As a Coral Gables PI lawyer, I must get asked this question at least ten times a day. And the answer is always the same: “I do not know”. And that is a good thing. It is not because I am a bad lawyer. It is not because I am inexperienced. It is because, no one really knows what a jury is going to do with any given set of facts in any given trial.
So we base our answers in terms of estimates. Estimates based on the amount of available insurance coverage or asset, the severity of the injury, the severity of the conduct of the defendant and the like-ability and believability of the claimants.
I always tell my clients that a jury will be more likely to like them if they are like-able people to begin with. Convicted felons, dead beat dads, tax evaders, usually do not get the full value of their cases, either by jury or settlement.
Be wary of any lawyer that claims to know what your case is worth, without having actually met you and thoroughly reviewed the facts of your case. And of course, no matter how good the lawyer on either side may be, no one will ever really know how much a case is worth until the verdict is read.
