Personal injury settlement calculator.

How the calculator works

The Predict-Your-Case Calculator runs your inputs through a gradient-boosted regression trained on 312,000 jury verdicts and reported settlements from 2018 forward. It returns a confidence-banded settlement value — a point estimate plus the 90% interval — alongside the comparable-verdict cohort and the jurisdiction tuning that produced the number.

The model is plaintiff-only. The training data, the case-history attributes, and the verdict outcomes are all sourced from plaintiff-side filings, public PACER records, and reported verdict databases. There is no claims-side carrier data in the model, and there never will be. Plaintiff-only is the trust contract; the dataset reflects it.

The output is designed for the intake call. 30 seconds, not two hours. Type the case facts you'd type into a Verdict Search lookup, get a number with a band before the retainer is signed.

Inputs that actually move the number

Six inputs do most of the work. The model handles dozens of secondary signals — judge composition, plaintiff-counsel reputation, per-county settlement medians — internally, but the six fields a plaintiff attorney can supply at intake are:

• Jurisdiction. The single largest factor. A low-speed rear-end MVA settles for a median of $485K in Texas · Harris County and a median of $112K in Florida · Miami-Dade. Same fact pattern, different number — because Florida is a no-fault state with capped PIP economics and Harris County juries return materially higher general damages.
• Liability clarity. Clear liability (rear-impact with admitted fault) multiplies the predicted value against a shared-comparative case at the same severity. Probable liability lands in the middle. The model doesn't pretend a contested case is worth the same as an admitted one.
• Injury severity. Minor, moderate, severe, catastrophic. The severity ladder is the second-largest factor after jurisdiction. Soft-tissue cases settle at small multiples of medical specials; catastrophic injuries — TBI, paralysis, permanent impairment — settle at 10–14× multiples plus jurisdiction-dependent non-economic damages.
• Medical specials. The anchor for the damages calculation. The classic "multiple of meds" heuristic is a reasonable first approximation, but the multiplier itself varies by severity, liability, and jurisdiction — which is why a static spreadsheet misses by 30–50% on cases the model lands inside the band.
• Property damage. A weak signal on settlement value, but a useful one for sanity-checking severity claims. The model uses it as a correction term, not as a primary driver.
• Case type. MVA versus premises liability. The same medical-specials profile produces materially different settlements across case types — premises cases carry comparative-fault risk almost everywhere, which compresses the upside.

The calculator on this page accepts all six. The full Predict model — available inside the 14-day free trial — adds the secondary signals automatically once a case is loaded into the system.

Why every number ships with a confidence band

The instinct, when building a pricing model for attorneys, is to suppress uncertainty. A clean number is more decisive; a number with a band looks less authoritative. We almost did that. We were talked out of it by attorneys.

Attorneys are trained to evaluate uncertainty. It's the job. A point estimate without a defense is worse than no estimate at all — it forces the attorney to choose between trusting a black box and rejecting the entire tool. A confidence band is the defense. It says: here is what we know, here is the precision of what we know, and here is what would have to be true for the number to move.

The number is the headline. The band is the methodology. Never lead with the range.

The band on every Predict prediction is a 90% confidence interval — meaning 9 out of 10 cases with the same input profile settle inside the published range. If a prediction misses outside the band, we recalibrate the model for that jurisdiction and disclose the recalibration. That's a brand commitment, not a marketing line.

By case type — MVA and premises liability

The two case types Predict is calibrated for cover roughly 70% of plaintiff PI volume by case count. Each has its own modeling considerations:

• Motor vehicle accidents (MVA). The most predictable category — clear severity gradients, well-documented medical histories, dense jurisdiction-level verdict data. Confidence bands on MVA cases are typically tight (±8–14% at the moderate severity tier). The MVA settlement calculator walks through the case-specific factors and surfaces typical comp ranges.
• Premises liability (PL). Slower-moving, more comparative-fault exposure, more variation across jurisdictions. Confidence bands run modestly wider (±12–18% at moderate severity). The premises liability settlement calculator handles slip-and-fall, retail premises, and commercial-property cases.

The calculator on this page handles both case types. The two specific calculators add the case-type-specific guidance — what to look for at intake, what the band typically looks like, which jurisdictions have the densest comparable-verdict data.

Why jurisdiction is the largest single factor

State-level PI economics vary by an order of magnitude. The same fact pattern — a low-speed rear-end MVA with clear liability, moderate cervical strain, $24K in medical specials — settles for a median of $485K in Texas, $352K in Georgia, $305K in California, $112K in Florida (no-fault), and $78K in New York (no-fault). The model trains separate jurisdiction folds for each state and, where data density allows, each county.

For a per-state breakdown of median MVA settlement values, jury-verdict density, and the no-fault versus tort regime, see the state-by-state calculator hub. State pages are calibrated against the local verdict dataset for each jurisdiction.

Predict vs. Verdict Search, settlement-evaluator firms, and gut

Three things compete with Predict in the buyer's head at the decision moment:

• Doing nothing — gut + spreadsheet. The largest competitor. The status quo for most solo and small-firm PI attorneys. Predict's claim against gut is that a 2-case-per-quarter improvement in case selection pays the subscription back in a single settlement. The math is real; the underlying assumption is that the case-selection decision is being made on the wrong anchor (property damage and how the caller sounded on the phone) rather than the right one (jurisdiction-tuned, severity-weighted comparable-verdict comp).
• Verdict Search / Jury Verdict Reporter. Industry-standard lookup databases. Retrospective, manual, slow. A two-hour Verdict Search session at the end of the day produces a comp a week after the retainer is signed. Predict produces a number at intake — when the decision actually gets made.
• Outsourced settlement-evaluator firms. Paralegal-staffed firms that produce demand-letter valuations on a per-case basis. Slow (one to two weeks), expensive (~$1,500 per case), not integrated into the intake flow. Predict delivers the same valuation in 30 seconds, inside the workflow, included in a $499/month subscription.

Frequently asked questions