How We Work

1  Contingency Fee

At Andover, we never charge our clients by the hour — e.g., $400 an hour for attorney time. We believe that hour billing encourages and rewards inefficient work, and subconsciously will lead to some attorneys “padding” their hours. Rather, we charge a reasonable contingency fee. In other words, we don’t make a dime until we obtain money for you. As noted in Section 23, your case is not settled unless you agree with the amount.

2  Out-of-Pocket Expenses

Certain out-of-pocket expenses are often incurred in processing a case, such as the cost of your medical records (charged by your physician or hospital), as well as a court filing fee if a lawsuit is filed. Some law firms ask that you pay these costs as they are incurred, but at Andover we do not ask you to advance a cent. Instead, we pay all of these costs, and when we obtain money for you, you reimburse us for the out-of-pocket costs Andover has incurred.

3  In Depth Intake

Your intake will be conducted by a highly trained Client Intake Specialist (“CIS”), who has years of training in your particular case type. As with our Case Managers (see Section 6), your CIS is a U.S. citizen who speak perfect English.

4  Spanish Language

If you prefer a CIS or Case Manager who speaks Spanish, just ask.

5  Client Engagement Agreement

Assuming you wish to retain Andover and we wish to represent you, we will send you a Client Engagement Agreement to sign. Usually the fastest way to have the CEA executed is via DocuSign, which you can use on your mobile phone. Once we receive it, we will send you paper copies of the CEA, as well as a HIPAA Authorization Form, which authorizes us to obtain your medical records from your pharmacy, physician and/or hospital.

6  Your Own Dedicated Case Manager

As soon as you sign your Client Engagement Agreement, we will assign you your own dedicated Case Manager, with whom you will communicate with from the beginning of your case until your receipt of monies. Thus, you will always have one point of contact, who will be intimately familiar with the details of your case. At Andover, we do not pass you around from person A to person B to person C the way some law firms do.

Your Case Manager is responsible for all aspects of your case, and is responsible for making certain that your case is moving forward towards settlement or trial. He or she will either do the work themselves or make certain that the work is being done by another person who is qualified to perform the task. (For example, depending on the case, we might employ a Legal Nurse Consultant to review your medical records (see Section 14).)

Accordingly, it is essential that your Case Manager be detail oriented with excellent attention to detail. Andover is extra careful to make certain that flakes and “space cadets” are not hired for this important role. Even if you and your attorney decide that your case should go to trial, your Case Manager will be intimately involved to make certain “nothing slips through the cracks.”

If for some reason you don’t “click” with your Case Manager, ask to speak with our Managing Partner and he will assign you another Case Manager. Your satisfaction is all we care about (in addition to obtaining a significant amount of money for you, of course).

7  Our Case Managers are U.S. Citizens

All of our Case Managers are U.S. citizens who live in the U.S. and are 100 percent fluent in English. No Indian call centers for Andover!

8  Humans Answer the Telephone

In the daytime, when you telephone us, humans answer the telephone. No IVR (Interactive Voice Response — e.g., “Dial 1 for sales …”), no AI bots, no voice mail, but an actual human. Sure, that costs us more, but it is worth it to provide our clients with world class service.

9  If Your Case Manager is On the Phone

Each of our Case Managers has a dedicated telephone number so you can telephone them directly. In the daytime, if your Case Manager is on the telephone, you will not be sent to their voice mail. Instead, our phone system will “roll over” your call to our receptionist, who will answer the call. While you are talking with the receptionist, the receptionist can communicate with the Case Manager (using Slack, an internal messaging system we have installed), finding out how soon your Case Manager can call you back.

10  Email and Texting

If you prefer to communicate with your Case Manager via email or text messages, that is fine with us!

11  We Return Phone Calls Quickly

If our receptionist has taken a telephone message from you, your Case Manager will quickly call you back. One law firm we know has a recording that says, “All calls will usually be returned within three days.” Three days! Andover seeks to return calls within an hour or two.

12  We Order Your Medical Records

Using the HIPPA Authorization Form that you signed, we then order your medical records (“MRs”) from your pharmacy, physicians and hospital.

13  Preparing Chronologies

Once we receive all of your MRs, we sort each visit into chronological order; we call this process “preparing chronologies.”

14  Medical Records Review

The next step is to carefully review your medical records. Before a defendant pays you any monies, paralegals or Legal Nurse Consultants who work for defense counsel will also carefully review your MRs. Therefore, before we submit your MRs to defense counsel, we will look at your records from the point of view of defense counsel. What discrepancies exist in your records? Are there any holes? In some cases we will ask you to ask your physician to add comments to your comments, based on the objections we expect defense counsel to bring up.

15  File Complaint

If your case will not settle right away, or if you and Andover have decided your case should go to trial, we prepare a complaint which is then filed in the most appropriate court. Andover files suit around the entire country, in both state and federal courts. Picking the right forum is a key decision on obtaining the most amount of money for you. In some court we know the case will be assigned to a judge who is considered to be “pro plaintiff,” and in some courts the jury pool has a history of awarding large monetary awards to plaintiffs.

