Most people assume hiring a lawyer is just about paperwork and negotiations, but there’s a deeper strategy at play. This video will pull back the curtain on what really drives the value of a personal injury claim and why not all legal representation is created equal. The conversation centers on a key distinction that most clients never think about: whether their lawyer is actually prepared to go to trial.
You’ll hear how insurance companies evaluate claims, why courtroom experience matters even when cases don’t go to court, and how building a case the right way can dramatically impact outcomes. This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at how strong preparation, proven experience, and the willingness to follow through can shape the result long before a courtroom is ever involved.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
⚖️ Trial readiness increases claim value
🧠 Insurance companies track lawyer behavior
🛠️ Strong cases are built before litigation
📊 Showing your work strengthens negotiations
🛡️ Confidence reduces the need for court
Featured Keyword & Other Tags
Settlements, trial lawyer, catastrophic injury, personal injury lawyer, insurance claims, settlement strategy, litigation, claim value
Client Links
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Transcript (Click To Read)
Clark: I’m, um, Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the verdict.
Carson Grace Toomer: Now, I’m understanding is I hire somebody like you to kind of act as me for this duel between this insurance company because I’m, you know, I don’t want to be up against an expert, and I’m not necessarily qualified to do that. I’m especially not, um, and earlier you had mentioned courtroom experience. Can you explain to me how often you go to court and what it is like to have a lawyer that has courtroom experience and kind of how that goes?
Clark: Sure, yeah. So when I got out of school, um, all I wanted to do was try cases, right? And I was in court every day, literally every weekday, you know, every workday for 20 something years. 20. I mean, I don’t know, 17 years, something like that. And so what I. What I liked was courts, courtroom stuff. I like courtroom movies as a kid. I like To Kill a Mockingbird. You know what I mean? I saw, you know, I read about Atticus Finch, and I saw Gregory Peck in the movie and all that, and I’m like, that’s, you know, I like that. That’s the guy I want to be. So that was real, real important to me. And so. And so I tried, uh, cases and I tried cases in district court and superior court and state court and federal court, and, uh, all over the place, all over North Carolina, in criminal court and in civil court, you know. And, um, I tried a, uh, lot of cases. And, uh, it’s funny, when I. When I’m sitting down with a client now, and if. If that comes up and I say something about a trial or whatever, they’re, oh, no, no, no, we don’t. We don’t want to go to trial. We just want to. We’re just looking to settle the claim. And I’m like, well, I know that, you know. So the question is, what do they care if I go to trial? The truth is, a very, very, very small percentage of cases go to trial. So what difference does it make if your lawyer can go to court or does go to court? Well, the difference that it makes is if the insurance company knows you can’t go to trial or won’t go to trial, they will never pay you full value for that claim. So let’s say you’re an insurance adjuster, right? And you and I are dealing with this claim. You and I are on the same team. We’re, you know, I’m the lawyer and you’re the insurance adjuster, and we’re facing these other, you know, Smith and Jones Law firm over here, and they have this claim. And we know that we, we can see. I mean, we don’t have to speculate and, or, uh, depend on what we hear on the street. We can, we have a. There’s databases where we can see how many times they go to trial, how many complaints they filed, how many. You know, and we, and we have, we keep information on all this stuff. So they have this $10 million claim that we talked about, or they have a $10,000 claim, either one. And, uh, you’re the adjuster and you say, hey, um, you know, we have this claim. What, uh, it’s. Should we give them. Just for. Just to keep it simple, we’ll say it’s $100,000 claim. The value of it is $100,000. Objectively, like, if we go to court, this is what we’re going to. This is. If they go to court, this is what they would. A good law firm could get for this claim. This is what. The value of it. But we know, you and I know as the insurance team, they don’t ever go to court. They never go to court. Or, uh, they’re not capable of going to court, or they very rarely go to court. And if they do, they don’t. They’re not good at it. Are we going to pay them $100,000 for that claim? No, we’re going to pay them just enough to get them to stop making noise. Now, might we pay them 25? Their clients might not take that. You know, might we pay him 50? Probably, you know, so that works at 5,000 and 10,000, 50,000, 100,000. 5 million and 10 million. You see what I’m saying? No matter how big the claim is, the claims worth this, you know, and if, uh, you might only get this much if your lawyer doesn’t pay, doesn’t go to court, you know, because is the threat that I’m going to go to court and get more for a jury, that is the only reason they will ever pay full value for a claim, you know, and the only reason they would ever pay partial value for the claim is they know that at some point you could get frustrated and go fire them and go get somebody who will go to court. And then when you do that, now they got a bigger claim. So if they can get you gone for half, let’s get you going for half. Does that make sense? So, so it’s like. And there’s another piece of it too, which is, uh, when my kids were growing up, you know, I want them to. And And I may have told you this before, but, but I wanted them to have self defense classes. And the reason is not because I wanted him to fight. I didn’t want them to fight. You know, I wanted to not have to fight. So the idea is if they know how to fight, the chances of them having to fight are going to be much less, right? Then the bully’s going to come to them and go, uh, keep your lunch money. I’m gonna go to somebody else, you know, and then my kids are safe. And so it’s the same here as if, if, if we know are capable of going to court, then we have to go to court a lot less, you know, because we’re good at it. And so it used to be, uh, when we were first starting out, like almost every one of my cases it seemed like went to, went to court, you know. And the reason is because I didn’t ever work for a firm where we just started settling cases or whatever. I started a firm out of school. And so I would say, uh, to them, you know, I know my client’s story, and I would send them a demand for this much money. Well, they didn’t know if I could try a case or not because I was new. And um, I’d say, I want this much money. And they’d say, we’ll give you this much money. And I’d say, all right, here we go. So we would go off to, to uh, court and trial and