Negotiations/Settlement

The Negotiation/Settlement page allows you to view and record the details of negotiations and settlements with insurance companies and opposing counsel. Some of the information on this page is presented in a simplified format in the Negotiations and Settlements area of the Case Summary page, but the Negotiation/Settlement page contains much more thorough information, and is the only place where that information can be directly edited.
Note that financial awards due to arbitration or verdicts are also recorded on this page in the Settlement table, even though they are not technically settlements. This manual will follow the convention of the SmartAdvocate system and use "settlement" to describe any outcome resulting in compensation for a plaintiff. To distinguish between actual settlements and other outcomes, use the Settlement Type field in The Add/Edit Settlement Panel.

The Structure of This Page

Add Negotiation button. Used to add a new negotiation to the case file.
Settlement View button. Opens the Settlement View panel, which displays a summary of the case file for use in negotiations.
Continue Negotiation: Pulls up the most recent negotiation to edit.
Negotiation table. Contains the negotiation details and allows various actions to be performed on them.
Add Settlement button. Used to add a new settlement to the case file.
Settlement table. Contains the settlement details and allows various actions to be performed on them.
Add Check: Used to add new check
Add All Distribution Checks: Used to add all checks paid from insurance companies.

Negotiations Panel

Settlement View Panel

The Settlement View panel provides an overview of the information in the case that is likely to be relevant during negotiations. The panel includes information from various other case pages in SmartAdvocate. To open the panel, click the Settlement View button. To close it, click the Close button or the white X in the upper right corner of the panel. The panel contains the following sections:

Plaintiff: This section contains a Radio button field with an option for each plaintiff in the case. Select the plaintiff whose information you wish to see; all other sections show only the information pertaining to the selected plaintiff.
Incident Facts: This section contains the Incident Facts field from the Incident case page.
Injuries: This section contains information from the Injuries Summary column in a table with two segments taken from the Injuries case page. The first segment is taken from the Injuries Summary column of the Injuries Summary table; the second is taken from the Injury and Description columns of the Injury Details sub-table.
Coverage: This section contains a table with five columns taken from the Insurance Companies tables in the Plaintiff Insurance and Defendant Insurance case pages. The table excludes duplicate records and records from the Plaintiff Insurance page that cover a plaintiff other than the selected one, but it includes third-party administrators as separate rows. The Ins. Co. column is taken from the Insurance Company column of the source table (or the first line of the 3rd Party Insurance column for third-party administrators); the Ins. Type column is taken from the Insurance Type column; the Adjuster column is taken from the Adjuster column (or the Adjuster line of the 3rd Party Insurance column for third-party administrators); the Insured Name is taken from the first line of the Policy Info column; and the Policy Limit column is taken from the Limits line of the Policy Info column for defendant insurance companies, or the UM/SUM Limits line of the Policy Info column for plaintiff insurance companies.
Lienors: This section contains a table with four columns taken from the Lienor Table on the Lien Tracking case page. The Lienor Name column is taken from the Lienor column of the source table; the Lienor Type column is taken from the Lienor Type column of the source table; the Lienor Amount column is taken from the Negotiated line of the Amounts column; and the Comments column is taken from the Comments column.
Case Expense: This section contains the number in the Total column for the selected plaintiff on the Case Expense case page.
Last Demand: This section contains the number in the Demand column of the Negotiation Page with the latest date in the Date field of all those that involve the plaintiff, ignoring those where the Demand column is blank or contains $0.00.
Last Offer: This section contains the number in the Offer column of the Negotiation Page with the latest date in the Date field of all those that involve the plaintiff, ignoring those where the Offer column is blank or contains $0.00.

Negotiation Table

The Negotiation table is where the details of negotiations are stored. Each row of the table represents an individual round of negotiation. See Tables for general information about table structure and usage, including all buttons and other tools in this table that are not mentioned below.

