Skip to contentThe 2026 report on adversarial matter intelligence · read now
Glossary

The language of modeling a case.

Every term a litigator meets when a matter stops being a stack of documents and becomes a decision under uncertainty — defined plainly, tied back to how the game is actually played.

See the engine
Term

Expected Value of a Lawsuit

The probability-weighted average of every outcome a case can reach, minus the cost of getting there.

Term

Decision Tree Analysis (Litigation)

A branching diagram that maps every decision and chance event in a case so you can price each path.

Term

Litigation Risk Analysis

The structured practice of quantifying a case's uncertainty so decisions rest on ranges, not gut feel.

Term

Settlement Value

The number at which settling beats litigating for a party, given each side's odds, stakes, and costs.

Term

BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement)

Your best outcome if the deal falls through - the yardstick that tells you which offers to reject.

Term

Burden of Proof

The obligation to prove a claim to a required standard - and the risk of losing if you fall short.

Term

Preponderance of the Evidence

The usual civil standard: a fact is proven if it is more likely true than not - just past the halfway line.

Term

Statute of Limitations

The legal deadline for filing a claim - miss it and the claim can be barred no matter how strong it is.

Term

Motion to Dismiss

An early request to throw out a claim on the pleadings, before discovery, for a threshold legal defect.

Term

Summary Judgment

A motion to win without trial when there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the law favors you.

Term

Discovery (Civil Litigation)

The pretrial phase where each side exchanges evidence - the process that resolves most of a case's uncertainty.

Term

Damages Model

The structured method for turning a proven wrong into a dollar figure a court could award.

Term

Contingency Fee

A fee paid only if the case succeeds, set as a percentage of the recovery rather than by the hour.

Term

Monte Carlo Simulation in Litigation

Running a case thousands of times under random draws to see the full distribution of outcomes, not one guess.

Term

Sensitivity Analysis

Testing how much the answer moves when you change one assumption - so you know what actually drives the case.

Term

Nash Equilibrium in Litigation

A pair of strategies where neither side can do better by changing course alone - the game's stable resting point.

Term

Imperfect-Information Game

A strategic contest where players cannot see everything - exactly the structure of real litigation.

Term

Bayesian Updating

The disciplined way to revise your probability estimate when new evidence arrives - prior plus evidence equals posterior.

Term

Exploitability Gap

How much a player could lose by playing a fixed strategy against an opponent who exploits its weaknesses.

Term

The Prisoner's Dilemma in Settlement

Why two parties who would both gain from cooperating can rationally end up in a costly fight instead.

Rehearse your hardest matter before you live it.

Juricratic is in private access with a small number of litigation teams. Bring a matter; leave with the lines, the leverage, and the unknowns to resolve.

Request access
simulation, not prediction — not legal advice