Using Decision Analysis for case management

Using Decision Analysis for case management

This is the latest in our series of discussions about how clients have used HSF's Decision Analysis models as part of their strategic disputes management.

This week, New York Partner Benjamin Rubinstein discusses how it can help in making case management decisions, especially on issue prioritisation:

One of the features of the Decision Analysis service is that, in addition to giving the user a probability weighted average outcome or "expected value" of a dispute that can be weighed against a possible settlement, it allows for a range of sensitivity testing so the user can get a more nuanced understanding of the risks in the dispute.

We were advising a client on a "bet the company" dispute involving a range of complex issues, where (paradoxically) if our opponents succeeded in certain issues, their prospects would become weaker in others.  The Decision Analysis approach was an excellent way to take account of these inter-connections between issues, and to help our client get a sense of where its risks lay.

In particular, the sensitivity tests helped us to understand which issues had the greatest impact on the modelled value of the litigation.  Whilst lawyers will often have an intuitive sense of which issues matter the most, they won't always be right when they do it all in their head. And they will rarely have a good sense of how big the gap is between the most significant issues and the rest.

Read Part 1 of our Decision Analysis Series - Using Decision Analysis to evaluate a settlement offer

Read Part 2 of our Decision Analysis Series - Using Decision Analysis in settlement negotiations

Read Part 3 of our Decision Analysis Series - Using Decision Analysis for distressed debt valuations

In this case, the sensitivity analysis showed us which issues were most likely to yield a return on investment. We then worked with the client to develop and strengthen its case on those points, to improve its position in either a litigation or a settlement scenario.  So the client was able to focus its legal spend on the issues that would benefit it the most.

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