NAILM, litigation management and bad blood with insurance defense firms

In August 2002, Michael Boutout, writing for the National Association of Insurance Litigation Management (NAILM) – is it actually pronounced “nail ‘em”?, cited a “recent poll conducted of more than 100 insurance defense firms.”  These law firms “felt they were consistently getting the short end of the stick when they entered into relationships for litigation management.”  So much for partnering [See my posting of May 1, 2005 taking partnering to task.]

“Litigation management” in this context covers all the ways insurance carriers have tried to reduce costs of their retained counsel, such as guidelines, task code billing, auditing, benchmarks, unbundling, expense strictures, and other stratagems. Boutout noted that “more than 90 percent of these firms recognized a serious decline in relationships due to [litigation management].”  The piece did not further explain these survey findings – www.irmi.com/Expert/Articles/2002/Boutot08.aspx.