Marketing is always the hot topic amongst Personal Injury Lawyers across the Country, as well it should be. Who doesn’t want to increase your caseload exponentially and have your firm’s phone ringing off the hook? To increase caseloads by 20%, 30% or even double? And while those are certainly great goals for every firm, it’s important to make sure that you are working smarter and not harder; and that in your efforts to pick the fruit on the tops of the trees, you don’t miss the low-hanging fruit.
Case Valuation / and the Extra Push:
When we started practicing law and building our firms, many of us focused on honing our trial skills. With a small caseload, we had the luxury of micromanaging our cases. We knew their ins and outs; we talked to our clients regularly (sometimes more than we would have liked….) and we were able to personally assess the strength and value of our cases. We were able to determine when a soft tissue case turned more serious; we had our hands in all of our case files. When it came time to try the case or settle, we knew what our cases were really worth, and we acted accordingly.
Of course, by definition, with growth we must delegate: we train our staff and our lawyers within the firm to do this work. Since you are no longer the one who is eyeballing a case yourself, cases are evaluated, developed, tried and settled, based on general classifications and procedures you have put in place, and that’s as it has to be.
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Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of our members whose case averages are significantly higher than most. She doesn’t run a boutique law firm that only handles catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death. She handles the traditional variety of personal injury cases. But here’s the key: She has trained her staff and her attorneys to look for opportunities to add a little push to case development where it is merited, and to push a little harder in negotiation when it’s time to settle.
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Example: Let’s say you have a credible client, and she is complaining of neck pain. The MRI report doesn’t reveal much, but the impact and property damage were significant. (With teleradiology and outsourcing, your MRIs may be read by someone who is paid per report, and who may send only written reports of what they see with little or no interaction with your client’s MD). What if having the film read again by another physician yields much more significant results? Results that might increase the value of the case by 20 or 30 or 50 percent? Can you do that in every case? Of course not. Should you do that in some cases?
It’s quite possible, and making sure your staff is trained to recognize these opportunities is important.
Likewise, if a case is simmering in Chiropractor land, with treatment over 6 months, you know it’s time to cut the treatment or make sure the client has been seen by an Orthopedic. Does your staff know this? Are your associates being proactive in their case assessments, or merely reactive to the settlement brochures a case manager places on the edge of their desk?
Have you thought about having a lunch and learn with your local doctors and chiropractors, so they understand the language that is most helpful to their patients and their cases?
Ken has always encouraged our members to spot check intake calls; to conduct ghost calls or outsource the review if necessary. We know that people Respect what you Inspect.
Why spend large sums on increasing Intakes, only to lose 30 percent by botched calls, or a system that is too slow or doesn’t cover nights and weekends? Without these random checks and evaluations, you could be losing valuable cases!
Why not apply that same strategy to your case development. Pick several cases and spot check how they have been handled by your case managers and your associates. What would you have done differently had you been the one calling the shots? Then make sure you are tweaking your internal processes and procedures accordingly so that your case evaluation, development, and settlements are at the highest values.
There’s no reason at all not to aim for the fruit at the top of the trees. Just don’t forget the ripe fruit you can easily pick along the way!
