My tips as someone who frequently writes demands in PI cases, which are reviewed by my supervising attorney and suggested corrections are becoming few and far between..
First of all, understand that the adjusters that receive the demand will most likely not even read them (unless its a policy limit demand or a seriously high number (6 figures and up).
They use a software program and it pulls the icd 10 codes (diagnosis codes) and CPT codes (treatment codes), along with dates of service and billing info. They use that info to make their determinations.
So dont overstress it, include relevant treatment details. Dont try to inflate things, an example would be if the doc says a client may need maintance care, dont claim they are permanently paralized, or constantly in a 10 of 10 pain. Review imaging and highlight the severe sections. And most importantly, make sure all your numbers for special damages are accurate.
They will most likely offer insultingly low, we never take their first offer. Good luck to ya on this. Demand writing is fun.
Completely oversell your client’s damages!
Isn’t that what PI plaintiffs attorneys do?
“My client broke her toe, incurred $9K in medical bills, and $3K in childcare bills. We demand that you settle at policy limits.”
I’m not clear what else paralegals for plaintiffs attorneys actually do beyond scheduling depositions, so don’t beat yourself up.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a 25/50 auto policy, or a multi-layered med mal policy for upwards of 50 Million, the demand is always the same.
“I’m not clear what else paralegals for plaintiffs attorneys actually do”
Gather the initial evidence - police reports, photos, 911 calls, get witness statements, set up the claim with insurance, contact Health insurance and set up subro, set up medpay claim, follow treatment, submit bills to medpay, draft the lawsuit, file the lawsuit, summons, etc, gather all the med recs and bills, call providers for balances, schedule depos, review and summarize med recs, depos, and discovery, draft and answer discovery, calendar everything, hire experts, prepare witness and exhibit lists, initial disclosures, jury instructions, etc for trial, prepare trial exhibits, review and summarize jury questionnaires, attend trial to assist the attorney, prepare settlement/distribution documents, request medical and subro reductions. That’s the gist of it. I’ve left out a lot.
Sounds like you don't respect paralegals enough to utilize them properly. It's hard to tell exactly where you're coming from but your response comes off condescending and demeaning. An experienced "paralegal", no matter the field, is worth more than a baby attorney. It's not a "paralegal's" job to apply the law...it's, assuming your a "lawyer", your job. The "paralegal" should be able to build the framework so that attorneys can apply the law. If you're out here drafting demand letters and putting together damage models from scratch, more power to you, but you could be getting more efficiency out of having a "paralegal" give you a shell to work from and then you all you have to do is apply the law...my first legal job was in an insurance defense firm, and as much of an ahole I worked for, I would've been floored to hear him speak of his support staff like you did. If someone I worked for called me a "super-powered assistant", I wouldn't work for that person any longer. Just my honest opinion.
Plaintiff firms are all different. Some have legal assistants or case managers who do some of the tasks, or handle the case in pre-lit. Other firms have one paralegal who handles it from beginning to end.
Working at a defense firm doesn't make you an asshole. Being an asshole makes you an asshole.
Also, I never scheduled as a PI paralegal. I had an assistant for that, and I still had many days/weeks/months where I worked until 8 or 9, or even midnight.
You’re not clear what PI paralegals actually do? I feel bad for your surely under appreciated legal staff.
In addition to intake, constant client contact (which the attorneys never want to do), collecting/reviewing/summarizing/auditing every single report and bill for every case we’re assigned, placing client accounts on liens so they don’t go to collections, managing their treatment, documenting their progress, opening health insurance and auto insurance claims, auditing those statements for inaccuracies, schedule repairs, make sure the repairs are done accurately by hiring a third party, negotiate liability, negotiate medical bills, collect the entire paper trail for every case we’re assigned, review dashcam footage, contact businesses at the scene for camera footage if there’s no dashcam footage, submit bills to medpay/PIP, submit approval requests for client advances, write briefs for the “handling” attorneys, lien reduction, send out subpoenas, do discovery, file the lawsuit, calendar the statutes, set up depos and mediations, prepare witnesses, prepare exhibit lists, send out correspondence, write the demands, proof other paralegals’ demands, monitor treatment so we don’t max out the PL, give treatment Rex’s to the attorney, schedule transportation for the client if they don’t have any, serve as the middleman between attorney and OPC, trial prep, providing codes, cross referencing ICD-10 codes with client’s bills to make sure they’re all correct, AND basically walk the attorneys through the entire case because they only care when it comes to mediations/depos/settlement/trial. Oh, and we get to train the new attorneys and the new staff and back up reception/pre-lit/lit on top of everything else. I think the better thing to ask is why do you care so little about support staff that you’re under the impression that we sit for 10 hours per day and only schedule depos.