Columns in the Table

The Negotiation table contains the following available columns:

Date: The date of the negotiation.
Plaintiff: The plaintiff whose settlement was being negotiated.
Negotiated by: The staff member who conducted the negotiation.
Negotiating With: The details of the company being negotiated with (for insurance companies: the name of the company, insurance type, policy limits, relevant defendant or plaintiff, name of insured, claim number, and adjuster name and phone number; for law firms, the name of the firm and the attorney name (Advocate) and phone number).
Demand: The amount of the demand made by your firm during the negotiation.
Offer: The amount of the offer made by the insurance company or attorney during the negotiation.
Authorized: The amount the plaintiff authorized your firm to accept.
Settlement: The amount of the settlement reached during the negotiation.
Note: Any comments about the negotiation.
Action: Right-click icon; right-click menu contains Edit, Email, Delete, and Print.

Editing a Negotiation

To edit a negotiation:

Click the right-click icon in the Action column of the row representing the negotiation you wish to edit, or right-click anywhere in that row. This will bring up a menu of options.
Click the Edit option in the menu. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for negotiations, with the existing information filled in.
Fill the fields in with your desired information.
Click Save (for a new Negotiation) or Update (if editing an existing Negotiation) to save the changes and close the panel.

If you decide you do not wish to save the changes, click Cancel instead of clicking Update to undo the changes and close the panel. You can also click the white X at the upper right of the panel to do the same thing.
If you wish to email the details of the negotiation at the same time as you save the changes, click Save & Email or Update and Email instead of clicking Save or Update to save the changes, which will close the Add/Edit panel, and open the case email panel, using the [Negotiation] email template, with the details of the negotiation automatically included in place of negotiation merge codes. Fill out the email with any desired additional content and click Send to send the email, or click the white X at the upper right of the panel instead of clicking Send to close the panel without sending the email. See the Email/Note Templates administrative page for managing email templates.

Deleting a Negotiation

To delete a negotiation:

Make sure there is no settlement linked to the negotiation. If the Settlement column in the row representing the negotiation you wish to delete is not blank, there is a settlement linked to the negotiation. See The Settlement Field for details about linked settlements, and see Deleting a Settlement to first delete the settlement linked to the negotiation, if there is one.
Click the right-click icon in the Action column of the row representing the negotiation you wish to delete, or right-click anywhere in that row. This will bring up a menu of options.
Click the Delete option in the menu. This will bring up a confirmation message (to avoid accidental deletions).
Click the OK button in the message to confirm the deletion.

If you decide you do not wish to delete the negotiation, click Cancel instead of clicking OK to cancel the deletion. You can also click the black X at the upper right of the message to do the same thing.
Until you either confirm or cancel the deletion, you may not be able to visit any other tab in your browser.

Adding a Negotiation

To add a new negotiation:

Click the Add Negotiation button. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for negotiations, blank except for defaults.
Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit Negotiation Panel for details about the fields.
Click Save to save the negotiation and close the panel.

If you decide you do not wish to save the negotiation, click Cancel instead of clicking Save to undo the changes and close the panel. You can also click the white X at the upper right of the panel to do the same thing.

Emailing a Negotiation

To email the details of a negotiation:

Click the right-click icon in the untitled column of the row representing the negotiation whose details you wish to email, or right-click anywhere in that row. This will bring up a menu of options.
Click the Email option in the menu. This will open the Case Email panel, using the [Negotiation] email template, with the details of the negotiation automatically included in place of negotiation merge codes.
Fill out the email with any desired additional content. See the Email/Note Templates administrative page for managing email templates.
Click Send to send the email.

If you decide you do not wish to send the email, click the white X at the upper right of the panel to close the panel without sending the email.

Printing a Negotiation

To print the details of a negotiation:

Click the right-click icon in the untitled column of the row representing the negotiation whose details you wish to print, or right-click anywhere in that row. This will bring up a menu of options.
Click the Print option in the menu. This will open a new tab containing only the details of the negotiation, and immediately bring up your browser's print options for that tab.
Select the print options you desire and print the negotiation details. (Since the printing is performed by the browser and not by SmartAdvocate, different users may have different printing interfaces. Consult your browser's help if you need further details at this point.)