16  Plaintiff Fact Sheet

For cases filed in federal court, some case types are centralized in front of one judge, in what is called “Multidistrict Litigation” (“MDL”). Typically the MDL judge requires us to prepare a Plaintiff Fact Sheet” (“PFS”) and often such judge imposes a deadline for doing so — e.g., “file your PRS within sixty days of filing your complaint.” Therefore, we almost always prepare the PFS before filing your complaint, so we do not have to rush to prepare and file the PFS.

17  Our Case Management System

There about a dozen companies that sells case management systems (“CMS”) for plaintiff law firms. We have carefully looked at each one of these and concluded that none of them were good enough. So we wrote our own in-house, proprietary CMS.

18  All “Touch Points” Are Logged

Every interactions with your case — we call these “touch points” — are logged into our CMS, even something like “Left word for the client to call me.” We don’t need to rely upon our memory, as everything is recorded in our CMS. If your Case Manager is on vacation and we need to find out what is happening in your case, we can just check our CMS.

19  All Deadlines Are Carefully Tracked in Our CMS

In law, it’s essential to never miss a deadline, such as a statute of limitations deadline or an appeal deadline. All of these deadlines are carefully tracked in our CMS.

20  Various Professionals Are Available

Depending on the case, sometimes we retain specialists, such as constables, private investigators, document review experts, legal researchers, medical experts, accident recovery specialists, vocational experts, expert witnesses, insurance and billing experts, stenographers, and/or jury consultants. As noted in Section 2, all of these expenses are initially paid for by Andover.

21  Settle or Litigate Your Case

At some point in the case, you and Andover need to decide if your case should be settled or if your case should go to trial. The advantage of settlement is that you know exactly how much you will receive and there is no risk. The problem with trials is that sometimes the defendant wins and even when you win, it takes longer to collect your money, particularly if the defendants appeals the verdict in your favor. The advantage of a trial is that in most cases you will obtain more money, sometimes a lot more money, particularly if punitive damages are awared. Which way to go is a complicated decision and Andover will carefully walk you through the pros and cons of settling vs. trying a case.

22  Prepare Your Case for Submission to Defense Counsel

Now it is time to “work up” your case. Your medical records have already been reviewed and summarized (see Section 14), and now we prepare a complete settlement package to submit to defense counsel.

23  Negotiate with Defense Counsel

Our goal to present the strongest arguments for paying you the most amount of money, while at the same time being truthful with defense counsel. (It’s OK to spin the facts, but we never lie.) There are only a few dozen laws firms which handles most of the settlements in mass torts, and Andover has a great reputation for being “straight shooters” with these law firms. This reputation benefits you, since the settlement will happen more quickly and “on the edge,” we can often squeeze out some additional money for you.

These defense law firms know that we are zealous advocates for our clients. (One partner at a major defense firm said, “In my 28 year career, I’ve never met someone who argues as much as you do. You frankly wore me down into paying more than I should have.”) These firms know that if their client does not pay a suitable amount, Andover will take the case to trial.

24  Structure the Settlement

It’s important to structure your settlement properly. First, Andover considers the tax implications. For federal income taxes, the most relevant Internal Revenue Code section is Section 104(a). As a general rule, settlements for pain and suffering and physical sickness are non-taxable, while payments for punitive damages are always taxable and often payments for lost wages are taxable. Thus, irrespective of the negotiating position Andover took with defense counsel (“my client could not work for three years, and she was making $75,000 a year in salary, so add $225,000 to the settlement amount”), it’s essential that in terms of drafting the settlement agreement, all of the monetary amounts are attributed to non-taxable categories.

Some of our clients receive governmental assistance. It’s essential for Andover to understand your financial situation so that receipt of a settlement does not affect your benefits. In some cases Andover will bring in a settlement planner to advise on structuring your settlement — e.g., establishing a Special Needs Trust.

We realize all of this sounds complicated, and frankly it is. We have been structuring settlements for over 20 years and it’s essential to put as much money in your pocket after taxes and any effects on government benefits.

25  Disburse Funds

Now comes to the fun part: sending you your money! If you wish, we can introduce you to an appropriate financial advisor who will help you invest your money prudently. There are dozens of stories of individuals who received a lot of money — professional athletes, winners of the lottery — who five or ten years later spent all of it and are now working at McDonalds. We do not want this to happen to you!

26  We Often Find Other Counsel

Sometimes after doing your intake we conclude we are not the most appropriate law firm to represent you. We are incredibly well connected with leading personal injury and mass tort law firms across the country. (Our Managing Partners spends much of his time networking with such law firms and attending various legal conferences.) If we think you have a viable case, we will — at no cost to you — refer you to a law firm that will do a great job in representing you.