VALW

Chapter 4: Verdicts and Settlements

Virginia Lawyers Weekly provides a unique and valuable service for litigators who want to know how much their cases might be worth for trial or settlement – our weekly Verdicts & Settlements report feature.

Lawyers send in V&S Reports to provide information on recently tried or settled lawsuits. The section also covers cases handled through mediation and arbitration.

A V&S Report provides information on the subject matter of the case, the legal issues involved, the jurisdiction and judge involved, the experts used and the facts. The submitting lawyer will also provide the amount of any verdict or settlement. This provides useful information for you to compare your own cases with similar fact patterns and to determine a possible value for trial or settlement purposes.

Submitting a Verdict & Settlement Report

Virginia Lawyers Weekly encourages you to send us reports of your case settlements and verdicts.

We cover all Virginia cases of interest, regardless of the monetary amount or winning side. We are not just looking for big dollar recoveries or defense wins in major cases. Sometimes the smaller cases present the more novel issues and instructive lessons.
In addition, we are not seeking only personal injury or tort recoveries – we want to present verdicts and settlements as varied as the practice of law itself. We invite you to report any case of note, whether it is domestic relations, criminal law or workers’ compensation.

An online V&S Report form is available under the Verdicts & Settlements tab on the main navigation bar. Select ‘Submit a V&S Report’, and on the form, fill out all applicable fields, including a summary of your case, and hit the submit button at the bottom. Fields marked with red stars must be filled out; indicate N/A if the category not relevant to your case. If information surrounding your case is of a sensitive nature, you may fill a field out as “confidential.” We understand that some cases have confidentiality agreements, but basic information about the nature of the case is usually more pertinent than the identity of the parties. As a courtesy, we do not publish the names of opposing counsel.

If you prefer, you can e-mail us a copy of your report as a word-processed document (see the bottom of the page for details). While electronic submissions are preferred, you also have the option to mail or fax us your V&S Report. Additionally, if you have any accompanying photos, we encourage you to attach those to your report.

Be aware that material sent to VLW is subject to editing for style, grammar, length, and, where appropriate, content. When filling out a form, here are some considerations:

• Be conscious of spelling and grammar, and try to submit your summaries as error-free as possible. This includes incorporating complete sentences, correct use of punctuation and capitalization and overall consistency.

• Keep your summary somewhat brief, but give a thorough description that includes the who, what, when, where and why of your case. Highlight any unique or noteworthy legal issues such as interesting procedural twists, back-and-forth between counsel, pre-trial rulings, insurance coverage or discovery issues.

• Avoid complicated jargon, such as medical terms not widely known to those outside of the profession.

• Don’t forget to save a backup copy of your report before submitting. This helps if we need to contact you with any questions or problems.

• Be patient, especially if submitting your report by mail or fax. The quantity of V&S reports we receive usually exceeds the amount of space available in the paper in a given week. It may take a few weeks for your V&S Report to be published.

Verdicts & Settlements as a research tool

Perhaps you want to track down a particular report you remember reading in the paper, or you’d like to examine how cases similar to yours have fared in the court system in years past.

When researching V&S Reports, our Archives is your best tool. On the main Archives page, start by narrowing your search field to Verdicts & Settlements. From there, you can use your desired combination of search terms to find the cases you’re looking for.

As an example, if you’re handling a case that involves a tractor-trailer collision, you could start by entering “tractor-trailer” into the search engine. This search term returns around 200 results.

And suppose you just learned that the opposing counsel has hired vocational analyst Peder K. Melberg as an expert witness. For an overview of tractor-trailer cases in which he has been listed as an expert, type “tractor-trailer Melberg” as search terms. You will now have 25 results.

You can further limit the search to criteria such as attorney or judge, type of injury or jurisdiction. Remember, the more specific you are, the more concise your results will be. For example, the search string “tractor trailer Melberg Roanoke” narrows the search down to five results. You also have the option to sort your results by relevance or date, and within any given date range.

To get a broader sense of our content, you can browse through a listing of the most recently published V&S Reports. To access this page, click directly on the Verdicts & Settlements tab in the top navigation menu. You can also select the option to browse Verdicts & Settlements from the Archives menu.

We also publish an annual compilation of million dollar verdicts. This feature can be found under the Special Features tab, titled “Virginia’s Largest Verdicts.”

Although you will notice that each V&S report is assigned a unique reference number (i.e., 08-T-023), there are no corresponding documents available for order. To find more information on any of these cases, run a full VLW Archives search. If we have not digested the case in our opinions section or featured it in a news article, other options would be to contact the court or attorney for further detail.

How to submit a Verdicts & Settlements Report

• Fill out our online form at http://www.valawyersweekly.com/submit-a-vs-report.cfm

• E-mail a copy of your report to sarah.rodriguez@valawyersmedia.com

• Mail a copy of your report to Virginia Lawyers Weekly, 707 East Main Street, Suite 1750, Richmond, VA 23219 (online or e-mail submissions preferred)

• Fax a copy to 804-783-8337 (online or e-mail submissions preferred)

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