An early case assessment is a structured evaluation completed in the first weeks of a matter, before large costs are committed.
Facts. A chronology built from the key documents and interviews with the three or four people who know what happened. Not comprehensive — sufficient.
Legal analysis. Elements of each claim and defence, the evidence supporting each, and the identified gaps.
Exposure range. Best, expected and worst case outcomes, with probabilities assigned honestly rather than optimistically, and the cost of reaching each.
Cost projection by phase against a realistic schedule.
Decision. Resolve now, resolve after a defined milestone such as a dispositive motion, or litigate through. Each has a cost and a value, and the comparison should be explicit.
Non-financial factors. Precedent for other matters, customer and employee relationships, publicity, management time, regulatory consequences, and insurance.
Why it is often skipped. It requires committing resources before anyone feels informed. The alternative is committing far more resources without ever being informed.
Reassessment. The assessment should be revisited after the pleadings close, after core document discovery, and after the key depositions, with the ranges updated in writing. Cases are lost as much by failing to revise an early view as by forming a wrong one.