Tony Roy West

I must not have explained the process clearly enough to this client. I wish that he/she had expressed concern more strongly about this issue to me before agreeing to settle the case. I will take any case to a hearing, if the client refuses to settle. But that can be very risky. Determining value does not always require having every single document created in a case, because the injured worker can tell me what it is and I can determine its value and consider that in settlement negotiations. Some cases have a high risk of loss at a hearing, which must be balanced against what the insurance company is willing to pay to end the case. If I advised this client to settle this case rather than go to a hearing, then I felt the evidence was not strong enough to achieve the client's best outcome, given what the insurance carrier was offering. That decision was not because of a lack of willingness to be aggressive. It was based on 10 years of Indiana work injury experience.