Note that after printing, the tab containing only the details of the negotiation will remain open. You may close this if you wish.

The Add/Edit Negotiation Panel

The Add/Edit Negotiation Panel allows you to fill in the details of a negotiation. See Add/Edit Panels for general information about panel structure and usage. This panel contains the following fields:

Negotiating with: Radio buttons that allow you to choose the company or law firm being negotiated with.
Date: The date of the negotiation.
Negotiated by: The staff member who conducted the negotiation.
Plaintiff: The plaintiff whose settlement was being negotiated.
Authorized: The amount the plaintiff authorized your firm to accept.
Demand: The amount of the demand made by your firm during this negotiation.
Offer: The amount of the offer made by the company or law firm during the negotiation.
Settlement: The amount of the settlement reached during the negotiation. An exclamation mark indicates that the data in this field is different from the data for this plaintiff in the Settlement table. For additional details, see The Settlement Field.
Note Template: Select note templates previously made, OR add any comments about the negotiation.
Settlement Calculation Based on the Offer: This is a separate section of the Add/Edit Negotiation Panel, used to determine the approximate amount the plaintiff will receive based on a specific settlement amount. The information for most of the fields are taken from information in other pages in the system. You can refresh the data in those fields by clicking on the refresh icon ( ) to the right of that field. An exclamation mark ( ) indicates that the data in the field from which this data is taken is different than the amount presently seen on this page for that field. Click on the refresh icon to obtain the most current data from the source page. You can manually enter data into many of these fields, however if the amount is different than the amount on the source page, an exclamation mark will appear to the right of the field. To pull in the latest amount from the source page, simply click on the refresh icon.

Settlements Panel

The Settlement Field

The Settlement field in the Add/Edit Negotiation Panel has an additional purpose beyond being used for the Settlement column in the Negotiation table. If a negotiation is saved with a number other than zero in the Settlement field, and there is not already a settlement linked to that negotiation, a new settlement will be added to the Settlement table, with the Date, Plaintiff, Staff, Settlement With, and Settlement columns matching the negotiation's Date, Plaintiff, Staff, Negotiating With, and Settlement columns respectively, and with the Firm Fee column containing $0.00 because it cannot be blank. This new settlement is considered linked to the negotiation, though there is no additional indication of the link.
Any edits to the Settlement field in the negotiation, or to the Gross Settlement Amount field in the settlement, will be reflected in the Settlement column in both the linked negotiation and settlement. Edits to any other field in the negotiation will not be reflected in the linked settlement, nor will edits to any other field in the settlement be reflected in the linked negotiation.
A negotiation cannot be deleted if a settlement is linked to it. Deleting a linked settlement will cause the Settlement column in the linked negotiation to become blank; it will then be possible to delete the negotiation.

Settlement Table

The Settlement table is where the details of settlements are stored. Each row of the table represents an individual settlement. See Tables for general information about table structure and usage, including all buttons and other tools in this table that are not mentioned below.

Columns in the Table

The Settlement table contains the following available columns:

Date: The date the settlement was reached.
Plaintiff: The plaintiff whose claim was settled.
Settled by: The staff member who reached the settlement.
Settlement With: The details of the company being settled with (for insurance companies: the name of the company, insurance type, policy limits, relevant defendant or plaintiff, name of insured, claim number, and adjuster name and phone number; for law firms, the name of the firm and the attorney name and phone number).
Settlement: The amount of the settlement. The sum of this column across all rows in the table appears below the last row of the column.
Amount Received: The total amount of all checks received in connection with the settlement and the date of the check. If there is only one check, this column lists the date of the check; if there is more than one, it only indicates that there are multiple dates. The sum of the amount in this column across all rows in the table appears below the last row of the column.
Type: The type of outcome being recorded as a settlement.
Firm Fee: The net fee earned by your firm from the settlement. The sum of this column across all rows in the table appears below the last row of the column.
Fee Recorded: The total amount of all money actually taken in and recorded as fees from the settlement and the date the fee intake was recorded. If there is only one recorded intake, this column lists the date of the intake; if there is more than one, it only indicates that there are multiple dates. The sum of the amount in this column across all rows in the table appears below the last row of the column.
Amount Distributed: The total amount of all checks issued in connection with the settlement and the date of the check. If there is only one check, this column lists the date of the check; if there is more than one, it only indicates that there are multiple dates. The sum of the amount in this column across all rows in the table appears below the last row of the column.
Escrow Account: The firm escrow account into which the settlement was deposited, and from which it was distributed.
Comments: Any comments about the settlement
Action: A Right-click icon; the right-click menu contains Edit, Email, Delete, and Print.

