Angeion Group: Advocates of Legal Tech Adoption

Steven Weisbrot, Chief Innovation Officer

In today’s complex legal environment, traditional service providers must adapt or die. Companies looking to disrupt the basic norms of the legal industry must be inclined towards increased usage of sophisticated technologies owing to the increased pressure felt across the legal vertical, to be technologically competent. Philadelphia-based Angeion Group, an integrated services firm, which primarily provides settlement administration services for class actions and mass tort litigation, has used technology to change the landscape of the legal settlement administration industry, while increasing efficiency, and providing accountability, in an area of the law with an exceptional degree of judicial and public scrutiny. Not an easy endeavor to say the least.

In terms of claims administration, the firms assist with all aspects of class action settlements. These services include pre-settlement consultation—a service Angeion’s clients consistently rank as exceeding expectations, in terms of creating creative and thoughtful approaches to complex problems. Angeion Group also offers complex claims processing, data management, website design, and call center services. Settlement distribution and verification of award amounts are handled by the firm’s proprietary technology and a team of accounting and quality control professionals. Other services like controlled disbursement, compliance assistance, tax reporting, and escrow agent support are also a part of Angeion’s class action service package.

Angeion Group has also been a pioneer with regard to the notification of unknown class members, such as those who bought a consumer product at the retail store. Since these class members cannot typically be reached by direct notice i.e., by mail or email, alternative notice methods must be employed. Earlier, traditional media i.e., magazines and newspaper were the primary media to notify class members.

There is simply no other company in our space who use technology so effectively or thoughtfully

However, insights into whether this method of notification was effective or not was vague, and the costs were high. Angeion’s solutions notify class members using integrated multi-media notice efforts, by using digital, social, and mobile media alongside some of the more traditional means. Angeion has also pioneered the use of Big Data in notification plans and are largely known and lauded for these technological advancements. These methods of notification are not only more efficient but also provide insights as to whether the notification has been delivered and noticed by the class members, a feature that magazines and newspapers would never be able to offer. Such features provide counsel and the courts with valuable information, to determine the efficacy of the notice program.

The company also offers an extensive set of mass tort administration services. The mass tort administration services are designed to ease administrative burdens associated with complex legal and medical administrative concerns, in the most effective and cost-efficient manner. Their team of attorneys, project managers, and noticing experts manage each of the company’s mast tort cases. These services can include case data intake, data management, records retrieval, claims processing, claims notification, lien resolution, and QSF management and distribution. Timely disbursement of settlement proceeds and settlement considerations are expedited by Angeion’s QSF management and distribution service.

Steven Weisbrot, the company’s Chief Innovation Officer sums up Angeion’s services by saying, “There is simply no other company in our space who use technology so effectively or thoughtfully.” When the firm was tasked with the monumental distribution of millions of dollars to a very large population, they devised an efficient and cost-saving way of doing it. Due to the many claimants, and the low value of the individual payments, the distribution of physical checks were considered unreasonably expensive. Angeion instead used an e-mail based notice campaign and executed the distribution via digital checks and PayPal distribution; this approach, which had never before been effectuated by anyone in the industry, saved a substantial amount of money and prevented the cost of distribution from materially affecting the individual class member recovery.

Angeion Group has been an ‘advocate’ of technology adoption in the legal industry with an added emphasis on the firm’s technology-enabled services and data security since its inception. The most notable change in the legal industry has been in the notification of unknown class members and utilizing evolving payment methods, and Angeion has been instrumental in promoting this development by offering ‘progressive, digital-based’ services. Their near-term focus is in continuing to provide their thoughtful consultation services and technology-based solutions to their U.S. clientele and providing legal consultation services on an international level in countries like UK, Netherlands, and Israel.