"The Show" at Mediation

Putting on "the show" at mediation can lead to an increased settlement value in a case. The Legal Wizards were hired to create a PowerPoint presentation for mediation that would add value to the case from the perspective of an adjuster.

Many times lawyers think that just telling an adjuster what happened to their client and how they were harmed is going to be enough to get a case settled at a reasonable value. In some cases this could be true if you have limited insurance coverage and your recovery is based on policy limits or a self insured retention but that was not the fact set in this case. In this case we had ample insurance but we had minimal medical expenses and lost wages based on Workers Compensation Benefit Payments.

One of the first steps in preparing the PowerPoint presentation was to get an understanding of how the Defense Attorney and Adjuster were evaluating the case. Through the process it was identified that the defenses version of the incident was much different than the Plaintiff's version of the incident. Based on this information we focused the first couple of slides in identifying the negligent act of the Defendant and how it led to the injuries sustained by the Plaintiff. Once clearly identified we were able to add additional visual insight on exactly how the Defendant was responsible for those injuries.

Next we turned to the medical records to glean the treatment received by the Plaintiff. After getting a good understanding of the Plaintiff's medical treatment we set out to create PowerPoint slides that visually communicated the finding of the doctors. One of the things that came out in the review was how what was originally believed to be a simple crush injury progressed to a diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Our focus was now to create several slides that visually communicated this progression and the affects on the Plaintiff's quality of life.

Now with a completed PowerPoint that goes from visually showing the accident to visually demonstrating the injuries to visually representing the loss of quality of life we were able to create a compelling visual story about the Plaintiff and the harms he suffered from the incident that created a significant damages model much larger than just the cost of past medical and lost wages. Combined the Plaintiff had $9,500.00 in specials but with an excellent presentation, "The Show", narrated by a great Trial Lawyer we were able to assist the Plaintiff and his Attorney in negotiating a $65,000.00 settlement.

Just because Attorneys and Adjusters evaluate case values on a daily basis it does not mean they are putting the full settlement value on the table at mediation and sometimes it just takes "The Show" to get them to loosen up on the purse strings. A case that many Lawyers would have valued at or around $35,000.00 was turned into a $65,000.00 settlement that both the Plaintiff and the Plaintiff's Attorney were very satisfied with.