. And they do that for everything from your simple car wreck to your catastrophic cases. And those computers, some of that is the AI that we talked about, you know, where they're pulling all this data from all over the place, and coming

algorithms AI. And when you say AI, artificial intelligence, how does that? How does that come into play here?

Yeah, I mean, they've got computer systems that that can pull case values from across the country, or in that particular jurisdiction where the case is being held, even even as specific as cases against that particular lawyer, or that defendant or whatever? Yeah, I mean, like, they can say, well, if we're dealing with Clark speaks, here's the average value of the cases we've resolved with him versus, you know, John, I'm making this name out with John Smith, or whatever lawyer. You know, they know what the average result is, with John Smith, they know it in the county, they don't want in the state, they know it for this kind of accident with, you know, all these details, they're doing the same things. So if you don't have somebody that does this a lot and their experience, they're going to miss value, the case is going to make it devalued, so high, that it's not realistic to what a jury would actually do. Or, and the case never settles and you try it and you get a bad result. Or they devalue it, and it's too low. And now you've settled for an amount when you should have gotten instead of you settle for 1 million when you should have gotten 10. Right.

Yeah. So I think that's, I think that's important information to, to know. And so it's the, so it's the experience that so when we talk about so we've talked before about, we have an exceptional case, division for these higher value cases, for catastrophic cases, and the process that we go through to build and, and evaluate these different cases. And so as a result of that, I keep a list of all these cases. And it is it is incredible to me, how accurately this team of experienced lawyers is apt at selecting at predicting these and but our job is not necessarily to be right. Our job is to forecast and to build the case, to support, you know, to support those values. And then to let the client make a decision. But that information helps the client make a decision with confidence. Is that right?

Yeah, it's critical. I mean, if the client is trying to decide, should I file this lawsuit or not? Or should I decline this million dollar offer? And take this thing in front of a jury with the risks of that, and the expensive experts testify? Should I take all of that risk? I'm banking on my lawyer being able to tell me, if we take this risk, here's kind of the the worst we could do. And here's the best we could do. And this is kind of where I think this thing is going to land in front of a jury. And you know, that's critical. You know, it's also when you were talking, I was thinking about defense lawyers, you know, I know, you and I both know, a lot of the big defense lawyers here in North Carolina, this area of the country, South Carolina. And those lawyers, because they know what they're doing. If they're talking with a lawyer on the phone, who's throwing around some crazy number that is not realistic at all, either too high or too low, or is too low. Like they know that they know okay, this guy does not know what he's doing. So I'm gonna take this not

gonna say anything, they're just gonna sit back quietly, yeah, play the course close to the vest, and then continue while you make the mistakes that cost your client millions of dollars.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm going to take this guy for a rock, you know, and I'm not the least bit worried about trying this case in front of this guy, or against this guy, you know, but if you know what you're doing, and you've done it before, and they've dealt with you before, you know, they know, oh, like, I know, Clark speaks. Or I know Jeff Watson this way or the other, you know, all, all the lawyers in our firm like, they know who they are. They know they know what they're doing. And they know they'll try case and so it matters from a settlement perspective. And the client ultimately has to rely upon their lawyer to give them accurate information. So

as you're talking, this is what I was thinking. I'm thinking about in every one of these situations where you have, you know, if the only way you get a $10 million outcome, or a $20 million outcome is if you turned down five or you turned down $10 million and turning down $10 million is not an easy thing for anybody to know. You know, and when you do turn down $10 million, you You're nobody knows for sure. But you're going to be dependent on the assessment, the assessment, the value assessment of the guy sitting beside you, or the team sitting beside you. And so it is you want to be able to make that decision with confidence. You know, and, and like when we advise people under those circumstances, we don't say do this, don't do that, you know, because we're respectful of the fact that this, we don't necessarily know for sure, it's not our case, it's not our case. So our obligation is to give them information and opinions and so that they can make good decisions. But those informed they're going to rely on the decision on the information that we give. So that information, you know, everybody might give them the best information that they have. I think that's every lawyer's ethical obligation. But unless you have the experience in dealing with not just k injury injury case, not just cases, and not just injury cases, but catastrophic injury cases and multimillion dollar injury cases, and life changing injuries. I don't know how you, I don't know how you give that give that advice.

I don't either. I mean, it, it's not, it's not easy for the client to make that decision to turn down $5 million. It's also not easy for the lawyer to recommend to that client that they turned out by $15. It is more comforting for us in this firm, because we've got so many experienced lawyers that when we round table these things we can see if we're offering, like if we're all come to the table with an independent judgment on this on this case, for you know, this client, and and you say, Well, what do you think this is worth? You know, and I say $10 million. And everybody else around the table says $15 million. Okay, well, I'm, I must be like that I'm probably off on this. Because, you know, there's 10 of the lawyers here saying, and they're all in line, like, you know, so it helps us to be able to sort of make sure everybody's on the same page. And we're all kind of evaluating this accurately if that many good lawyers say this is what the value ranges that case, we're probably right on it.

We'll take a break and we'll come back and talk about artificial intelligence. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.