EvenUp PLAAS: PI Operations Enters the Subscription Era
On May 13, 2026, EvenUp formally launched Pre-Litigation-as-a-Service (PLAAS), a bundled model combining purpose-built AI with U.S.-based case management staff to cover the full pre-litigation lifecycle: claim setup, care coordination, records and bills retrieval, demand preparation to firm standards, carrier settlement negotiation, and optional lien resolution. This is not a software add-on. It is a subscription model designed to replace 3 to 5 FTEs per firm, and it arrived pre-sold: EvenUp disclosed more than $10M in early subscriptions at launch, with 30% of the top 100 PI firms already on platform and more than 10,000 cases processed each week.
The operational metrics EvenUp published will resonate with managing partners doing cost-per-case accounting. Records are requested 66 days faster than baseline. Demands are delivered 47 days faster. Carrying costs drop by roughly $1,000 per case. Desk time is reduced by up to three months per file. Glen Lerner of Lerner and Rowe was identified as an early adopter, which signals adoption curve among high-volume plaintiff shops rather than boutique practices.
EvenUp carries a $2B valuation and has raised $385M total, including a $150M Series E in October 2025. Its closest competitor, Eve (eve.legal), closed a $103M Series B at a $1B valuation in September 2025, backed by Spark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, and Menlo Ventures. Eve processes more than 200,000 cases per year across 450-plus plaintiff-firm clients and reports $3.5B-plus in total recovered settlements. The capital concentration in pre-litigation AI is now sufficient that every PI firm operator above roughly 200 active cases needs a comparative vendor analysis before the close of Q2 2026.
For lien-accepting medical providers: PLAAS bundles optional lien resolution into the same subscription that controls care coordination referrals and records retrieval, meaning a single vendor now sits at multiple revenue touchpoints inside the same case file; providers evaluating LawyersTrend directory placement should assess how bundled lien resolution affects their reimbursement position relative to firms sourcing lien services independently.
California's Dual Assault on PI Fee Structure
Two separate policy events have combined to create the most hostile legislative climate for California auto PI practices in at least a decade. The first is already law. California SB 371, effective January 1, 2026, cut rideshare UM/UIM minimum coverage from $1M per incident to $300K per incident, or $60K per individual: a reduction exceeding 70% in per-person protection for Uber and Lyft passengers. Liability coverage when the driver is at fault remains at $1M. Sen. Christopher Cabaldon authored the provision as part of the AB 1340 gig-worker legislative trade, and it affects every Southern California firm carrying rideshare intake volume across San Diego, Orange, and Riverside counties.
The second threat is better capitalized. Ballot Initiative 25-0022, backed primarily by Uber with approximately $12M committed, would cap contingency attorney fees at 25% of any recovery in all California motor vehicle accident cases, not only rideshare, and would simultaneously limit medical-cost reimbursement to government rates (Medicare/Medi-Cal) for those same cases. The initiative cleared procedural hurdles this week toward November 2026 California ballot placement. If enacted, the combined fee and reimbursement compression would restructure economics for every PI firm and every lien-accepting provider operating in California's motor vehicle market.
SoCal PI attorneys are already responding to SB 371 by auditing client personal auto policies at intake and naming all available defendants to bridge the coverage gap. That tactical adjustment does not address the ballot initiative risk. Firms above 500 active California auto cases should be modeling the revenue impact of a 25% fee cap alongside reduced medical reimbursement now, well before Q4 2026 campaign activity intensifies.
Medical providers accepting liens on California motor vehicle cases face a direct two-stage compression: SB 371 has already reduced UM/UIM recovery pools, and Initiative 25-0022 would cap reimbursement at government rates, providers should monitor the initiative's qualification status with the California Secretary of State through summer 2026 and begin scenario planning for reduced lien recovery on California auto files.
Nuclear Verdicts: Three High-Value Benchmarks in 60 Days
Three significant verdicts delivered between March 20 and May 8, 2026 set new plaintiff-side reference points across birth injury, assisted-living wrongful death, and medical malpractice, with two clearing nine figures.
The largest was returned in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas on March 20, 2026: a $108.6M verdict against Jefferson Health in a birth-injury case arising from a 2018 delivery at Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital. Of the $108.6M total, $106.1M was allocated to future medical and care expenses over a 68-year projected life expectancy, with $1.4M for pain and suffering and $1M for lost earning capacity. Jefferson filed post-trial motions challenging causation on the basis of near-perfect Apgar scores and an alternative genetic-diagnosis theory. The prior Philadelphia benchmark was Penn Medicine's $183M birth-injury verdict approximately three years earlier.
