Colossus and Bad Faith Insurance Claims in Maryland
The Maryland Insurance Administration has now given its stamp of approval on Allstate's use of "Colossus 7.0.2+ Assessment for General Damages" and "Decision Point Medical Expert", software programs as tools to "honestly and accurately" asses the value of first party insurance claims. If you are a Maryland accident lawyer contemplating a first party bad faith claim against Allstate, be prepared for the "computer agreed with me so it must be good faith" argument from Allstate insurance claims adjusters. How Colossus Works W

Rolexes and Introductions
Whenever I prepare for giving an opening statement, as I am today, my head is filled with more advice that I have heard or read over the years than expletives Bill Belichick threw out last night. I am writing today about two issues: what you should wear to trial and how you begin your opening.

Negotiating a Settlement with Car Insurance Companies
Accident lawyers attempting to negotiate settlements with insurance companies tend to view insurance companies as monolithic, i.e., "Insurance Company A is difficult' or "Insurance Company B is easy to deal with on claims." It is an oversimplification. Claims practices by different insurance companies vary from state to state and even from insurance claims adjuster to insurance claims adjuster. But, certainly, each insurance company has its own history, policies and "world view" of handling auto accident claims. It is also worth noting that the similarities of individual insurance companies tend to vary inversely with the severity of the accident. This is because la

University of Maryland Medical Systems v. Waldt
The Maryland Court of Appeals republished University of Maryland Medical Systems v. Waldt today. One of our lawyers, John Cord, has created a document comparing the two opinions. This PDF document highlights the differences between the October 20, 2009 opinion and the November 10, 2009 opinion. However, the document has been created by electronically comparing the two opinions, and some highlighted portions reflect changes in formatting, page location, or the idiosyncrasies of the conversion process, and do not necessarily mean that the exact wording has changed. Still, it helps you cu

Personal Injury Statistics
While not as fun as, say, baseball statistics in the pre-steroids era, I really do enjoy looking at statistics on personal injury lawsuits. The Department of Justice just released a new report on personal injury lawsuit statistics (which I found via TortsProfBlog). The data, as always with this stuff, is older - 2005. But it is still incredibly interesting. Here is a sampling: Personal injury lawsuits accounted for about 60% of the estimated 26,948 tort, contract, and real property c