Case Value Assessment™ — Powered by the Mid-Atlantic Law Project

About Us

Institutional Mission

The Mid-Atlantic Law Project (MALP) is an independent, non-partisan institution dedicated to open-access legal education, evidence-based research, and public legal advocacy. Founded in 2024, MALP operates at the intersection of empirical investigative methodology and federal legal practice, with a single objective: making high-level legal knowledge freely available to the people who need it most.

MALP’s work is developed through practitioners with direct experience in federal investigation and civil litigation, coordinated through the institution’s research and publishing functions.

MALP was not created as a theoretical exercise or a branding concept. It exists because the gap between legal complexity and public understanding is real, persistent, and consequential. Every guide we publish, every research project we conduct, and every tool we release is designed for one reason: someone needed it in the real world.

“Legal knowledge should not cost what legal representation costs. We are here to close that gap.”

The American legal system is complex, expensive, and often inaccessible without professional assistance. A single hour with a qualified immigration attorney can cost what many working families earn in a day. A removal defense can cost more than a year’s income. A personal injury claim, mishandled or settled too early, can resolve for a fraction of its true value. The result is a system where outcomes are shaped not only by the law itself, but by who can afford to understand and apply it correctly.

MALP’s mission is to narrow that imbalance — not by replacing legal counsel, but by making sure people don’t have to walk into the legal system blind. A well-informed person makes better decisions, asks better questions, and is harder to take advantage of, whether the other side is an insurance adjuster, an opposing party, or a government agency.

Who We Serve

MALP’s work is built for several overlapping audiences, and every publication or tool is designed with all of them in mind:

• Individuals and families navigating immigration, injury claims, or naturalization without the resources to retain counsel at every stage.
• Legal aid organizations and advocates, who need practice-based material they can hand to clients without having to write it themselves.
• Spanish-speaking communities, historically underserved by English-only legal resources, for whom MALP publishes in parallel rather than treating translation as an afterthought.
• Journalists and policymakers, who need accurate, practitioner-level analysis of how statutes actually function in practice — not just how they read on paper.

Editorial Standards

Every MALP publication is held to the same baseline: material must be written or reviewed by someone with direct practitioner experience in the subject area, grounded in current law rather than general commentary, and revised when the underlying law changes rather than left to go stale. When immigration policy shifts — as it did with USCIS’s 2026 discretionary-scrutiny guidance — affected publications are updated, not quietly left outdated on a shelf. Nothing MALP publishes is written to rank in search engines first and inform people second.

What MALP Does

Case Value Assessment™

Case Value Assessment is one of MALP’s applied tools, built to address a specific and persistent problem in the civil justice system: the information imbalance between insurance companies and injured individuals.

Insurance carriers enter every claim with structured valuation systems, decades of settlement data, actuarial modeling, and trained adjusters whose job is to evaluate claims quickly and minimize payout exposure. Most injured individuals begin the process with none of that. Search results offer vague ranges — “cases may settle anywhere from $10,000 to $1,000,000 depending on circumstances” — which are technically true and practically useless. Other platforms function as lead-generation systems, collecting personal data to sell to law firms rather than offering real valuation insight.

Case Value Assessment closes that gap: a free, methodology-based estimate of case value before any insurance offer is made, using the same general valuation framework used in personal injury practice. It is not a substitute for legal counsel — it is a structured reference point meant to inform decisions before negotiation or formal representation begins.

What We Are — and What We Are Not

• We are not a law firm. Use of this tool does not create an attorney-client relationship.
• We are not a substitute for legal advice. The estimate is based on structured inputs and cannot account for every factual or jurisdictional nuance in a real case.
• We are not a black box. The methodology is disclosed — users see the structure behind their number, not just the number itself.
• We are not a guarantee. Every case depends on facts, evidence, and legal context that no generalized model can fully capture.
• We are Illinois-focused. The current model is built around Illinois comparative negligence standards and Cook County settlement practice. Claims arising in other states may not be accurately reflected.

The Methodology

Case Value Assessment uses a structured multiplier-based valuation model common in personal injury analysis. Economic damages — medical expenses, lost wages, and other documented financial losses — form the baseline. A severity-based multiplier is then applied to account for non-economic damages: pain and suffering, long-term impairment, emotional distress, and overall impact on quality of life. That multiplier reflects factors regularly considered in settlement practice, including injury severity, clarity of liability, duration of recovery, and strength of the supporting evidence.

The goal isn’t to reduce a claim to a single fixed number — it’s to generate a reasoned valuation range consistent with how these cases are actually negotiated. The framework itself is not proprietary; it’s widely used across insurance evaluation and personal injury practice. What’s different is access. Insurance companies rely on internal data systems and adjusters trained specifically in valuation strategy — a structural advantage that exists from the moment a claim is filed. Claimants are rarely given anything comparable. Case Value Assessment exists to make that underlying logic visible before negotiation begins, rather than after both sides have already staked out positions.

Institutional Background

MALP’s work is developed through practitioners with direct experience in federal investigation and civil litigation, coordinated through the institution’s research and publishing functions.

Founding Director Daniel J. Conidi, Esquire supports MALP’s mission with more than 26 years of federal investigative experience with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, followed by over 14 years of practice in personal injury, immigration, and federal criminal defense. This combined experience informs MALP’s emphasis on evidence, risk assessment, and likely case outcomes in applied tools such as Case Value Assessment™.

As MALP’s research and publication capabilities expand, additional contributing attorneys and researchers may be added to its public roster.

Transparency and Compensation

Case Value Assessment™ is a free tool operated by the Mid-Atlantic Law Project (MALP) and requires no registration or personal data to generate an estimate.

If a user chooses to connect with a licensed attorney through this platform, MALP or the referring attorney may receive compensation for that referral, consistent with Illinois attorney advertising and referral rules. That compensation is never paid by the client, is never deducted from any eventual recovery, and has no effect on the tool’s output — the valuation methodology is applied the same way for every user, whether or not they pursue a referral.

Full details on data handling, limitations, and compensation are available in the Disclaimer and Privacy Policy.

Ready to Find Out What Your Case Is Worth?

Use the free Case Value Assessment™ tool, or connect directly with our team.

For urgent legal matters involving deadlines, filings, or time-sensitive claims, users should consult a licensed attorney directly rather than relying solely on this tool.