{"id":153043,"date":"2026-05-27T15:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T23:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/05\/27\/technology-and-ai-turning-personal-injury-litigation-upside-down\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T15:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T23:40:07","slug":"technology-and-ai-turning-personal-injury-litigation-upside-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/05\/27\/technology-and-ai-turning-personal-injury-litigation-upside-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology And AI: Turning Personal Injury Litigation Upside Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYet let\u2019s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn\u2019d upside down.\u201d
\u2014 The World Turned Upside Down<\/a> reportedly played upon the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.<\/p>\n

The world of personal injury litigation may indeed be turning upside down as plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers can now match and even exceed the capabilities of many defense law firms. Firms, who, like the British soldiers in the Revolutionary War, seemingly had all the advantages. And we all know how that turned out.<\/p>\n

The Inherent Defense Advantages<\/strong><\/p>\n

Historically, law firms that represented defendants had some significant intrinsic advantages in personal injury cases. Defendants are usually insured, and the carriers pay most of their legal fees. The time spent on the matters by the defense firms were billed by the hour and fees were paid more or less monthly. This provided defense firms with a steady stream of revenue throughout a matter.<\/p>\n

In addition, defense firms were typically larger than plaintiffs\u2019 firms and had more resources. Often plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers practiced in smaller firms or on their own and handled their caseloads while trying to run the firm business at the same time. They have fewer resources and less time to devote to their practices.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers were and are paid on a contingency basis which meant they got very little revenue until a matter was resolved. And it was in the defense firm\u2019s best interest for matters to drag out: they got paid more and could use this fact to leverage the plaintiffs\u2019 firms into lower settlements since they often needed the money.<\/p>\n

It was frankly an inherently unfair system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Times Are Changing<\/strong><\/p>\n

But times are changing. Plaintiffs\u2019 firms may now indeed be the ones holding the more significant cards. The very nature of the defense firms and their inherent advantages may be hindering them from keeping up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For one thing, plaintiffs\u2019 firms have gotten bigger and more sophisticated. Morgan & Morgan, for example, is one of the country\u2019s largest plaintiffs\u2019 law firms. It has over 1,000 lawyers with offices in all 50 states. It can do things like file some 25,000 lawsuits in one week in Florida like it reportedly<\/a> did in response to a change in Florida law in 2023. It\u2019s every bit as sophisticated as any AmLaw 100 firm and can match resources with most of them.<\/p>\n

And for smaller plaintiffs\u2019 firms, the advent of litigation financing has enabled them to have access to funds throughout the case. Litigation finance investors will often advance funds to the plaintiffs\u2019 law firms handling matters in exchange for a portion of the return. This, in turn gives the plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers access to more resources and enables them to ride out a long case with less financial stress. Not to mention the ability to handle more cases.<\/p>\n

But the biggest change and increased leverage for plaintiffs\u2019 firms has come from technology. There are now ample technological resources to aid the plaintiffs\u2019 firms that did not exist before. <\/strong>Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers are using specialized platforms built mainly for them. Case management platforms like EvenUp<\/a>. Platforms like that provided by Supio<\/a> for document analysis and drafting,\u00a0 LawPro.ai<\/a> for medical record summaries, EsquireTek<\/a> for automating discovery responses, and DemandPro<\/a> for settlement demands. Many PI firms and solo plaintiff\u2019s lawyers are leaning on free or low-cost tools like CourtListener<\/a>, Google Scholar<\/a>, Descrybe<\/a> and the Caselaw Access Project<\/a> for legal research and docket checks.<\/p>\n

And Anthropic\u2019s recent announcement<\/a> that it is offering some 20 new plug-ins to a variety of platforms which lawyers are using may also supercharge what plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers can accomplish. Some of these platforms like the Free Law Project<\/a> and Descrybe will enable low-cost legal research. All of this promises to cut costs and yield greater efficiencies, again reducing the defense firms\u2019 inherent advantage.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t think for a moment that plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers aren\u2019t taking advantage of these resources. A recent survey<\/a> of some 300 personal injury plaintiffs\u2019 firms done in\u00a0partnership between Morgan & Morgan and LawPro.ai<\/a> found that more than 60% of plaintiffs\u2019 personal injury firms had adopted and were scaling AI tools.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs\u2019 firms are also clearly taking advantage of the economies of scale that technology and AI bring. As I have written before<\/a>, technology and AI are enabling them to take cases that they historically couldn\u2019t because the time needed to prosecute the case exceeded the likely reward. Now that time is a fraction of what it once was. AI has enabled plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers to do more in less time and do it better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What About The Defense Firms?<\/strong><\/p>\n

But what about the defense firms?\u00a0Somewhat surprisingly, there is an absence of any real survey data on what defense firms are doing in response. But several factors would suggest defense firms might not have been able to take maximum advantage of technology and AI tools like plaintiffs\u2019 firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, there is their billing model: hourly work makes pure time-saving tools less immediately attractive than on the contingency-fee side.\u00a0And the billable hour business model is so engrained in defense firms\u2019 culture that changing that model is hard.<\/p>\n

