The Four Types of Plaintiff Attorneys Every Adjuster Learns to Recognize (And What Each One Reveals About Case Outcomes)

Twenty-Three Years on the Other Side of the Table Taught Me That Tone Isn’t Just Personality, It’s Strategy

By Renée Soileau | Red Stapler Project | September 2026

For 23 years, I sat across the table sometimes literally, more often by phone from plaintiff attorneys and their support staff at every level of experience and skill. New associates handling their first negotiation. Seasoned trial lawyers with decades of verdicts behind them. Paralegals fielding calls because the attorney was in depositions. Case managers juggling sevaral files at once.

Over time, without setting out to do it, I started noticing patterns. Not in the substance of what people argued because every case is different, every injury is different, every set of facts requires its own analysis. The patterns showed up somewhere else entirely: in how people approached the negotiation itself.

Eventually those patterns became clear enough that I could predict, within the first few minutes of a phone call or the first paragraph of a letter, roughly what kind of conversation I was about to have. I started categorizing them not out of judgment, but because recognizing the pattern helped me understand what the person on the other end actually needed from me, and what approach would move the claim toward resolution.  My goal was to help people to be able to move on with their lives sooner rather than later.

I want to share those categories with you. Not because I think you’ll recognize yourself in one of them and feel criticized, though you might recognize colleagues, or even see a version of yourself from earlier in your career. I’m sharing them because understanding how your approach is perceived on the other side of the table is genuinely useful information, and it’s information you’ve never had access to before. Nobody on the carrier side is going to tell you this. I’m telling you because I don’t work for them anymore and I’m not barred by any affiliations or memberships.

The Four Patterns

1. Submits Demands Pre-Litigation

This is the category that represents, in my experience, the largest share of plaintiff attorneys and the healthiest working relationship between the two sides of a claim.

These are firms and individuals who have at least a basic and general understanding of how first-party coverages and third-party liability coverage actually works. They understand that a policy has limits. They understand that liability disputes affect valuation. They understand that a demand is not a formality it’s the opening move in a negotiation that has a real chance of resolving the matter without the cost, delay, and uncertainty of litigation.

Critically, they’re willing to attempt resolution before their client has to absorb the expense financial and otherwise, of a lawsuit.

I want to be clear about what this category is not. It is not weakness. It is not a willingness to settle for less than the case is worth. The attorneys who fall into this category are often exceptionally strong negotiators precisely because they understand the mechanics of the system they’re operating in.

From the adjuster’s side, this category of attorney is the one you can actually have a professional conversation with. Information flows in both directions. A well-prepared demand tells the adjuster what they need to know to build a settlement recommendation their supervisor will approve. A reasonable response from the adjuster gives the attorney something to work with rather than something to simply reject. The claim moves.

If you’re reading this and recognizing your own approach, that’s a good sign. It doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to learn, understanding why certain documentation moves an adjuster’s internal evaluation, or how settlement authority actually functions, can still meaningfully improve outcomes even for attorneys who already operate well within this category. But the foundation is a working knowledge of coverage and a genuine attempt at resolution is the right foundation.

2. No Demands

This category is smaller than the first, but it exists, and it’s worth understanding because the strategy behind it to the extent there is a coherent strategy, rests on assumptions that don’t always hold up.

These are firms who go straight to trial as a matter of practice. They view the courtroom, and only the courtroom, as the legitimate path to a favorable result for their client. They provide no information, no documentation, and no meaningful attempt to resolve the matter before it’s presented to a jury.

I understand the reasoning behind this approach in theory. There are attorneys who believe that engaging in pre-litigation negotiation signals weakness, or that carriers won’t take a claim seriously until it’s backed by the credible threat and eventually the reality of trial. There are also case types and jurisdictions where that calculation can genuinely be correct.

But here’s what I observed from the other side: withholding all information doesn’t make an adjuster more generous. It makes the adjuster’s job harder, and a harder job for the adjuster does not translate into a better outcome for the claimant. Adjusters build settlement recommendations based on documentation. No documentation means no basis for a recommendation which frequently means the file simply sits, undervalued by default, not because the carrier is being punitive, but because there’s genuinely nothing there to evaluate against.

It also means the file heads toward litigation not because litigation was the best strategic choice for that particular case, but because it was the only path available given how the file was handled from the outset. Some cases genuinely belong in front of a jury. Not all of them do and a blanket policy of never demanding pre-litigation removes the ability to make that determination on a case-by-case basis.

3. Constructive Bullies

This category is more nuanced, and I want to be careful in how I describe it, because there’s a meaningful difference between forceful advocacy and what I’m about to describe.

Constructive bullies are attorneys and staff who have a relatively clear and accurate understanding of their client’s damages and the applicable coverage. They know the case. They know the numbers. Where they differ from the first category is in tone and delivery they are often rude, demeaning, or speaking at a raised volume, regardless of how they were greeted on the call.

