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Welcome to Off the Record Personal Injury Litigation with Michael Copsic.
Hey everyone, welcome into an new episode of Off the Record Personal Injury Litigation with Michael Copsic. I'm your host, Mike Leon. You know, Mike here is a trial tested Illinois injury lawyer who has taken more than 60 cases to verdict and he's handled thousands of depositions, including hundreds involving doctors and experts. brings a clear, straightforward view of how personal injury cases actually move through the legal system. And in today's episode, we're going to be talking about one of the most common questions I'm sure Mike gets all the time. How long is this going to take? How long a personal injury case really takes and why the answer is rarely simple? Mike's going to explain in just a second.
Mike, it's good to see you as always. So, I'm sure you get this all the time. Almost everyone wants to know how long their case is going to be. How realistic is it for you as an attorney to kind of predict the case timing early on to them?
Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Mike. Good to see you. Um, you know, this is a great question and certainly one that comes up in just about every single case. Hey, do you have any idea how long this is going to take? Um, and I try not to be sarcastic when I answer, but you know, if I had a crystal ball, I I probably could come up with an answer. Um and and you know even with a lot of years of experience it's basically impossible to give a straight answer but it's it's one that comes with a lot of factors as many things in the law. Um and it's one that we try to paint a little bit of a picture for with clients towards the beginning. Um they want to know is this going to be a couple months ordeal? Is this going to be five or six years? Um, a and a lot of times there are some factors that identify themselves early on in cases where we know if it's going to be short, medium, or long. Um, but it's again really hard to give a black or white answer, especially, you know, on the first few phone calls with a client.
So, when you're looking at the case early that's now been brought to you, what what factors or what tends to make the timeline maybe a little bit easier for you to predict versus a situation where there's there's just like there's too many moving pieces in this to give them a clear answer.
Yeah, you hit it on the head there. It's the moving pieces that that really tend to indicate which way a case is going to go early on in the conversation with the client. Typically, when you have, you know, less moving parts, you have less issues about the case, you have um facts that are going to show you whether or not your client's probably going to win, probably going to lose, or maybe somewhere in between, that's going to really um give you some information as to how long the case is going to take. Um I'll give you a quick example. If you have a rear-end car accident, you know that there is probably going to be a plaintiff and a defendant. Um you're hoping that the case gets settled uh in the claim stage. you know the money is only going to come from one party. You know that you've already won it because you were rearended. So, you know, there's there's a very very low chance that you have any liability on the part of your your client. And therefore, you can predict with ease that we're probably going to settle this in the claim stage. It's probably going to take six to eight months somewhere in that ballpark.
Now, on the flip side, you have a multi-party construction case with a general contractor and seven subcontractors. You have a complex injury. you have complex liability, meaning, was it our fault a little bit? Was it the general? Was it one of these subcontractors? We're going to have to get discovery. We're going to have thousands of pages of medical records and contracts to go through. Um, I can tell you with certainty that we're not going to settle that case at the claim stage. We're going to need to file a lawsuit. It's going to be against nine different defendants. And this might take three, four, even upwards of five years, believe it or not. So there are outliers um on both sides of the spectrum. But when you have easily identifiable issues and a lower amount of parties and moving parts as you said that's when you're more able to easily predict how long a case is going to take.
Well let's touch on one of the things that you mentioned there about like the insurance ones. So why why have you seen or maybe you can dispel this for us like why insuranceonly claims it seems like they often resolve faster while the cases that go into litigation they tend to stretch out longer. Is that the case?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, most cases have a 2-year statute of limitations, and there's exceptions, and we don't have to get into the boring stuff, but you can uh rest assured that when you have a car accident and it happens on January 1st, 2026, for instance, you are going to need to settle your case or file a lawsuit um within those two years. So, insurance claims cases typically settle um a lot faster than litigation because you have a deadline and you have a timeline that you are aware of that the the the plaintiff's attorney doesn't want to screw anything up by not filing the lawsuit and the insurance company wants to resolve it before they start paying attorneys to defend their insured and defend their case. So, when you see cases settling quickly in the claim stage, that's because everyone's trying to save money. everyone's up against the clock and we want to get it done quickly and that's one of the incentives to settling before filing a lawsuit.
You know, we've talked in previous episodes about county and location sometimes mattering. So, once a case is actually in litigation, how much does that factor in county and location, especially when it comes to timing?
Huge. And and I wish that weren't the answer. Um, every county has an identity, right? You can imagine Cook County and Chicago, Illinois being the hub of litigation. Hundreds and thousands of cases every year and every type of law get filed. Um I I can remember I was actually uh in the office last year on on New Year's Day. So, the first filing um of the year and I had filed a case at uh 9:30 in the morning on January 1st of 2025 and I was the 19th case that got filed in Cook County that year and that day obviously. Um so cases um in certain counties with heavy litigation loads like Cook County, those cases are they're typically going to take a longer period of time. Now, you can also argue that the bigger the bigger um counties are also a lot more efficient. Um and I I know in particular in Cook County, they're working on getting that time frame really narrowed as best as they can. Um but again, every county has an identifiable characteristic. They have an identity. Um, and as you get further and further out from the big cities, as you go more rural and you get into kind of farmland and um, you know, odds and ends counties that you see out there that you've never even heard of, those can also take a long time because maybe there's only one judge or two judges and their heavy case load, um, which they would characterize as a heavy case load. I'm sure Cook County wouldn't agree that it's a heavy case load. Um, but the Collar County still can take a long time as well. So, um, it's really up to the judge. It's up to the county to determine how fast things go. And right when you file, right when you know where you're going, you already have a good idea of what to expect based on your experience with that county.
