To Settle or Not to Settle

Scott Drake talks with Randall Kiser from Decisionset, a litigation consulting firm. He co-authored a soon to be released study that found when plaintiffs pass up settlement and go to trial they usually get less money.

No area of the law is of greater importance to the plaintiff then the dynamics and process of deciding the value of an offer and measuring the risk/reward ratio of accepting what they view as a low offer, or risk going to trial. What makes this study so fascinating to trial lawyers and others is it shows the conflict that occurs when you have three parties essentially looking at the same offer, all with different levels of risk involved. The plaintiff has a risk, the trial lawyer has a risk and the defendant has a risk. That each has different agendas at times, particularly some trial lawyers, often sets in motion a disaster when real offers are rejected as a lawyer goes in search of a substantial pay day.

This is the first empirical study on this topic and it will also be discussed this week on Voices of the Law, the lawyer to lawyer talk show on The Legal Broadcast Network, featuring Attorney Jan Schlichtmann. We will update this post later once that podcast is available.

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New York Times Article

The Study