One of the last steps of completing a personal injury case is calculating your client's proposed settlement amount after expenses, liens and outstanding balances, and legal fees. With Clio's Personal Injury Add-On, you can add awarded recovery amounts, your legal fees, and other liens and outstanding balances, and use the calculator to determine the net settlement amount for your client, allowing you to make quick and informed decisions during settlement negotiations.
Note: This feature is a component of Clio's Personal Injury Add-On and is not available for all Clio subscription plans. See which plans have Clio's Personal Injury Add-On here. If you have questions about upgrading, contact Clio's support or sales teams here.
Add, edit, and delete recovery amounts
Once your client's case reaches settlement, you can add new recoveries or amounts won in the Recovery amounts table, and use the calculator in the Recovery summary to calculate your client's net compensation. The calculator shows the total of all recoveries subtracted by your recorded legal fees, matter expenses, and liens and outstanding balances. When adding a new recovery, you can add your default contingency legal fee that you set for the matter or add a different legal fee after saving the recovery. You can also edit and delete recoveries.
Tip: The timestamp in the Recovery summary shows when the calculator was last refreshed.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Click New recovery.
- Under Source, select the opposing party or defendant contact.
- If the contact does not exist in your account yet, click New contact to create a new contact.
- Under Amount, enter the settlement or awarded amount.
- The box for Add default contingency legal fee is checked by default. If you do not want to add your default legal fee at the same time as the recovery or if you need to add multiple contingency fees for a single recovery, uncheck this box.
Note: This box will not appear if your matter's billing method is set to hourly or flat rate.- The default contingency legal fee is the billing method rate that you entered in the Billing preference section when you created the matter. You can change this default rate by editing the matter.
- If you uncheck this box, the added recovery will not have an attached legal fee. You will need to add a new legal fee after saving the recovery to ensure that the net client compensation is accurate.
- Click Save recovery.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Scroll down to the Recovery amounts table and find the recovery that you want to edit.
- Under the Actions column, click the pencil icon that represents Edit.
- Make any necessary change to the Source and/or Amount.
- Click Save recovery.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Scroll down to the Recovery amounts table and find the recovery that you want to delete.
- Under the Actions column, click the trash can icon that represents Delete.
- Click Delete recovery.
Add, edit, and delete legal fees
When you add a new recovery, you have the option to add your default contingency fee if the billing method for the matter is set to contingency. You can also add legal fees after saving the recovery amount if you need to change the default fee or if you had co-counsel on the matter and need to add multiple legal fees.
Note: By default, legal fees are deducted from the total recovery before expenses. You can choose to retain this setting or deduct legal fees after expenses. Learn more about changing the settings in the header below Change order of settlement deductions.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- In the Legal fees table, click New legal fee.
- Under Rate, enter your legal fee rate.
- Under Fee recipient, select the firm user who will receive the fee.
- Under Fee source, select the recovery associated with this legal fee.
- Click Save fee.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Scroll down to the Legal fees table and find the legal fee that you want to edit.
- Under the Actions column, click the pencil icon that represents Edit.
- Make any necessary change to the Rate, Fee recipient, and/or Fee source.
- Click Save fee.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Scroll down to the Legal fees table and find the legal fee that you want to delete.
- Under the Actions column, click the trash can icon that represents Delete.
- Click Delete legal fee.
Change order of settlement deductions
By default, legal fees are deducted from the total recovery before any matter expenses for calculating your client's net compensation. If your firm deducts expenses before legal fees, you can change the deduction order by editing the matter.
Tip: If you use one method of determining settlement deductions across multiple matters, you can create similar matters faster by selecting that method (and entering additional preset information) on a matter template. Learn more about matter templates here.
- Go to the matter's Dashboard and select Edit matter. If you are viewing the matter's Settlement subtab, click Edit matter in the top right.
- Scroll down to Personal injury preferences.
- Under Order of settlement deductions, select one of the two options:
- Deduct legal fees first, then expenses: This is the default setting. Your client's net compensation will be calculated as follows: Total recovery - Legal fees - Matter expenses - Liens & outstanding balances = Net client compensation.
- Deduct expenses first, then legal fees: Your client's net compensation will be calculated as follows: Total recovery - Matter expenses - Legal fees - Liens & outstanding balances = Net client compensation.
- Click Save matter to finish.
View and adjust matter expenses
When you create new expense entries from the matter's Activities subtab, the expenses are automatically generated in the expenses table of the Settlement subtab and automatically subtracted from the total recovery to inform your client's net compensation. Each expense is grouped by expense category and is a sum of all expenses in that expense category.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Scroll down to the Matter expenses table to view the matter's expenses by expense category.
- If you need to make any changes to the expenses, go to the matter's Activities subtab and edit the expenses. Learn more about expenses here.
Add, edit, and delete non-medical/other liens and outstanding balances
If your client has other liens or outstanding balances, such as personal loans, you can track the amounts owed as part of your settlement calculations. The settlement calculator will automatically subtract the amounts owed and adjust your client's net compensation. You can also edit and delete any other liens or outstanding balances directly from the table.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Scroll down to the Other liens and outstanding balances table.
- Click New lien.
- Under Lien or balance holder, select the contact that your client owes.
- If the contact does not exist in your account yet, click New contact to create a new contact.
- Under Description, enter a description of the lien or outstanding balance.
- Under Amount, enter the amount owed.
- Click Save lien.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Scroll down to the Other liens and outstanding balances table and find the item that you want to edit.
- Under the Actions column, click the pencil icon that represents Edit.
- Make any necessary changes to the Lien or balance holder, Description, and/or Amount.
- Click Save lien.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- Scroll down to the Other liens and outstanding balances table and find the item that you want to delete.
- Under the Actions column, click the trash can icon that represents Delete.
- Click Delete lien.
Export settlement data
Once you have entered all relevant settlement details for your client's matter, you can export the data to help you prepare your client's settlement sheet and get their signature. The CSV file will show all data in the Settlement tab, including the information from the Recovery summary and settlement calculator.
Tip: You can also use the settlement statement generator to automatically generate a settlement statement directly in Clio Manage. Learn more below.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- In the top right corner, click Export.
- The exported data will be downloaded in CSV format to your computer, allowing you to manipulate the file in a spreadsheet software like Excel.
Generate settlement statements
Once you have entered all relevant settlement details for your client's matter, including at least one recovery amount, you can generate a settlement statement with your firm's logo and letterhead. After generating the statement, you can download the document as a PDF and then send it to your client for their electronic signature as a Clio Manage document.
- Go to the matter and select the Settlement subtab.
- In the top right corner, click Create settlement statement.
- Click Download to download or save a PDF of the settlement statement.
- Download PDF file to computer: The file will download to your computer. Once downloaded, you can upload it to Clio Manage and send it to your client for their electronic signature. Learn more about uploading documents here and sending documents for electronic signature here.
- Save PDF file to Clio Documents: The file will download to the Documents subtab of the matter. Once saved, you can send it to your client for their electronic signature. Learn more about sending documents for electronic signature here.
Set custom statement of acknowledgement for settlement statements
When you generate a settlement statement, it will contain a statement of acknowledgement for your client to read and acknowledge before signing the statement. You can create this acknowledgment statement in your settings and have it automatically apply to all generated settlement statements.
- Go to Settings > Personal Injury Add-on.
- In the Settlement subtab, go down to Statement of acknowledgment.
- Enter your custom statement and then click Update settings.
- The acknowledgment statement can be up to 500 characters.