I know, I did a flat fee arrangement on a national piece of serial litigation. It wasn\u2019t a contingency fee case, but it had many similarities since profits were increased by spending less not more time. The push back from the firm was pretty significant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition, defense firms and the carriers have generally been more conservative and hesitant to use technology tools due to security and confidentiality concerns. They are more risk averse. Due to their size and consensus decision making models, it\u2019s harder for them to make decisions and pivot when times and circumstances change. So even though there is a paucity of hard data, it stands to reason that defense firms are falling behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just ask some of the more tech and AI savvy defense lawyers. One such lawyer is Frank Ramos<\/a>, a defense trial lawyer in Miami. I know Frank well and have presented with him several times on AI and tech. In a recent podcast interview<\/a>, Frank observed, \u201cI think defense firms, for a variety of reasons, were always very conservative. \u2026 They have been reluctant and some of their clients have been reluctant to go all in on AI. \u2026 As the reluctance takes a foothold, more and more defense firms and clients on the defense side are going to give up more and more ground to the plaintiffs\u2019 firms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This squares with my experiences and observations as well.<\/p>\n

The Fallout<\/strong><\/p>\n

So can defense firms afford to do nothing? When faced with the issue, many just badmouth plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers and blame them for the ills of the system rather than doing anything. I always got a chuckle, by the way, when defense lawyers castigated \u201cthose damned plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers.\u201d I would remind them that if it weren\u2019t for them, us defense lawyers wouldn\u2019t have any work to do. So it\u2019s not necessarily all bad for defense lawyers that plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers are upping their game.<\/p>\n

But if defense firms and their carriers aren\u2019t keeping up, what were once their advantages may well become liabilities as plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers become more sophisticated and get better results. This alone should be a wakeup call for defense firms and the carriers. In the long run, it means more plaintiffs\u2019 verdicts for higher amounts. That in turn translates into higher premiums for their customers.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the system works best when it\u2019s a fair fight in the courtroom. But if defense firms don\u2019t keep up, it won\u2019t be a fair fight. Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers know that all too well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Defense firms owe it to their clients, and carriers owe it to their insureds, to be as prepared and knowledgeable as their adversaries. Otherwise, the advantages of billing by the hour and having greater resources will end up upside down.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s high time for defense firms to up their game or face the fate of Lord Cornwallis.<\/p>\n

\n

Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes\u00a0TechLaw Crossroads<\/a>, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The post Technology And AI: Turning Personal Injury Litigation Upside Down<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

\u201cYet let\u2019s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn\u2019d upside down.\u201d
\u2014 The World Turned Upside Down<\/a> reportedly played upon the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.<\/p>\n

The world of personal injury litigation may indeed be turning upside down as plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers can now match and even exceed the capabilities of many defense law firms. Firms, who, like the British soldiers in the Revolutionary War, seemingly had all the advantages. And we all know how that turned out.<\/p>\n

The Inherent Defense Advantages<\/strong><\/p>\n

Historically, law firms that represented defendants had some significant intrinsic advantages in personal injury cases. Defendants are usually insured, and the carriers pay most of their legal fees. The time spent on the matters by the defense firms were billed by the hour and fees were paid more or less monthly. This provided defense firms with a steady stream of revenue throughout a matter.<\/p>\n

In addition, defense firms were typically larger than plaintiffs\u2019 firms and had more resources. Often plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers practiced in smaller firms or on their own and handled their caseloads while trying to run the firm business at the same time. They have fewer resources and less time to devote to their practices.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers were and are paid on a contingency basis which meant they got very little revenue until a matter was resolved. And it was in the defense firm\u2019s best interest for matters to drag out: they got paid more and could use this fact to leverage the plaintiffs\u2019 firms into lower settlements since they often needed the money.<\/p>\n

It was frankly an inherently unfair system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Times Are Changing<\/strong><\/p>\n

But times are changing. Plaintiffs\u2019 firms may now indeed be the ones holding the more significant cards. The very nature of the defense firms and their inherent advantages may be hindering them from keeping up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For one thing, plaintiffs\u2019 firms have gotten bigger and more sophisticated. Morgan & Morgan, for example, is one of the country\u2019s largest plaintiffs\u2019 law firms. It has over 1,000 lawyers with offices in all 50 states. It can do things like file some 25,000 lawsuits in one week in Florida like it reportedly<\/a> did in response to a change in Florida law in 2023. It\u2019s every bit as sophisticated as any AmLaw 100 firm and can match resources with most of them.<\/p>\n

And for smaller plaintiffs\u2019 firms, the advent of litigation financing has enabled them to have access to funds throughout the case. Litigation finance investors will often advance funds to the plaintiffs\u2019 law firms handling matters in exchange for a portion of the return. This, in turn gives the plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers access to more resources and enables them to ride out a long case with less financial stress. Not to mention the ability to handle more cases.<\/p>\n

