ESS Settlement Services

ABLE Accounts: providing a better life experience for New York’s disabled residents

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ABLE Accounts: providing a better life experience for New York’s disabled residentsThe New Year has already brought a change for the better for people with long-term disabilities who reside in New York State thanks to the availability beginning this year of tax-free ABLE accounts to fund medical, housing, education, transportation and other expenses related to their disability.

These ABLE accounts are structured along the lines of other tax-advantaged savings accounts, such as the popular 529 college savings account, where earnings from contributions (subject to a $14,000 annual limitation) can accumulate on a tax-free basis.  Made possible by federal legislation introduced back in 2014, the New York legislature passed its enabling bill last year, with New York becoming the 20th state thus far to make these useful accounts available for use by qualified disabled residents.

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Bringing Your Client to Mediation: the pros and cons considered

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pros and consThis week we return our attention to a topic we have discussed previously on the blog (most recently here). It is a question that comes up for consideration just about every time you prepare a case for mediation: should you bring your client to the mediation?

Many personal injury lawyers we know seem to be in the consistent habit of bringing their clients into mediation. There is also a sizable number who take the contrary view.

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How To Identify Which Cases Are Ripe For Mediation

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How To Identify Which Cases Are Ripe For MediationThere’s an old Oliver Wendell Holmes maxim we remember from law school – great cases like hard cases make for bad law. Not to quibble with the venerable Justice Holmes, but in our experience as settlement consultants, we have found that this observation is not so true, at least when it comes to mediation. Great cases and not so great ones both make for good mediations, at least when measured by that all-important yardstick of positive financial outcomes.

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Knowing When to Say No and When to Say Yes in Settlement Negotiations

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ess-interestaccrualIn our business as settlement consultants we are keenly aware of the different dynamics that come into play in personal injury litigation and how those dynamics can often help promote a negotiated resolution of the case. As we’ve written before, the various weaknesses you become aware of in the course of developing your case, as either plaintiff or defense counsel, will often create an incentive to prefer negotiation over the courtroom.

But it’s not just perceived weakness in your own position that creates an incentive to settle. Sometimes it’s the strength of your position that gives rise to a dynamic in favor of settlement. And in those situations, experience has shown us that it’s important to play your strong hand wisely (and without showing much willingness to compromise) in order to achieve an optimal negotiated outcome.

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The Importance of Being Well Prepared for Settlement Negotiations

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medicare lienWe are now a few weeks into Settlement Season and the pace of our consulting business has noticeably quickened. But there is one point we want to make about why it is important not to wait until the last minute to give us a call. In fact, it is far better to reach out to us at an earlier stage, well in advance of conducting a first mediation session or the formal commencement of settlement talks.

The reason for this is pretty simple: it’s far better for us to be brought into a new situation too early than too late. When we are brought in too late in the process the cake may already be too far baked for us to do as much as we can in improving the flavor. In other words, the more up to speed we are in terms of the particulars of any given lawsuit (and the health care profile of the personal injury plaintiff), the more benefit we can provide when it comes to planning and structuring a settlement in order to maximize the long-term benefits both for you and your client.

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Some Things You May Find Behind a Super Lawyer’s Success

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New York Super LawyerLast week the most recent listings for Super Lawyers in the New York Metro area were published as a special supplement in the Saturday edition of the New York Times. Now Sunday morning is usually a time reserved for being with the family but this weekend, much to my wife’s annoyance, I took the occasion to do a little homework by giving a close look at the listings.

First of all, I want to extend our hearty congratulations to all of our clients who made the grade as Super Lawyers this year. It’s always nice to be recognized for your hard work. And while being a Super Lawyer may not carry quite the cachet as being designated a Super Hero, the listings are actually based on a combination of peer recognition and professional achievement, including peer nominations and evaluations, as well as independent research done by the Super Lawyer staff. In other words, it means a lot more than a simple pat on the back.