In Sacramento County Superior Court, also in March 2026, a jury returned $110M in Hernandez v. Greenhaven Estates, DigitalBridge, and Formation Capital. A 100-year-old Alzheimer's patient wandered through an auto-locking exit door at Greenhaven Estates Memory Care in February 2019 and died of hypothermia in approximately 38-degree weather. Facility staff had documented the wandering risk months before the death but never notified the family. The jury allocated $10M in compensatory damages, $92M in punitive damages against DigitalBridge, and $8M in punitive damages against Formation Capital, establishing private-equity ownership as a direct punitive-damages target in California assisted-living wrongful-death cases.
On May 8, 2026, a Shelby County, Tennessee jury returned $38M in a medical malpractice case. Tennessee's statutory non-economic damages cap of $750K standard, or $1M under catastrophic classification, will likely reduce the collectible payout by more than 95% on the non-economic component before any judgment is entered. The defendant hospital's identity had not been confirmed in available sources as of publication. The Memphis result illustrates precisely the divergence between headline jury findings and collectible judgments in heavily capped jurisdictions.
Plaintiff-side expert witnesses, surgery centers, and lien-accepting specialists working birth-injury and long-term-care cases now have the Philadelphia and Sacramento verdicts as 2026 anchors for future-care damages arguments and institutional punitive exposure; the Memphis result confirms that Tennessee's $750K statutory cap remains the ceiling regardless of jury intent.
Johnson and Johnson Talc MDL-2738: 67,376 Claims Back in Active Litigation
Johnson and Johnson's decision not to appeal the Third Circuit's dismissal of its LTL Management bankruptcy petition has unblocked MDL-2738 in the District of New Jersey. The Third Circuit found that LTL was not in financial distress and had not filed in good faith, making this the third consecutive dismissal on those grounds. As of May 2026, 67,376 talcum powder claimants are consolidated in that MDL, and the Talc MDL Leadership Steering Committee publicly characterized the ruling as 'an important victory' for the plaintiff class.
Individual trial benchmarks are already on the board. A federal jury returned a $50M mesothelioma verdict against Johnson and Johnson in March 2026 on the reactivated individual trial docket. In Baltimore City Circuit Court on December 22, 2025, a jury awarded $1.5B to plaintiff Cherie Craft in Craft v. Johnson and Johnson, alleging peritoneal mesothelioma from prolonged talc use. That $1.5B figure is now the upper-bracket anchor for any bellwether value discussion in MDL-2738.
Mass-tort plaintiff firms that reduced their talc dockets during the LTL bankruptcy stays should expect accelerated case management demands as MDL leadership moves toward bellwether scheduling orders. Lien-accepting oncology providers treating current talc claimants, particularly mesothelioma and ovarian cancer specialists, should anticipate a surge in lien-placement requests from plaintiff firms rebuilding active files.
With 67,376 consolidated claims, a $1.5B individual verdict from December 2025, and a $50M federal mesothelioma finding from March 2026 already on record, MDL-2738 is the single largest active mass-tort inventory for plaintiff counsel entering summer 2026; the outstanding procedural question is when MDL leadership issues bellwether trial scheduling orders.
NHTSA Recall Wave: Q2 Commercial Vehicle PI Inventory
NHTSA's recall activity during the weeks of May 4 and May 11, 2026 produced three distinct PI exposure categories that plaintiff and defense trucking counsel should be mapping to active dockets immediately.
The most direct products-liability predicate is Chrysler's recall of 12,736 Ram 2500 units for a software defect allowing vehicle speed to exceed the tire speed rating, creating risk of loss of vehicle control. A software-induced failure to hold speed within tire tolerances is a design-defect claim that operates independently of driver negligence, and in commercial fleet contexts where Ram 2500s are common work vehicles, the exposure extends to fleet operators and lessors as well. Mack and Volvo were separately recalled for ABS and ESC brake modulator failures, adding commercial brake-failure exposure across two dominant heavy-truck platforms. A Hyundai Palisade recall covering 68,500 units, arising from a child death, is the week's highest-profile consumer-vehicle recall for wrongful-death intake purposes.
Plaintiff firms with active trucking dockets should cross-reference VINs against the Ram 2500 and Mack/Volvo recalls in all pending high-speed commercial accident cases now. Defense trucking counsel should expect products-liability cross-claims in any new filing involving those units after May 11, 2026. Plaintiffs in Ram 2500 crashes occurring after the recall date carry a notice-and-warning theory in addition to the underlying design-defect claim, which broadens the damages argument against both the manufacturer and any fleet operator that failed to take action after receiving recall notice.
The Ram 2500 recall's software-defect classification, a control-system error that overrides tire safety parameters rather than a discrete mechanical failure, is the strongest products-liability predicate in the Q2 2026 recall inventory, and plaintiff attorneys should be requesting ECU data preservation orders in any Ram 2500 crash case filed on or after May 11, 2026.