Editing a Settlement

To edit a settlement:

Click the right-click icon in the Action column of the row representing the settlement you wish to edit, or right-click anywhere in that row. This will bring up a menu of options.
Click the Edit option in the menu. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for settlements, with the existing information filled in.
Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit Settlement Panel for details about the fields.
Click Update to save the changes and close the panel.

If you decide you do not wish to save the changes, click Cancel instead of clicking Update to undo the changes and close the panel. You can also click the white X at the upper right of the panel to do the same thing.
If you wish to email the details of the settlement at the same time as you save the changes, click Update & Email instead of clicking Update to save the changes, close the Add/Edit panel, and open the case email panel, using the [Settlement] email template, with the details of the settlement automatically included in place of settlement merge codes. Fill out the email with any desired additional content and click Send to send the email, or click the white X at the upper right of the panel instead of clicking Send to close the panel without sending the email. See the Email/Note Templates administrative page for managing email templates.

Deleting a Settlement

To delete a settlement:

Click the right-click icon in the Action column of the row representing the settlement you wish to delete, or right-click anywhere in that row. This will bring up a menu of options.
Alternatively, you can click the Delete icon in the Actions column of the row representing the settlement you wish to delete. This will bring up a confirmation message (to avoid accidental deletions). Skip to step 3.
Click the Delete option in the menu. This will bring up a confirmation message (to avoid accidental deletions).
Click the OK button in the message to confirm the deletion.

If you decide you do not wish to delete the settlement, click Cancel instead of clicking OK to cancel the deletion. You can also click the black X at the upper right of the message to do the same thing.
Until you either confirm or cancel the deletion, you may not be able to visit any other tab in your browser.

Adding a Settlement

There are two ways to add a new settlement. One is to link a settlement to an existing negotiation; see The Settlement Field for details. The other way is as follows:

Click the Add Negotiation button. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for settlements, blank except for defaults.
Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit Settlement Panel for details about the fields.
Click Save to save the settlement and close the panel.

If you decide you do not wish to save the settlement, click Cancel instead of clicking Save to undo the changes and close the panel. You can also click the white X at the upper right of the panel to do the same thing.

Emailing a Settlement

To email the details of a settlement:

Click the right-click icon in the untitled column of the row representing the settlement whose details you wish to email, or right-click anywhere in that row. This will bring up a menu of options.
Click the Email option in the menu. This will open the Case Email panel, using the [Settlement] email template, with the details of the settlement automatically included in place of settlement merge codes.
Fill out the email with any desired additional content. See the Email/Note Templates administrative page for managing email templates.
Click Send to send the email.

If you decide you do not wish to send the email, click the white X at the upper right of the panel to close the panel without sending the email.

Printing a Settlement

To print the details of a settlement:

Click the right-click icon in the untitled column of the row representing the settlement whose details you wish to print, or right-click anywhere in that row. This will bring up a menu of options.
- Alternatively, you can click the Print icon in the Actions column of the row representing the settlement whose details you wish to print. This will open a new tab containing only the details of the settlement, and immediately bring up your browser's print options for that tab. Skip to step 3.
Click the Print option in the menu. This will open a new tab containing only the details of the settlement, and immediately bring up your browser's print options for that tab.
Select the print options you desire and print the settlement details. (Since the printing is performed by the browser and not by SmartAdvocate, different users may have different printing interfaces. Consult your browser's help if you need further details at this point.)
- Note that after printing, the tab containing only the details of the settlement will remain open. You may close this if you wish.