I call this category “constructive” not because the behavior itself is constructive, but because the underlying substance usually is. There’s a real case underneath the volume. There’s a real understanding of coverage underneath the demeaning tone. If you strip away the delivery, there’s often a legitimate negotiating position.

Every claims professional develops their own way of handling this category.  I never found that meeting aggression with aggression produced a better outcome for anyone. But I also want to be honest about something most adjusters won’t tell you directly: this approach does not go unnoticed internally. Adjusters talk to their supervisors and teammates. Files get notes. A pattern of hostility, even from an attorney with a strong case, can shape how that adjuster,  that adjuster’s colleagues, and sometimes the entire company approaches every future file from that firm.

That doesn’t mean the tactic never works.  But it’s a strategy with a shelf life, and it’s a strategy that costs something in the relationships that shape how your firm’s future files get handled, especially with carriers you’ll be negotiating against repeatedly.

4. Unconstructive Bullies

This is the category that exists on the far end of the spectrum, and it’s the one I want to spend the least time dwelling on, because there’s genuinely little to no strategic value to extract from it.

These are individuals whose primary mode of communication is belittling, berating, and making personal attacks, with little or no clear direction about what they’re actually trying to accomplish for their client. The volume is raised. The demands, when there are demands at all, are unclear, usually poorly written, and they often request information or documentation that has no clear relevance to the claim investigation or the applicable coverage.

Unlike the constructive bullies, there’s frequently no substance underneath the hostility here. The behavior isn’t a delivery problem layered over a strong case, it’s often the entire strategy, to the extent it can be called one.

From the adjuster’s side, this category is the hardest to move productively, not because the adjuster is unwilling, but because there’s rarely a clear ask to respond to. Claims professionals still have to function within regulatory timelines and good-faith claims handling obligations regardless of how a call goes, so the file doesn’t stall entirely. But the working relationship that makes negotiation efficient, the kind that exists in category one, simply isn’t available here, and it shows in how long these files tend to take and how much friction accompanies every step.

Why I’m Telling You This

Every claims professional develops their own tactics for working with each of these categories. I had mine. My former colleagues have theirs. None of us discussed this openly with the plaintiff bar, because there was no incentive to. Understanding how your approach is being perceived and categorized on the other side of the table was, for the entire history of this industry, information that stayed on one side of it.

I don’t work on that side anymore, and I don’t see a good reason to keep this particular observation to myself.

Here’s the part I want to emphasize, because it’s the actual point: how you treat people on the other side matters, and it matters in ways that are separate from the substance of your case. A strong case handled with hostility doesn’t become a stronger case. It becomes a strong case with an unnecessary obstacle attached to it, a claims professional who is less inclined to advocate internally for your client’s position, a supervisor conversation that includes a note about difficult opposing counsel, a working relationship that has to be rebuilt with every new file instead of built upon from the last one.

The old saying holds up better than most old sayings do: you catch more flies with honey. Not because all claims professionals are moved by kindness in some sentimental sense, but because a professional, well-documented, firmly advocated position is simply easier to act on than the same position delivered with hostility. Adjusters are people who have to build a case internally for the settlement recommendations they make. Attorneys and staff who make that internal case easier to build tend to see their clients’ claims move further, faster, than those who make it harder, regardless of who technically has the stronger legal position.

This isn’t an argument for being soft. The strongest negotiators I dealt with over a span of 23 years were rarely soft. They were prepared, direct, persistent, and entirely willing to escalate when escalation was warranted. What they weren’t, as a rule, was needlessly hostile to the person on the other end of the phone who was, in most cases, simply doing their job within a system neither of you built.

What This Means for Your Firm

There are additional subcategories that I’m choosing not to elaborate on here. That’s intentional, some of what I observed over 23 years is more useful applied to a specific firm’s specific patterns than described in general terms on a blog post. Every firm has its own tendencies, its own house style, its own blind spots that staff inside the firm often can’t see clearly because it’s simply how things have always been done there.

That’s precisely what a case file audits are designed to surface. When I review a firm’s files, I’m not just looking at documentation gaps and coverage issues, I’m looking at the full pattern of how that firm engages with the claims side, because that pattern is part of what determines case outcomes just as much as the medical records and the liability facts do.

If you’re curious where your firm’s approach falls on this spectrum, and more importantly, what it might be costing or earning your clients in ways you can’t see from your side of the table, that’s exactly the kind of insight a file audit engagement is built to provide.

Let’s Talk

A free 30-minute consultation is the place to start. We’ll talk about your firm’s caseload, your current approach, and what a pilot audit engagement would look like.

Schedule Your Free Consultation

Case Audits: Starting at approximately $450
Firm-Specific Training (Half-Day): $3,500+
Firm-Specific Training (Full-Day): $6,500+
Ongoing Advisory: Available following multiple file audits

Renée Soileau
Red Stapler Project
renee@redstaplerproject.com
La Mesa, CA | Serving plaintiff attorneys nationwide

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Renée Soileau spent 23 years inside the insurance claims industry before founding Red Stapler Project to bring that knowledge exclusively to the plaintiff side.