Personal Injury Resolution: Mediation vs. Compromization
For Las Vegas personal injury lawyers and their counterparts, mediation has become a very useful tool in the world of ADR or alternate dispute resolution. Both sides voluntarily sit down and discuss the options of the case with a neutral 3rd party mediator. The mediator’s job is to review the case and point out to both sides the opposing arguments to access the risk at trial. Hopefully, this insight will encourage both to give more (the Defendant to up the money) and the (Plaintiff to lower the money) with hopes of settlement.
Mediation often occurs before a jury trial as a way of final resolution and to avoid not only trial, but also appeals. Mediations are excellent for personal injury attorneys who may have client control issues; they are also excellent for most cases. This article is to bring to light the real issue of compromising a claim that occurs in these realms when sometimes that case should be tried in front of a jury. Major settlements are rarely reached in mediation except perhaps in the appellate mediation arena where a high verdict has already been adjudicated and a negotiating threshold achieved.
Compromization, as this author has termed it, may in fact be a compromise given the right set of facts when everything is considered. Why should an injured party (if the facts are good), settle without a jury trial? Often they shouldn’t. Multi-million dollar verdicts must be earned—the mediated settlement of such a large sum, makes no sense in basic theory. Why would a Corporate Defendant settle for a large amount without making the other side at least earn it? Don’t compromise your case, Call Benson & Bingham for a no cost case evaluation.