The Add/Edit Settlement Panel

The Add/Edit Settlement Panel allows you to fill in the details of a settlement. See Add/Edit Panels for general information about panel structure and usage. This panel contains the following fields:

Settlement with: Radio button list allowing you to choose the company being settled with. The list contains six columns: the radio button, the name of the company, the name of the adjuster or attorney, the primary phone number of the adjuster or the law firm, the insurance type (insurance companies only), and the plaintiff or defendant covered (insurance companies only).
Date: The date the settlement was reached.
Plaintiff: The plaintiff connected to the settlement.
Settled by: The staff member in your firm who settled the case.
Settlement Type: Whether the settlement was obtained through Negotiation, Arbitration, or a Judgment.
Escrow Account: Into which of your firms escrow account the settlement funds have been deposited.
Release To Client: The date the settlement and release agreement was sent to the client for signature.
Release From Client: The date the signed settlement and release agreement was received from the client.
Release To Ins./Att.: The date the signed settlement and release agreement was sent to the insurance company or law firm with which the case was settled.
Check Expected Date: The date the settlement check is expected to be received by your firm. When the date in this field is changed, and the Release To Ins./Att. field is not blank, the Days from Release field is automatically set to the difference in days between the Release To Ins./Att. field and this field.
Days from Release: The number of days after sending the signed settlement and release agreement to the company being settled with that a settlement check is expected to be received by your firm. When the number in this field is changed, and the Release To Ins./Att. field is not blank, the Check Expected Date field is automatically set to the date in the Release To Ins./Att. field plus the number of days in this field.
Date Of Distribution: The date your firm sent the amount due to the plaintiff.
Comments: Any comments about the settlement.
Settlement Calculation: This is a separate section of the Add/Edit Settlement Panel, used to determine the amount the plaintiff will receive based on a specific settlement amount. The information for most of the fields are taken from information in other pages in the system. You can refresh the data in those fields by clicking on the refresh icon ( ) to the right of that field. An exclamation mark ( ) indicates that the data in the field from which this data is taken is different than the amount presently seen on this page for that field. Click on the refresh icon to obtain the most current data from the source page. You can manually enter data into many of these fields, however if the amount is different than the amount on the source page, an exclamation mark will appear to the right of the field. To pull in the latest amount from the source page, simply click on the refresh icon.

Checks Panel

The Checks Sub-Table Fields

The Checks Sub-Table contains information about all checks received by your firm in partial or full settlement of the case, as well as all checks issued by your firm in order to distribute the settlement funds. The Checks Sub-Table can be opened by clicking on the plus sign to the left of the relevant row of the mail table. The sub-table columns that are available in the Checks sub-table are the following:

[unlabeled column]: Checkbox selection, allowing the selection of one or more rows for Mass Status Change.
[unlabeled column]: Whether the check was received as a settlement or paid as a disbursement from the settlement.
Date: The date the check was received or issued by your firm.
Amount: The amount of the check.
Balance: The total balance of the settlement remaining after the check was received or issued by your firm.
Status: Whether the check has been cashed or deposited and cleared the issuing bank, printed, is being held, or has been sent to be printed within your firm.
Check #: The number of the check.
Payee: The name of the contact to whom the check was payable.
Custom Payee: This field can be entered manually. It is not currently used in SmartAdvocate, but may be utilized by the QuickBooks integration in a future release.
Debit: The amount of a check that was received by your firm.
Credit: The amount of a check that was issued by your firm.
Type: The aspect of the money due that the check is meant to pay for.
Mailed: The date on which the check was placed in the mail by your firm.
Expiration: The date on which the settlement expires if not effectuated.
Received: The date on which the check was received by your firm.
Comments: Any comments about the check.
Action: A Right-click icon; the right-click menu contains Edit, and Delete.