Claude AI for Personal Injury Lawyers: Demands, Discovery & Settlement

AI for the Personal Injury Workflow

Personal injury cases follow a predictable workflow: investigate, treat, demand, negotiate, litigate. At every stage, Claude can speed up first-draft writing and analysis, with an attorney reviewing and verifying the output.

This guide covers demand letters, medical record review, damages calculation, and discovery preparation.

Drafting Demand Letters

A strong demand letter combines a persuasive liability narrative with precise damages calculations. Claude can draft both from your case notes for your review.

Draft a demand letter for the following case:

Incident: [AUTO ACCIDENT / SLIP AND FALL / MED MAL]
Date: [DATE]
Liability: [HOW DEFENDANT WAS AT FAULT]
Injuries: [LIST ALL INJURIES AND DIAGNOSES]
Treatment: [SUMMARIZE ALL TREATMENT]
Medical expenses: [TOTAL WITH BREAKDOWN]
Lost wages: [AMOUNT AND BASIS]
Other damages: [PROPERTY DAMAGE, OUT-OF-POCKET]
Impact on daily life: [SPECIFIC EXAMPLES]
Demand amount: [TARGET]
Insurance carrier: [NAME AND CLAIM NUMBER]

Structure:
1. Introduction: parties and incident
2. Liability analysis with specific negligent acts
3. Injury and treatment narrative
4. Itemized damages table
5. Pain and suffering argument with life impact examples
6. Demand with 30-day deadline

Strong demand letters require specificity. Include exact dollar amounts, specific dates of treatment, and concrete examples of how injuries affected your client's daily life. See our Demand Letter Drafter prompt for a polished version.

Medical Record Summarization

Medical records are the foundation of every PI case, but hundreds of pages take hours. Claude can produce a first-pass summary, but AI summaries can miss entries or state things the records do not say, so an attorney, paralegal, or nurse reviewer should check each entry against the source pages.

Summarize the following medical records:

1. Treatment timeline: chronological list of all visits
2. Diagnoses: initial and evolving
3. Objective findings: imaging results, test results
4. Treatment provided: medications, procedures, referrals
5. Causation statements: any provider linking injuries to the incident
6. Prognosis and future treatment recommendations
7. Pre-existing conditions mentioned
8. Gaps in treatment (more than 30 days between visits)

Flag entries that help or hurt the claim. Cite the page or record number for every item, and do not include anything that is not in the records.

Records:
[PASTE MEDICAL RECORDS]

Process records by provider rather than all at once. This produces more detailed summaries for each treatment relationship.

Damages Calculation

Accurate damages calculations support your demand and settlement negotiations. Claude can organize the numbers, but check every figure and total yourself.

Calculate total damages for this personal injury case:

Medical expenses:
[LIST EACH PROVIDER AND AMOUNT]

Lost wages:
[EMPLOYER, HOURLY/SALARY RATE, DAYS MISSED]

Future medical expenses:
[PROJECTED TREATMENT AND ESTIMATED COSTS]

Future lost earning capacity:
[IF APPLICABLE: DESCRIBE THE LIMITATION]

Property damage:
[VEHICLE REPAIR/REPLACEMENT, PERSONAL PROPERTY]

Out-of-pocket expenses:
[MILEAGE, PRESCRIPTIONS, MEDICAL DEVICES, HOME MODIFICATIONS]

Provide:
1. Itemized special damages total
2. Per diem pain and suffering calculation (daily rate x days)
3. Multiplier method calculation (specials x multiplier range)
4. Recommended demand range based on both methods
5. Factors that increase or decrease the case value

The per diem and multiplier figures are negotiation heuristics, not legal standards for measuring damages. Some jurisdictions limit or prohibit per diem arguments to juries, so check your jurisdiction's law before relying on that method beyond negotiation.

Discovery Preparation

PI discovery follows patterns. Claude drafts interrogatories and document requests targeting the key liability and damages issues.

Draft discovery requests for a [AUTO ACCIDENT / PREMISES LIABILITY] case:

Key liability issues: [WHAT NEEDS TO BE PROVED]
Defendant type: [INDIVIDUAL / CORPORATION / GOVERNMENT]
Jurisdiction: [STATE]

Draft:
1. 15 interrogatories: targeting fault, notice, prior incidents, insurance
2. 15 document requests: maintenance records, policies, incident reports, communications
3. 5 requests for admission: key undisputed facts

Follow [STATE] format rules and interrogatory limits.

For more on contract review workflows that overlap with PI insurance work, see our AI contract review guide.

Settlement Evaluation

Before any mediation or settlement conference, Claude helps you evaluate the offer against the case value.

Evaluate this settlement offer:

Offer amount: [AMOUNT]
Total special damages: [AMOUNT]
Attorney fee percentage: [PERCENTAGE]
Outstanding liens: [LIST WITH AMOUNTS]
Case strengths: [LIST]
Case weaknesses: [LIST]
Trial risks: [DESCRIBE]
Comparable verdicts: [IF KNOWN]

Provide:
1. Net to client after fees, costs, and liens
2. Whether the offer is within the reasonable settlement range
3. Factors supporting acceptance
4. Factors supporting rejection and counter
5. Recommended counter-offer amount with justification

Treat Claude's evaluation as one input. Whether an offer is reasonable, and what to counter, is your professional judgment, and the decision whether to settle belongs to the client under ABA Model Rule 1.2(a).

Ethics, Confidentiality, and Verification

• Medical records and case files contain confidential client information and health information. Before pasting them into any AI tool, confirm that the tool and plan meet your confidentiality duties, any HIPAA or protective-order obligations that apply, and your state bar's guidance; de-identify records where you can. ABA Formal Opinion 512 addresses confidentiality, competence, and supervision when lawyers use generative AI.
• Verify every damages calculation, date, and medical fact against the source documents.
• Verify every legal citation and rule (including discovery limits) before relying on it.

For more, see our guide to ethical AI use for lawyers.

Visit our personal injury practice area page for more prompts and guides.