Mike, let's talk a little bit about your experience with respect to litigation and the timelines. Again, so now that the case is in litigation, right, ones that you've seen take months versus one that you've seen take years. What are some things that have kind of driven those differences?
Yeah, it's um the moving parts thing is is a great um phrase to keep in mind because the more moving parts there are and really the more issues that arise during litigation, that's when you're going to see a case extend. For instance, you can have discovery delays. Um you can have delays with respect to the defense attorney who is trying to make an appearance in the case. Maybe the attorney is withdrawing because it has a conflict of interest and another attorney has to um reappear for their insured or their defendant. Um all types of things can happen within litigation with respect to discovery, attorneys, motions, depositions, cancellations. Um you hope that every case is really clean from start to finish. Oftentimes it's just not. Um, so those factors can really be um a hindrance uh to a fast and efficient resolution.
Yeah. And to piggyback on that, how are you handling these conversations with clients, especially now the timeline isn't what they were hoping for? You got delays potentially. Like, how are you approaching those conversations?
Yeah, it's a great question and it's it's one I struggle with because I I find myself on the phone sounding like a broken record trying to explain to a client why things are delayed, trying to explain to them that this is not uncommon. Um that litigation has its headaches. I I deal with it on a day-to-day basis. They don't. So, it's important that you sit down just like we're sitting down now and explaining what is actually causing the delay here. Is it something that I can fix? Is it something that I can manage or are we going to have to play the waiting game?
One thing that I tell my clients and it sounds like attorney talk at the beginning for sure, but it's something that they see is very obvious. The plaintiff in the case is the one who's filing the lawsuit. The plaintiff, that's me and you know, of course, my client. The plaintiff in the case is the one that is pushing the information and pushing the case forward and we are acting kind of affirmatively and we are acting aggressively. The defense in the case is is the party that's reacting. The defense in the case is getting sued. They're kind of already on their heels when a case starts. We're pushing them and they're kind of waiting back, seeing what they have to send us, seeing what they have to respond to, and not necessarily doing so in a timely fashion. Again, if we blow deadlines, our case is going to get dismissed. If the defense blows deadlines, they're going to get in trouble eventually. But again, they're the ones that are being sued. So, they don't have the same incentives that we have.
So, I always tell my clients, look, I'm going to aggressively push this case forward within reason. I'm going to do so in an efficient way so we maximize the value of your case. Um, that is one thing you can guarantee that I do because that's in my blood. It's in my DNA as a plaintiff's attorney. We're aggressive and we're going to push this thing forward. But at the same time, there's only so much I can do to get a case from start to finish effectively and efficiently. I hope that I'll have the cooperation of the judge. I hope that I'll have the cooperation of the defense attorney, but as I've learned in in my in my career, that's not always the case.
Mike, you mentioned a second ago about learning and understanding. H how does learning the insurance policy limits affect your ability to kind of help people predict the timing, especially in these situations where some of these small policies and there's significant medical bills involved, right?
Yeah. Knowing what the policy limits are, that's going to absolutely affect the timing of a case. Um so take for example, you have, let's say, a case that's worth $100,000. You've got a an ankle break, you had a surgery, you have $50,000 in medical bills, for instance. your case is worth roughly $150,000. Well, the second we find out that the insurance policy is a minimum policy of $25,000, we know this case is going to get settled really quickly, assuming, of course, that it's the other party's fault, right? So, let's say it's a rear-end car accident. We've got a $150,000 case. The only applicable insurance policy here is $25,000. That is going to be a very fast resolution. there is not much fight that they can say your case is somehow not worth what our policy is. In fact, if they don't give us that amount of money within a 30-day period, it te's up what we call a bad faith case and we can end up attacking the insurance company um in a much more powerful way. But that is a a really quick example of how a minimum policy can inform the timing of a case to make it resolve really quickly.
Likewise, if you have $10,000 case, but a million dollar policy, you might have an insurance company that says, "Hey, we've got a million dollars. We don't want to screw around with this relatively small case. Let's see if we can resolve this quickly." Where a minimum policy of 25,000 and a case that's worth 10, they might fight you tooth and nail for every penny because every dollar matters to that company who's got a minimum policy. where the the million-dollar policy, as an example, they've got a lot more flexibility. So, we always want to make an early determination as to what the policy is because that really affects the timing of the resolution of the case.
You know, Mike, as we kind of wrap here, I mentioned it at the beginning. Everyone wants your perspective and your take on how long this case is going to actually take, but what's one takeaway uh you would want to give the listener out there that's potentially going to bring a personal injury case?
Patience, patience, patience, right? I mean, patience is a virtue. And again, I hate to tell clients that because I don't want them to think that, oh, I'm just delayed or my office is backlogged. No, litigation is delayed. Litigation is backlogged. I see it every day. Every single time I stand in court listening to other attorneys talk to the judges, all they're talking about is how they really haven't been able to do the work. They haven't been able to meet the deadline. And here's why. it was a medical provider or it was the defendant or it was the plaintiff. There's always a story that someone's trying to spin. So, for purposes of my client's cases, I say we have to walk into this patient. Let's have low expectations. We want to hope for the best, expect the worst. And if we're patient, I promise you, I'm going to push this case as aggressively I as I can. And we're not after a quick resolution. We're after a fantastic resolution. So, if we can kind of be on the same team, if we can both remain patient, we are going to have a successful outcome.
Mike, I can't thank you enough for the time, the insights, and explaining this all to the audience. I appreciate it as always.
My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
That wraps up today's episode of Off the Record, personal injury litigation with Michael Copsic. If you want to learn more, you want to connect with Mike and learn more about his practice, do me a favor, visit law-m.com right now. Do me one more favor as well before you go. Hit like, hit subscribe, leave a review, comment, share the episode with someone who needs to hear it. As always, I am Mike Leon. We will see everybody next time.
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