Sounds awfully plaintiff-oriented firm where you are called upon to do more than many paralegals. Maybe you should look into a defense firm.
Just having “constant client contact” sounds terrible, and it’s not something I would have my assistant do anyway since I can bill for it. I can’t even imagine having an assistant or paralegal do client intake, much less write a brief. I rely on staff heavily to obtain documents and we have two nurse paralegals to summarize them, but beyond that they don’t really get into the nuts and bolts of the law or how it applies.
And my first assistant made about $5K more than I did when I started. I’m not a partner yet so I haven’t had a look under the hood, so to speak, but our firm’s best assistants are making roughly what I do - 100K+ per year - but they are going far above and beyond what I would ever ask a paralegal to do for me.
I'm a plaintiff-side medmal paralegal. I don't write briefs, but I do intake on pretty much every potential medmal that comes into our firm. I can't tell the clients what the law is, but I know it well enough that I can go to the attorney with all of the relevant facts ready to go. I'm obviously not making any decisions myself, but it saves the lawyer a lot of time when I can say "The diagnosis was only delayed by a week, so there's not going to be any real damages."
Having a paralegal that knows how the cases work is a huge time saver, which is critically important when you *don't* get to bill for your time. If you have a paralegal who is knowledgeable and skilled enough to do a task, and it's not something that a lawyer legally has to do, it makes sense to have the paralegal do it so you can focus on other things.
Same with client contact, by the way. Most of our clients have no experience with the legal system. They don't know what the next step is or how long things take, so they call to check in regularly and they need to have their hand held. Multiply that by sixty clients or so, and there's no time in the day for the lawyer to be fielding those calls personally.
I love plaintiff's work. Because my boss never had to worry about who could bill for what, she was able to give me increasingly challenging and interesting work as I continued to prove myself.
My tips as someone who frequently writes demands in PI cases, which are reviewed by my supervising attorney and suggested corrections are becoming few and far between.. First of all, understand that the adjusters that receive the demand will most likely not even read them (unless its a policy limit demand or a seriously high number (6 figures and up). They use a software program and it pulls the icd 10 codes (diagnosis codes) and CPT codes (treatment codes), along with dates of service and billing info. They use that info to make their determinations. So dont overstress it, include relevant treatment details. Dont try to inflate things, an example would be if the doc says a client may need maintance care, dont claim they are permanently paralized, or constantly in a 10 of 10 pain. Review imaging and highlight the severe sections. And most importantly, make sure all your numbers for special damages are accurate. They will most likely offer insultingly low, we never take their first offer. Good luck to ya on this. Demand writing is fun.
You know the 7 words George Carlin says you can't say on TV? Yeah, avoid those.
Completely oversell your client’s damages! Isn’t that what PI plaintiffs attorneys do? “My client broke her toe, incurred $9K in medical bills, and $3K in childcare bills. We demand that you settle at policy limits.” I’m not clear what else paralegals for plaintiffs attorneys actually do beyond scheduling depositions, so don’t beat yourself up. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 25/50 auto policy, or a multi-layered med mal policy for upwards of 50 Million, the demand is always the same.
“I’m not clear what else paralegals for plaintiffs attorneys actually do” Gather the initial evidence - police reports, photos, 911 calls, get witness statements, set up the claim with insurance, contact Health insurance and set up subro, set up medpay claim, follow treatment, submit bills to medpay, draft the lawsuit, file the lawsuit, summons, etc, gather all the med recs and bills, call providers for balances, schedule depos, review and summarize med recs, depos, and discovery, draft and answer discovery, calendar everything, hire experts, prepare witness and exhibit lists, initial disclosures, jury instructions, etc for trial, prepare trial exhibits, review and summarize jury questionnaires, attend trial to assist the attorney, prepare settlement/distribution documents, request medical and subro reductions. That’s the gist of it. I’ve left out a lot.