all that. Now since then, I have learned a lot, right? And so, uh, and what I’ve learned is I can do a, I can do a lot of things on the front end to take away the risk, the time and the expense of court for my clients. So this is why we do all the things that we would do in preparation for court. Uh, like in other words, cases are divided into two steps, right? Especially large cases. Pre litigation phase and post litigation phase. Pre litigation is everything before, from the injury, the date of loss, the date of the injury, to the point where we file a complaint. Post litigation or litigation phase is everything from the day that complaint is filed to the resolution. And so the pre litigation, the person is recovering and treating with physicians and we’re gathering records and building cases and all this kind of stuff. Here is where we would normally do depositions, do, uh, written discovery, do mediation, hire experts and all that kind of stuff. What we have, uh, over time have developed a process where we do a lot of the things that would normally be done here. Here we do a lot of things that are normally Done in litigation, in pre litigation. So in pre litigation. So there’s a list up there of a lot of the cases that uh, we have that are fit in this category. And then we’ll do um, instead of waiting until litigation to identify experts and get uh, victim impact videos and to get um, economists and, and to get uh, acts of reconstructionist and to get all those things, we’ll get them on the front end and include those on the, in the demand so that the, the adjuster then can see two things. Number one, now that person can see, okay, I understand why he’s saying he wants this much money. I can see his. You know, in math, when you’re going to school, they’ll say, show your work. I have shown my work. This is how I got to this number. Um, this is why this is not a made up number. This is why this is a valid number. This is why when we go to a jury, if we go to a jury, I’m going to be able to prove that to a jury. And now it’s not just because somebody won the lottery, it’s because these are real numbers, real figures that add up to this amount of money. But it also shows, not just showing my work, it also shows the we are ready, willing and able to go to trial. So that, so then if I’m the adjuster, I’m thinking I’ve got to pay this person full value because they have shown me the work and they have shown me that they’re going, they’re committed and they’re capable. And I also know from, from my research, from my database, from my history that they do go to trial. So it used to be just me that would, would do this like you know, 15 years ago or whatever. But now we have a litigation department that’s on the third floor of this building and they’ll, this is all they do, all they do all day long is litigate cases. So then we have a pre lit department and a litigation department and they work together to make sure that these, the things that would be done here are done here. So now when we get uh, to the litigation phase, most of the heavy lifting is done and we are just foot on the gas, full steam ahead,
Carson Grace Toomer: basically by you know, telling this insurance company, look, I’m willing, able and prepared to go to trial. You’re, you’re holding that insurance uh, company accountable to pay you actually what damages you have instead of maybe, you know, selling it short because you say, okay, he, he won’t go to trial, he’ll end up settling kind of thing.
Clark: 100%. Right. So. So in other words, that’s why we have a robust, a strong, a capable litigation department. A lot of firms don’t have that. They just settle every claim. Right? And so if you just settle every claim, then there’s no reason for them to ever pay you. The. It’s like, um, it’s the difference between a, uh, unarmed security person telling you to stop versus an armed, you know, SWAT team member telling you to stop. And while he’s pointing and you got a red dot right here. Like, this is not a suggestion. This is like, if you don’t do what I’m telling you to do, there is going to be a consequence. Not to say that I have the capacity to, uh, bully an experienced defense lawyer. I don’t. And I wouldn’t if I did. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just, I’m not going to let you bully my client. Right? And so we are going to get. We’re not going to take advantage of anybody and fool anybody into giving you a bunch of money when you don’t deserve it, but we’re not going to let them pay you less than you’re owed. And we are going to find. We’re going to do everything that we can to find the value, the accurate value of your claim and to recover it from the responsible party and achieve justice. So we’re not going to bully anybody, but we’re not going to let our guy get bullied either. I still have friends that do what I do, that I connect with, and they sort of, uh, sort of have this posture like they’re going to bully the insurance company or the insurance company is, um, uh, somehow afraid of them. I, uh, don’t think that’s true. Insurance companies have a ton of money. They will pay claims. And I have friends that are on the other side of it, right, that work for insurance companies. They will pay claims. Uh, and a lot of times we butt heads. Uh, but if I can justify why and show why my client is owed money, even lots of money, then they will pay those claims. In general, um, there are exceptions to that. Sometimes they don’t, and when they don’t, and they’re not reasonable, and sometimes reasonable minds can differ about the value of claims. Those are the cases that will go to a jury. And when they do go to a jury, then the jury will be in a position to be able to, uh, decide what’s, who’s right and who’s wrong, what’s fair and what’s not what’s reasonable and what’s not. And they generally, I’m sure there are exceptions, but it is the best system of justice in the history of the world and they really do a great job. And a lot of times the reports that you hear or see in magazines or newspapers or the Internet or whatever, uh, where they haven’t is the by far the exception to the rule. So, uh, I think it’s important that people have confidence in the system of justice that we have, because it is. It’s not perfect, but it is the best system of justice in the history of the world. And we don’t. And I don’t want people to have, uh, the wrong impression when they see, uh, billboards or website or articles or press releases or whatever that say that we recovered this much money for somebody. Um, because at the end of the day, um, it’s important they realize that when we did recover this much money, it’s because this much was taken from a person. That’s not a somebody won the lottery. It is because this person had a very devastating injury and he or she was absolutely, very terribly affected by it. But when that happens, we want to maximize the value of that claim.
Carson Grace Toomer: Well, thanks for joining us on the Personal Injury podcast. We’ll see you next time.
Clark: Thanks for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We’ll see you next time.
