Using SettleIndex balances the ‘partisan bias’ found in adversarial dispute resolution. Both parties get a quicker more economic solution.
The critical step in any dispute is working out its settlement value. Four years working with SettleIndex has confirmed that opposing lawyers never agree on the value of a dispute! You may think this is as obvious as the conclusion to some expensive research by the Ministry of Agriculture. Carrots are the favourite food of rabbits.
Importantly however there is a consistent pattern to this disagreement. SettleIndex asks Users not just to estimate their own chances, but how they think their Opponents would estimate those same chances. Claimants always perceive that the Defendants will assess the value of the case at a lower figure than them.
This role based differential (‘partisan role based bias’) always applies, whether the lawyer is acting for Claimant or Defendant. There have been academic studies about this real phenomenon. For example the one of 2019 linked below:
Towards a Better Understanding of Lawyers’ Judgmental Biases in Client Representation
Although the bias is unavoidable, the SettleIndex requirement to enter a set of Opponent values is a neat solution and generates a strong counterbalance to the User’s own view. In most cases the system identifies and calculates the logical place to settle against this range created by the User. Our conclusion is that all lawyers recognise (and exhibit) the existence of partisan role based bias. Although they also implicitly believe that it is the Opponents who have got the ‘wrong’ end of the stick and not them.
If Users are prepared to move away from their own Award Position to our Model Settlement value, they stand to make substantial savings