But the biggest change and increased leverage for plaintiffs\u2019 firms has come from technology. There are now ample technological resources to aid the plaintiffs\u2019 firms that did not exist before.Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers are using specialized platforms built mainly for them. Case management platforms like EvenUp<\/a>. Platforms like that provided by Supio<\/a> for document analysis and drafting,\u00a0 LawPro.ai<\/a> for medical record summaries, EsquireTek<\/a> for automating discovery responses, and DemandPro<\/a> for settlement demands. Many PI firms and solo plaintiff\u2019s lawyers are leaning on free or low-cost tools like CourtListener<\/a>, Google Scholar<\/a>, Descrybe<\/a> and the Caselaw Access Project<\/a> for legal research and docket checks.<\/p>\n

And Anthropic\u2019s recent announcement<\/a> that it is offering some 20 new plug-ins to a variety of platforms which lawyers are using may also supercharge what plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers can accomplish. Some of these platforms like the Free Law Project<\/a> and Descrybe will enable low-cost legal research. All of this promises to cut costs and yield greater efficiencies, again reducing the defense firms\u2019 inherent advantage.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t think for a moment that plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers aren\u2019t taking advantage of these resources. A recent survey<\/a> of some 300 personal injury plaintiffs\u2019 firms done in\u00a0partnership between Morgan & Morgan and LawPro.ai<\/a> found that more than 60% of plaintiffs\u2019 personal injury firms had adopted and were scaling AI tools.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs\u2019 firms are also clearly taking advantage of the economies of scale that technology and AI bring. As I have written before<\/a>, technology and AI are enabling them to take cases that they historically couldn\u2019t because the time needed to prosecute the case exceeded the likely reward. Now that time is a fraction of what it once was. AI has enabled plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers to do more in less time and do it better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What About The Defense Firms?<\/strong><\/p>\n

But what about the defense firms?\u00a0Somewhat surprisingly, there is an absence of any real survey data on what defense firms are doing in response. But several factors would suggest defense firms might not have been able to take maximum advantage of technology and AI tools like plaintiffs\u2019 firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, there is their billing model: hourly work makes pure time-saving tools less immediately attractive than on the contingency-fee side.\u00a0And the billable hour business model is so engrained in defense firms\u2019 culture that changing that model is hard.<\/p>\n

I know, I did a flat fee arrangement on a national piece of serial litigation. It wasn\u2019t a contingency fee case, but it had many similarities since profits were increased by spending less not more time. The push back from the firm was pretty significant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition, defense firms and the carriers have generally been more conservative and hesitant to use technology tools due to security and confidentiality concerns. They are more risk averse. Due to their size and consensus decision making models, it\u2019s harder for them to make decisions and pivot when times and circumstances change. So even though there is a paucity of hard data, it stands to reason that defense firms are falling behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just ask some of the more tech and AI savvy defense lawyers. One such lawyer is Frank Ramos<\/a>, a defense trial lawyer in Miami. I know Frank well and have presented with him several times on AI and tech. In a recent podcast interview<\/a>, Frank observed, \u201cI think defense firms, for a variety of reasons, were always very conservative. \u2026 They have been reluctant and some of their clients have been reluctant to go all in on AI. \u2026 As the reluctance takes a foothold, more and more defense firms and clients on the defense side are going to give up more and more ground to the plaintiffs\u2019 firms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This squares with my experiences and observations as well.<\/p>\n

The Fallout<\/strong><\/p>\n

So can defense firms afford to do nothing? When faced with the issue, many just badmouth plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers and blame them for the ills of the system rather than doing anything. I always got a chuckle, by the way, when defense lawyers castigated \u201cthose damned plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers.\u201d I would remind them that if it weren\u2019t for them, us defense lawyers wouldn\u2019t have any work to do. So it\u2019s not necessarily all bad for defense lawyers that plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers are upping their game.<\/p>\n

But if defense firms and their carriers aren\u2019t keeping up, what were once their advantages may well become liabilities as plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers become more sophisticated and get better results. This alone should be a wakeup call for defense firms and the carriers. In the long run, it means more plaintiffs\u2019 verdicts for higher amounts. That in turn translates into higher premiums for their customers.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the system works best when it\u2019s a fair fight in the courtroom. But if defense firms don\u2019t keep up, it won\u2019t be a fair fight. Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers know that all too well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Defense firms owe it to their clients, and carriers owe it to their insureds, to be as prepared and knowledgeable as their adversaries. Otherwise, the advantages of billing by the hour and having greater resources will end up upside down.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s high time for defense firms to up their game or face the fate of Lord Cornwallis.<\/p>\n

\n

Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes\u00a0TechLaw Crossroads<\/a>, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYet let\u2019s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn\u2019d upside down.\u201d \u2014 The World Turned Upside Down reportedly played upon the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. The world of personal injury litigation may indeed be turning upside down as plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers can now match and even exceed the capabilities of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":153030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/succo-hammer-719066-scaled-nWKatx.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}