Written by Dr. Jerome Krief, senior data scientist at Premonition LLC, and dated September 25, 2016, this 11-page paper addresses a choice many plaintiffs face: which of several possible venues, such as their residence, their business location, or where the matter arose, to file in.
It frames that choice in economic terms, starting from the standard theory that a plaintiff should accept a settlement offer once it exceeds the expected monetary damage net of litigation costs. From there, the paper argues that maximizing expected damage is the key to optimizing settlement outcomes, and that even a small shift in the odds of winning can meaningfully move that expected value, since the likelihood of success in court is not typically high to begin with.
The paper's implication is that a lawyer weighing venue options can use litigation data to estimate those odds by court, rather than relying on general assumptions about jurisdiction.
