How much is my case worth?
No calculator can tell you what your case is worth, and you should distrust any that claims to. What the math can honestly do is different: take your assumptions — provable damages, a candid win-probability range, and what trial still costs each side — and show the settlement range those assumptions imply. Case value is a bargaining zone, not a number.
All guides →A case's "worth" depends on things nobody knows precisely: how a judge will rule, how a jury will read your witnesses, what documents discovery will surface. Anyone quoting a single confident number is either averaging other cases (which are not yours) or selling something.
Professionals think in distributions instead: best day in court, worst day, and the probability-weighted middle. The useful question is not "what is it worth?" but "what range do defensible assumptions imply — and how fast does that range move when the assumptions do?"
Provable damages set the ceiling — not what happened, but what you can prove with documents, testimony, and experts. Liability strengthdiscounts it: a 60% chance of winning $100,000 is not worth $100,000. Remaining costs discount it again — every future dollar of spend comes out of the net. And risk appetite moves real people off the actuarial number: an individual facing one case will rationally accept less than a risk-neutral institution that litigates in volume.
Settlement Range Calculator
Enter damages, your win-chance assumption, and each side's remaining costs — see the bargaining zone they imply, live as you move the dials.
Compute your version →The law-and-economics frame: a rational plaintiff accepts any offer above their expected trial outcome minus their remaining costs; a rational defendant pays anything below expected exposure plus their own remaining costs. Because trial costs both sides money, there is usually a gap between those two numbers — and every dollar inside it leaves both sides better off than trying the case.
Where inside the zone you land is negotiation: leverage, information, patience, and credibility of the trial threat. But knowing the zone's edges under your own assumptions is the difference between negotiating and guessing.
Get a candid win-probability range from counsel — not a point estimate — and sweep it. If the settlement range barely moves across your whole band of uncertainty, your negotiation posture is robust. If it swings wildly, the case turns on that uncertainty, and resolving it (a key deposition, a ruling) is worth more than another round of offers.
And treat every number as an assumption you own, not a prediction you received. The dials are yours; the math just makes their implications visible.
Settlement Range Calculator
Enter damages, your win-chance assumption, and each side's remaining costs — see the bargaining zone they imply, live as you move the dials.
Compute your version →- Why do lawyers refuse to give me a number?
- Good ones give ranges because ranges are the honest shape of the answer. A single number hides the uncertainty that actually drives strategy — and creates expectations that poison later settlement talks.
- Do pain-and-suffering multipliers work?
- Insurance adjusters use special-damages multipliers as rough heuristics in injury cases, but they are negotiation conventions, not law. Provable damages and liability strength do the real work.
- How do costs change what I should accept?
- Every dollar of your remaining spend lowers the offer you should rationally accept, because trial victory nets you the verdict minus those costs. Symmetrically, the defendant's remaining costs raise what they should pay. That asymmetry is why cases settle late — and why settling earlier usually splits a bigger pie.
- Does the defendant's ability to pay matter?
- Enormously. A judgment against an insolvent defendant is paper. Insurance coverage, collectability, and corporate structure can matter more than liability — check them before valuing anything.
- Is a settlement range calculator a prediction?
- No. It is arithmetic on assumptions you choose. Its honest use is sensitivity: seeing how fast the zone moves as your assumptions change, which tells you what your position actually depends on.
This guide is general legal information, not legal advice, and creates no attorney–client relationship. Rules and timelines vary by court and state — verify anything that matters with counsel and your court's local rules.
Reading about lawsuits is the average. Yours is specific.
Juricratic models your whole matter as a solvable game — every motion, every deadline, every settlement posture — and shows how the picture moves when the assumptions do.
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