Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-30
2004-10-26
Rimell, Sam (Department: 2175)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06810382
ABSTRACT:
MICROFICHE APPENDIX
A computer program listing is included herewith as a microfiche appendix with a total of 58 fiche sheets and 3,411 frames.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the computerized management of client data, and more particularly, but not exclusively relates to the management of personal injury claims.
Every year vast numbers of personal injuries occur. The law encourages injured parties to seek compensation from those at fault. Typically, the injured party, the plaintiff, is able to obtain compensation from the party at fault, the defendant (or the defendant's insurer), by threatening a lawsuit. In the vast majority of cases, the claim of the injured party is settled before a trail on the merits results—even before a lawsuit is filed in many cases. By settling legitimate claims quickly, a more cost-effective conclusion is reached for all parties involved. Moreover, early settlements conserve judicial resources to the benefit of the public at large.
Unfortunately, efficiently settling these claims ordinarily requires the coordination and scheduling of doctors, lawyers, insurance representatives, and many others. Generally, the pursuit of a personal injury claim also requires the injured client's legal representative to gather and assimilate large quantities of documents and other information from a variety of sources. Once gathered, this information is used to negotiate a settlement of a claim or litigate the claim as the situation warrants. Frequently, poor coordination, scheduling, and information management leads to claims that are not settled promptly, properly, or fairly. Sometimes, a poorly managed claim becomes the subject of costly litigation which otherwise could have been avoided.
In addition, information collection tasks often limit the quantity of claims that can be handled at the same time by a given number of legal support personnel. The management of information collection required for some claims often distracts legal representatives from focusing on negotiation and litigation tasks for other claims. This distraction significantly adds to cost and hampers efficiency of the typical personal injury attorney's practice.
Conventional management schemes are often prone to errors due to the imposition of a manual entry in a client's file every time a document is sent or other noteworthy event takes place. Moreover, these schemes do not prompt the legal representative or support staff to assure the prompt advancement of the claim from one stage to the next. The untimely advancement of a claim through various information gathering and evaluation stages often results in a more expensive and protracted resolution of the claim compared to claims which are investigated, evaluated, and asserted more promptly. Also, conventional schemes often make it difficult to quickly access the status of a given client's case in response to a phone call or other request requiring a quick turn around.
Consequently, there remains a need for a personal injury management technique to automatically gather, track, schedule, and organize various aspects of personal injury claims. Preferably, such a system facilitates a rapid assessment of the status of each claim, and frees legal representatives from tedious and burdensome information management tasks. Instead, legal representatives may focus on negotiation and litigation of meritorious claims—increasing the number of claims which may be handled simultaneously and improving quality of the representation. As compared to conventional schemes, it is preferred that this management technique facilitate the handling of a larger number of claims by the same legal support staff with fewer errors. Moreover, the system promotes movement of a number of personal injury claims towards settlement in a timely manner. The present invention meets these needs and provides other significant advantages.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to legal claim management. Various aspects of the invention are novel, non-obvious, and provide various advantages. While the actual nature of the invention covered herein can only be determined with reference to the claims appended hereto, certain features which are characteristic of the preferred embodiment disclosed herein can be described briefly.
In one feature of the present invention, a computerized management technique for a plaintiff's personal injury case includes executing a program loaded on a computer to establish a client data record. This record has data relative to a personal injury claim including status of the claim. Status of the record is established in a first management phase which corresponds to pre-negotiation of the claim. The program characterizes the first phase with at least a first subordinate pre-negotiation stage and a second subordinate pre-negotiation stage. The program generates a first number of pre-negotiation prompts in response to initiation of the first stage. These first prompts are directed to obtaining information about the claim. The second stage of the first phase is activated after completion of medical treatment of an injury corresponding to the claim. The program generates a second number of pre-negotiation prompts in response, which are directed to the determination of a proposed settlement amount for the claim. The status of the record is set to a second management phase corresponding to negotiation of the claim, and a third management phase representing settlement of the claim. This computerized management system provides a unique organizational structure that facilitates advancement of a personal injury claim through an optimal sequence of information gathering stages with a minimum of manual intervention.
In another feature, a computerized management system includes establishing a number of data records in a computer by executing a program. Each of the records corresponds to a different personal injury claim which is opened with a first status representing a medical treatment phase for a corresponding injury. The program prompts generation of a first number of documents in accordance with a first schedule timed by the program to span a first number of days for each of the records. The first documents are correspondingly directed to receiving information about the claim for each of the records. The first status of a selected one of the records is changed to a second status in accordance with completion of medical treatment for the corresponding injury. The program prompts generation of a second number of documents different from the first number of documents in accordance with a second schedule initiated by the status change. The program times the second schedule to span a second number of days. The second documents are directed to formulation of a proposed settlement amount for the injury. The selected one of the records is switched to a third status in response to communicating the proposed settlement amount to a corresponding opponent. The selected one of the records is set to a fourth status corresponding to litigation of the corresponding claim. The program prompts generation of a third number of documents in accordance with a third schedule timed by the program during the fourth status. Generation of selected ones of the first, second, and third documents may automatically update the corresponding record and trigger one or more prompts to follow-up on whether a response has been received to the document triggering the update.
In still another feature of the present invention, a computer system for managing a number of personal injury cases includes an input device, a video monitor, and a processor. The processor responds to the input device to generate a number of data records each corresponding to a different respective personal injury claim. The processor generates a number of signals for each of the records, which include a first control signal corresponding to pre-negotiation of the respective claim. The first control signal is characterized by at least two subordinate signals. The
Cantwell David L.
Davidson Brant
Wamsley Vaughn A.
Rimell Sam
Woodard Emhardt Moriarty McNett & Henry LLP
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