Cycle Time. In Other Words: How Long will my Case Take?

I’ve been reading about private equity purchasing personal injury practices. The articles use all sorts of terms that I’ve never heard of before.

When my dad was alive, he used to ask me how business was going. My dad was a celery farmer. At the end of the day, he would review how much it cost to plant, harvest, and/or ship the celery on a per/pound basis.

Maybe it’s that way in huge volume practices. But it’s not that way in ours.

I used to tell him that we must have been doing a pretty good job last year because we were having a good month.

What I meant was that it was difficult, if not impossible, for me to know whether we made any money today because there was such a delay between the work we did and the actual receipt of revenue.

It turns out that what we were (indirectly) discussing is called “cycle time.” And it’s not just a concern for attorneys. It’s a question that we get asked in just about every case (even if the exact term isn’t used). People want to know how long their case will take.

The average case in our office takes about a year to resolve. But there are definitely cases that take much less and much more time to wrap up.

There are a lot of variables in the cycle time equation. Some of them are how long it takes to finish treatment or have a clear prognosis, whether liability is disputed, whether there is an issue about whether your injuries were caused in the collision (or have some other plausible cause), whether the case goes to trial or arbitration, etc.

Even with all these variables, there are some known knowns. We start every case by collecting collision reports, medical bills, information about income loss, etc. Then, as quickly as possible, we process that information into a demand letter. We send the demand letter to the insurance company for the at-fault driver.

Based on the response to the demand, we will have a pretty good idea whether the case can be negotiated and settled or if suit needs to be filed. At that point, we can give a case-specific estimate of how much (longer) the case will take to resolve.