Waltham, MA, Sept. 25, 2024―A new study from the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) examines the effect of attorney involvement on the indemnity payments that workers receive following work-related injuries to help them cover their loss of income.

“While the workers’ compensation system was envisioned as an administrative and predictable system for dealing with the consequences of work-related injuries, disputes that lead to attorney involvement in the system remain common,” said Sebastian Negrusa, vice president of research at WCRI. “High rates of attorney involvement in the system have contributed to the debate about the impact of attorney involvement on the benefits delivered to workers with injuries.”

The study, Impact of Attorney Representation on Workers’ Compensation Payments, uses an empirical approach that reveals the causal effect of the legal representation of workers by accounting for unobserved factors such as attorneys being more likely to get involved in cases with more severe injuries, or other issues that can lead to disputes. These typically unobservable factors have been the main obstacle precluding causal estimates in the past.

The following are some questions the study addresses:

• What is the impact of attorney involvement on the amount of indemnity payments that workers receive after their injuries?
• What impact does attorney involvement have across different injury types, such as fractures, lacerations, contusions, low back pain cases, inflammations, and non-back sprains and strains?

The analysis sample includes information for workers injured between October 1, 2012, and September 30, 2019, in the 31 states covered by the WCRI Detailed Benchmark/Evaluation (DBE) database and evaluated through March 2022. These states represent over 80 percent of the benefits paid in 2017.

Click here to learn more about this study or to purchase a copy. The authors of this study are Bogdan Savych and David Neumark.

About WCRI

The Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) is an independent, not-for-profit research organization based in Waltham, MA. Organized in late 1983, the Institute does not take positions on the issues it researches; rather, it provides information obtained through studies and data collection efforts, which conform to recognized scientific methods. Objectivity is further ensured through rigorous, unbiased peer review procedures. WCRI's diverse membership includes employers; insurers; governmental entities; managed care companies; health care providers; insurance regulators; state labor organizations; and state administrative agencies in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

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