What was particularly striking to me is how the firms we work with dominated the Super Lawyer listings for the personal injury practice area on the plaintiffs’ side, both for general negligence and medical malpractice. In fact, in both those areas, reading through the listings was almost like reading through our client roster. It made me proud to realize that — whatever else these firms might have in common — behind a lot of this year’s personal injury Super Lawyers you could find the same structured settlement consultants, ESS SETTLEMENT SERVICES. [Read more…]

Tis the Season (for settling lawsuits)

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ESS negotation roadmapSo we begin the fourth quarter, which in the litigation world we like to refer to as Settlement Season. Although each year is different, there seems to be a long-standing pattern that insurance carriers tend to push to settle a lot of cases in the last three months of the year.

No doubt part of the reason has to do with the peculiarities of the insurance business. Not that we are experts in the accounting and other arcane business practices of major insurance companies, but our basic understanding is that insurers, like any other company facing contingent liabilities, have to take reserves against their potential litigation exposure. Depending on the way they have established their reserves, this could create a significant incentive to settle claims prior to year-end, at least in cases where a settlement can be struck within the insurer’s target range, thus freeing up some portion of the reserve. From an accounting point of view, freeing up reserves has the effect of generating income for the insurer, which in many cases would have the ancillary benefit of translating into a better year end bonus for those in charge of managing the pool of risk. As in any negotiation, it pays to consider the potential motivations of your adversary before you sit down at the negotiating table.

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How to Grow a Multimillion Dollar Law Practice

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tree plantingWe are now well into the dog days of August. The usually bustling New York Supreme Court building down on Centre Street has taken on a peaceful air (more typical of a sleepy rural courthouse) and for the next few weeks there will hardly be a single judge left sitting on the bench. And we hope that means most of our clients have temporarily traded in their pinstripe suits for tennis whites, golf slacks or other suitable vacation-wear.

But wherever you happen to be spending your summer holiday this year, in addition to hoping that it’s warm and sunny, we wanted to take a moment to remind you that the downtime of a few weeks away from the office presents a great opportunity to take stock of how your law firm is doing. With distance from the daily grind, you now actually have a chance to do some thinking about what can steps can be taken in order to really improve your practice, so you don’t feel like you’re always playing catch-up or working from behind the eight ball.

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The Best PI Beach Reads of 2015

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Suzy's CaseIt’s that time of year when many lawyers are cleaning up loose ends on their case files, and recording a new voice mail message as they prepare to head out for summer vacation. So for the next few weeks we plan to deviate from our usual programming on the ESS blog and offer up a few special summertime postings. We start this week with our recommendation for the best beach reads of 2015.

No doubt many of you already have a preference when it comes to best-selling authors – some of you may be drawn to thrillers by James Patterson, others stick with tried and true favorites like John Grisham or Stephen King. But for us there is no better beach read available today than the Tug Wyler mystery series written by Andy Siegel. These books are really ideally suited for those of us who have put their time in the trenches as trial lawyers since the protagonist is a wisecracking New York PI attorney.

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How to Compromise a Claim for Medicare Reimbursement

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ess- empty pockets

One of the most difficult situations a personal injury lawyer faces is when a case doesn’t provide any effective recovery to a client. Just as corporate lawyers struggle with busted deals, plaintiff’s attorneys struggle with the busted personal injury lawsuit, in which the settlement value (after legal fees and Medicare lien reimbursement) leaves nothing for the plaintiff.

There are a number of reasons why a personal injury case may play out this way. It could be that your client was in an auto or personal injury accident and the defendant turns out have a minimal policy or worse is uninsured and judgment proof, which potentially leaves you only with recourse to a minimal recovery against defendant; or the plaintiff’s own SUM insurance policy or even worse MVIAC. With the cost of health care ever increasing and Medicare increasingly vigilant about asserting its reimbursement rights, it’s easy to see how that could leave a plaintiff with nothing to show for your efforts. Unfortunately, this is a scenario that’s occurring with increasing frequency whether your client is a Medicare beneficiary at age 65 or older or they receive SSD which forces them into Medicare.

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