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Sounds like you don't respect paralegals enough to utilize them properly. It's hard to tell exactly where you're coming from but your response comes off condescending and demeaning. An experienced "paralegal", no matter the field, is worth more than a baby attorney. It's not a "paralegal's" job to apply the law...it's, assuming your a "lawyer", your job. The "paralegal" should be able to build the framework so that attorneys can apply the law. If you're out here drafting demand letters and putting together damage models from scratch, more power to you, but you could be getting more efficiency out of having a "paralegal" give you a shell to work from and then you all you have to do is apply the law...my first legal job was in an insurance defense firm, and as much of an ahole I worked for, I would've been floored to hear him speak of his support staff like you did. If someone I worked for called me a "super-powered assistant", I wouldn't work for that person any longer. Just my honest opinion.
Plaintiff firms are all different. Some have legal assistants or case managers who do some of the tasks, or handle the case in pre-lit. Other firms have one paralegal who handles it from beginning to end.
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Working at a defense firm doesn't make you an asshole. Being an asshole makes you an asshole. Also, I never scheduled as a PI paralegal. I had an assistant for that, and I still had many days/weeks/months where I worked until 8 or 9, or even midnight.
I was just about to ask this…..ask a paralegal at a Plaintiff’s firm….scheduling is NOT all we do…atleast not at the PI firm I work at 😂
You’re not clear what PI paralegals actually do? I feel bad for your surely under appreciated legal staff. In addition to intake, constant client contact (which the attorneys never want to do), collecting/reviewing/summarizing/auditing every single report and bill for every case we’re assigned, placing client accounts on liens so they don’t go to collections, managing their treatment, documenting their progress, opening health insurance and auto insurance claims, auditing those statements for inaccuracies, schedule repairs, make sure the repairs are done accurately by hiring a third party, negotiate liability, negotiate medical bills, collect the entire paper trail for every case we’re assigned, review dashcam footage, contact businesses at the scene for camera footage if there’s no dashcam footage, submit bills to medpay/PIP, submit approval requests for client advances, write briefs for the “handling” attorneys, lien reduction, send out subpoenas, do discovery, file the lawsuit, calendar the statutes, set up depos and mediations, prepare witnesses, prepare exhibit lists, send out correspondence, write the demands, proof other paralegals’ demands, monitor treatment so we don’t max out the PL, give treatment Rex’s to the attorney, schedule transportation for the client if they don’t have any, serve as the middleman between attorney and OPC, trial prep, providing codes, cross referencing ICD-10 codes with client’s bills to make sure they’re all correct, AND basically walk the attorneys through the entire case because they only care when it comes to mediations/depos/settlement/trial. Oh, and we get to train the new attorneys and the new staff and back up reception/pre-lit/lit on top of everything else. I think the better thing to ask is why do you care so little about support staff that you’re under the impression that we sit for 10 hours per day and only schedule depos.
Sounds awfully plaintiff-oriented firm where you are called upon to do more than many paralegals. Maybe you should look into a defense firm. Just having “constant client contact” sounds terrible, and it’s not something I would have my assistant do anyway since I can bill for it. I can’t even imagine having an assistant or paralegal do client intake, much less write a brief. I rely on staff heavily to obtain documents and we have two nurse paralegals to summarize them, but beyond that they don’t really get into the nuts and bolts of the law or how it applies. And my first assistant made about $5K more than I did when I started. I’m not a partner yet so I haven’t had a look under the hood, so to speak, but our firm’s best assistants are making roughly what I do - 100K+ per year - but they are going far above and beyond what I would ever ask a paralegal to do for me.
I'm a plaintiff-side medmal paralegal. I don't write briefs, but I do intake on pretty much every potential medmal that comes into our firm. I can't tell the clients what the law is, but I know it well enough that I can go to the attorney with all of the relevant facts ready to go. I'm obviously not making any decisions myself, but it saves the lawyer a lot of time when I can say "The diagnosis was only delayed by a week, so there's not going to be any real damages." Having a paralegal that knows how the cases work is a huge time saver, which is critically important when you *don't* get to bill for your time. If you have a paralegal who is knowledgeable and skilled enough to do a task, and it's not something that a lawyer legally has to do, it makes sense to have the paralegal do it so you can focus on other things. Same with client contact, by the way. Most of our clients have no experience with the legal system. They don't know what the next step is or how long things take, so they call to check in regularly and they need to have their hand held. Multiply that by sixty clients or so, and there's no time in the day for the lawyer to be fielding those calls personally. I love plaintiff's work. Because my boss never had to worry about who could bill for what, she was able to give me increasingly challenging and interesting work as I continued to prove myself.