Module 3

Benchmarks and settlement data: what past deals can and cannot tell you

‘What do cases like this usually settle for?’ is the question that every client asks and that most lawyers answer from memory. Memory is a poor database: it keeps the dramatic cases, forgets the dull ones and rounds everything into a story. A table of past settlements is better, even a small and imperfect one, because it can be checked, extended and compared with the facts of the case in hand. This module shows how to build and read such a table. You learn to record each deal with the same few fields, to express results as a share of the amount claimed so that cases of different sizes can be compared, to summarise them with a median and the middle half of results, and to see where a proposed offer would fall among past outcomes. Then it turns to the limits, which matter more than the arithmetic: samples are small, settled cases are not all cases, claims are inflated or deflated for tactical reasons, and cases that look alike differ in ways the table does not record. A benchmark is a reference point for a conversation, not a forecast of the result. The Settlement Benchmarker works with an invented table.

General education on using data in negotiation, with invented companies, people, disputes and figures. It states common practice in simplified form and does not describe any one country's law or professional rules, which differ and change; rules on candour, misrepresentation, confidentiality and settlement in particular vary. The tools organise your own estimates and cannot predict the result of any real negotiation. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace advice from a qualified lawyer on a real matter.