Personal Injury Workflows

@JKibler @lcoffey @mallorylarkby @Jordan @bethmushin @SandyPDX @msimowitz 

Any suggestions for Faith?

Hi Faith! We’re a divided office where half of us seem to love workflows and the other not so much.
I am on the love side. We’ve created a bunch and modified existing templates from Smokeball to our personal liking. My favorites might be our Settlement workflow which helps me remember the numerous steps to do, and the pre-trial workflow. It’s been incredibly useful to keep track of what’s up next. Our lien workflow is also a nice tool. 
 

SandyPDX, thanks! I’d love to have a detailed conversation with you about what you include in those workflows. I’ve got one for both and they feel really clunky and just aren’t really helpful. 

Settlement and pre-trial workflows tend to work best when they’re broken into smaller stages rather than one long process. A few firms handling medical negligence and injury matters separate workflows into intake, records collection, liability review, expert reports, negotiations, and litigation prep so each stage only triggers the tasks relevant at that point. That usually cuts down on the “clunky” feeling and makes deadlines easier to track.

A useful approach seen in surgical negligence cases was adding conditional tasks that only appear if certain criteria are met, such as obtaining additional consultant opinions or chasing missing hospital records. Firms handling complex claims, including teams such as Cian O’Carroll Solicitors, often rely heavily on structured document and evidence timelines because those files can become document-heavy very quickly.

Another small improvement was assigning automatic reminders for follow-ups with insurers and medical providers rather than keeping them buried inside the main workflow. That alone seemed to reduce missed touchpoints and duplicated admin work quite a bit.