Message From the Executive Committee

In the last issue of this publication, Thomas Brophy shared with you the highlights of our "Roundtabling" program. While I had the pleasure of a recent dinner meeting with a client of many years, I was caught off guard by her lack of knowledge of the many other ways in which our firm endeavors to oversee your litigation. Therefore, I shall expand upon the theme of Tom's last message.

Hopefully, most, if not all, of you know that approximately 15 years ago, our firm established an audit program. At that time, we hired a retired claims person to review our attorneys' files to make sure our attorneys were doing what needed to be done on their files. As the firm grew, we hired additional retired claims professionals to serve as auditors. Eventually, we also hired retired shareholders to serve in this role. This audit program has also been refined a number of times. Now, we have three retired claims professionals and three retired shareholders on our audit team. They review, at a minimum, 15 files of each attorney. These audits have enabled us to identify shortcomings in the file handling. They have also discovered positive attorney practices which have led to successful resolutions. These practices have been incorporated in our training modules.

As our inventory of files has grown, we have increased our use of technology to assist us in managing our cases. Accordingly, we have created an electronic diary system tailored to a specific client's file handling guidelines. Deadlines for significant events, such as the initial plan and budget, status reports, pretrial reports, etc., are inputted in this system to prompt our attorneys to do what is required of them.

For budgeting, we have created a tickler system that prompts the handling attorney when 75 percent of the budget has been expended. The attorney is prompted to conduct an overview of the status of the case in the context of the litigation spent. He or she must determine whether the remaining balance of the budget will be sufficient or if there is a need to modify the budget. Most important, the attorney is also required to contact the claims professional or the client in a self-insured matter to alert that person to the status of the budget. We realize that claims professionals often have large case loads that may make it difficult to track the litigation costs in each of their files. Our goal is to help keep the claims professional informed of this important aspect of the case so that everyone is on the same page concerning the litigation costs being incurred.

Continuing in the context of the litigation costs incurred on a case, we also generate a report which is sent to our practice group directors identifying any case which has either incurred a certain amount of litigation expense or has been open a certain period of time. The thresholds vary depending upon the practice group. For each such case, the assigned attorney is required to provide a report to his or her practice group director explaining the status of the case, the agreed goals of the litigation, and the game plan to achieve these goals. This effort is designed to alert the handling attorney that his or her supervisors are aware this is a case that needs the highest diligence possible.

To ensure that no case slips through the cracks, a report is sent monthly to the practice group directors identifying any case that has seen no activity for 90 days. For each such case, the handling attorney must submit a written explanation of the status of the case and the reasons for this inactivity. While we recognize that inactivity may be appropriate where, for example, the attorney is awaiting a court's ruling on a summary judgment motion, verifying the reasons for delay can only help our lawyers moving forward.

Monthly active matter reports are also generated for supervising attorneys to review. Among other pieces of information, these reports reflect the last date of activity on each file being handled by the attorney. This is a good way to verify how up to date an attorney is with his or her case load.

As you can see, we take nothing for granted with respect to the interests of your insureds and our clients. We realize that there are many factors which affect the outcome of litigation. While we also realize that not all of these factors are within our control; for those that are, we have developed a system that measurably increases the odds that the quality of the service that our lawyers are providing is superior. We greatly appreciate all that you have entrusted to us and look forward to serving you for many years to come.

Defense Digest, Vol. 15, No. 4, December 2009