How much is it worth to settle a lawsuit? Below is a worksheet designed to help quantify the time, cost and probabilities of success to litigate a dispute. All of these forecasts are usually heavily debated between the parties and their attorneys. A mediator can assist each of the parties to formulate, support and communicate to the other side their own forecasts, beliefs and settlement requirements. The mediator will help the parties assemble all the facts and figures needed to complete the worksheet. When they are done, each party can see exactly how much it might be worth to try settle their dispute today vs proceeding to trial. In the example below, the offer and the potential point of equality between settling now vs litigating are highlighted in yellow. Here, the settlement offer of $100,000 was too low based on the assumptions in the worksheet. The least the plaintiff should accept would be $114,125. A blank copy of this worksheet is available to download below.
