Podcast Summary: Personal Injury Mastermind, Episode 367

Toolkit: Close Cases 30% Faster: How AI Fixes Case Bottlenecks
Host: Chris Dreyer (Rankings.io)
Guest: Saam Mashhad (Co-Founder & CPO, EvenUp)
Date: November 25, 2025

Episode Overview

In this Toolkit episode, Chris Dreyer welcomes Saam Mashhad of EvenUp to explore how AI-powered legal tech is revolutionizing operations in personal injury (PI) firms. The discussion zeros in on solving operational lags—particularly those silent bottlenecks after client intake that erode margins, delay settlements, and ultimately jeopardize profitability and client trust. With EvenUp powering over $10B in settlements, Saam shares data-driven insights, actionable AI strategies, and operational frameworks to help PI firms close cases 30% faster, boost settlement multiples, and operate as lean, scalable businesses equipped for growth.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Root Problem: Operational Lag in PI Firms

• Chris Dreyer: Firms lose momentum, margin, and client trust when demand slows down after intake, leading to silent profit killers in their operations. (00:20)

2. The AI Solution: Document Understanding at Scale

• Saam Mashhad: "For you to be able to recreate a template in the context of a specific case, you need to be able to read the underlying documents, make sense of them, and then fill in the gaps...that is the difficult technical issue that we solve for." (01:13)
• EvenUp uses AI to build a knowledge graph from a firm’s data for downstream tasks with context, accuracy, and completeness.

3. AI Model Constraints: Context Windows, Tokens & Task Complexity

• Saam Mashhad:
  • Increasing context windows doesn’t alone solve for accuracy in massive legal documents.
  • "If I input 500 pages and ask it to extract every single date of service...that's when the performance degrades very, very rapidly." (02:15)
  • Hallucination is declining as an issue; modern concern is completeness—ensuring nothing is missed in the chronology of thousands of pages. (03:15)

4. The Operations-Growth Matrix: Efficiency, Lead Cost, & Outcome

• Saam Mashhad: "How expensive the lead is is going to very clearly correlate with the sophistication of the operations of the law firm." (05:03)
• More efficient firms can pay more for leads and thus gain a competitive market advantage.

5. Settlement Multipliers & Litigation Strategy

• Chris Dreyer: Hypothesizes that trial skills and deeper case work can balance higher client acquisition costs.
• Saam Mashhad: "We have this multiple called the settlement multiplier...firms willing to litigate...will have a higher settlement multiplier." (06:56)
• Litigation readiness signals to insurers that a firm is formidable, justifying higher non-economic damages. Conversely, firms that never litigate risk failing to recover even basic medical bill values.

6. Portfolio Approach: Balancing Pre-Lit and Litigation

• Large verdict-focused firms may only litigate catastrophic cases (few, high-multiplier outcomes).
• For most, maximizing gross dollars means blending pre-litigation efficiency with enough litigation to elevate all case outcomes—the "premium" multiplies across more cases. (09:01)
• Reducing "time on desk" is also essential for profitability and cash acceleration.

7. Continuity Gaps: Pre-Litigation to Litigation Handover

• Saam Mashhad: "When the case moves to litigation, it’s almost as if they're doing the case all over again." (10:32)
• The real opportunity: Use AI to create seamless document continuity and context so work is not duplicated and ramp-up time shrinks.
• Key KPI: Minimizing time from no context to full context to ready-to-file document. (11:45)

8. Quantitative Impact: The 30% Rule & Workflow Analytics

• Saam Mashhad: "So 30% is the happy number. We've seen 30% higher outcomes and 30% faster case resolution." (12:44)
• Data Highlights:
  • On average, 17% of cases have over a 30-day treatment gap.
  • 42% of cases have a delay >100 days between final treatment and demand submission.

9. Platform Embedding: Roles and Real-World Use

• EvenUp’s value is end-to-end, serving paralegals, case managers, litigators—improving continuity throughout claims’ lifecycle. (13:57)
• Care management and case manager efficiency are pivotal, yet often overburdened roles:
  • Some juggle 100+ cases, inbound calls, adjuster negotiations, Medicare, demands, and more.

10. Why Don’t Firms Segment Client Success Like SaaS?

• Chris Dreyer: Wonders why firms don't split initial onboarding (like a “client success manager”) from ongoing case management. (15:46)
• Saam Mashhad: Points to resource constraints and overlapping skillsets as reasons. The critical touchpoints are often bundled with the intake process.

11. Setting Client Expectations from Intake

• Saam Mashhad: “If we look at intake conversations...the intake specialist is not just taking in the questions. They're also building rapport with the potential client. These interactions are really critical to make sure the case goes well thereafter.” (17:21)
• Highlights the danger of poor onboarding in client satisfaction and retention.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Every delay after intake compounds across the entire pipeline, costing you and your clients money."
  — Chris Dreyer (04:40)

• "Firms that are willing to litigate cases and move cases into litigation more frequently...have a higher settlement multiplier...the gap is in the non-economic damages."
  — Saam Mashhad (06:56)

• "It's not just maximizing overall return—it's also diminishing the time on desk."
  — Saam Mashhad (09:49)

• "The most important aspects of any AI tool, beyond accuracy and completeness, [are] how much time am I spending reviewing this output?"
  — Saam Mashhad (11:56)

• "We've seen 30% higher outcomes and 30% faster case resolution."
  — Saam Mashhad (12:44)

• "Case managers are probably the most important constituents...we're expecting them to handle over 100 cases...it just becomes really, really unruly."
  — Saam Mashhad (13:57)

• "The intake specialist is not just taking in the questions. They're also building rapport...really critical to make sure the case goes well thereafter."
  — Saam Mashhad (17:21)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment/Topic | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:20 | The cost of operational lag in PI firms | | 01:13 | AI’s knowledge extraction & case templates | | 02:15 | Model performance: tokens, context, and accuracy | | 05:03 | Lead acquisition cost, efficiency, and operational scale | | 06:56 | The 'settlement multiplier' and importance of litigating | | 09:01 | Balancing pre-litigation and litigation portfolios | | 10:32 | Continuity challenge: pre-lit to litigation handoff | | 12:44 | Data outcomes: “30% faster/stronger” & workflow analytics | | 13:57 | Case manager role and EvenUp’s platform integration | | 15:46 | Segmentation and client success vs. case manager roles | | 17:21 | Intake conversations: rapport and expectation-setting |

Actionable Takeaways

• Audit Your Pipeline: Track delays and treatment gaps—small inefficiencies compound, hurting both profitability and client experience.
• Embrace AI for Contextual Workflows: Implement solutions that minimize duplicated work when transferring cases between teams.
• Litigation as Leverage: Even a subset of litigated cases can significantly improve settlement values across the portfolio.
• Upgrade Onboarding: Invest attention in the client intake process to improve expectations, satisfaction, and retention.

Closing

For more information or direct questions, Saam Mashhad invites listeners to visit evenuplaw.com or email him personally at saam@evenuplaw.com.
Chris Dreyer signs off reinforcing that elite PI firms need to fuse great marketing with operational efficiency for lasting dominance.

This summary delivers the episode’s core lessons for PI law leaders seeking to overcome bottlenecks and accelerate firm growth through smarter systems and AI.