Claims teams
Judge intelligence for claims teams
Who is assigned to a file changes how long it takes and how it is likely to move. Judge intelligence puts that difference in front of the adjuster as a band, before the reserve is set.
Who this is for
Adjusters, claims managers and litigation managers
Your job is to set a reserve on a file you will not see resolved for a year or more, and to decide whether to push toward settlement or hold. You already know that the assigned judge matters. What you rarely have is the judge’s own record on a comparable file, read the same way every time, in a form you can put next to your reserve.
What judge intelligence answers for a claim
Three questions come up on every contested file. How long does this judge take to reach resolution on matters like this one? How does this judge rule on the motions that decide the shape of the case, such as dismissal, summary judgment and expert challenges? And how does the assignment compare with the other courts in which the same claim could sit?
Each answer is a band built from the judge’s own docket history on comparable matters, with the number of comparable matters stated beside it. A thin record is shown as a wide band and labelled as thin. It is never filled in with a district average without saying so.
How to read it on a live file
Read the duration band first. The low end is the pace of the fastest comparable matters before this judge, the high end the pace of the slowest, and the middle is where most of them sat. A reserve plan that holds only at the low end is a plan that assumes a quick file.
Then read the motion outcomes as proportions with their own bands, not as a verdict on your file. A judge who grants summary judgment often in one case type may rarely do so in another, which is why each reading is made against comparable matters and not against the whole docket.
When the assignment changes, or a significant ruling lands, the reading is refreshed and the earlier reading stays on the record next to the new one, so a reserve change can be traced to the event that caused it.
What sits behind it
The judge reading draws on filed court records for state and federal courts and on a verified judge register. Judges are matched to the matters in the record by entity resolution; where a judge’s record is thin, the estimate shows a wider band rather than a narrower one.
What this number means
A judge reading describes how comparable matters before that judge have moved. It is one input to a reserve and a settlement plan, next to the facts of the file, and it is restated when the record changes. Dollar outcomes are not read from a judge; amounts come from the settlement and award bands for the case type and venue.
Read next
Questions readers ask
What does judge intelligence tell a claims team?
It gives the adjuster or claims manager the assigned judge’s record on comparable matters: time to resolution, how the judge has ruled on the motions that shape a case, and how the assignment compares with other venues, each stated as a band with the number of comparable matters beside it.
Is a judge reading a prediction of how my claim will end?
No. It describes how comparable matters before that judge have moved and is one input to a reserve and a settlement plan. It is refreshed when a ruling or assignment changes, and the earlier reading is kept for comparison.
How is judge-level data produced?
From filed court records, matched to a verified judge register, so each reading rests on the matters matched to that judge. The method, from record to band, is published on the How It Works page.
Next step
Read your claims, venues and dockets from the record.
Tell the Intelligence desk what you hold. You receive a written report from the filed record, with every figure labelled.
Request an assessment