Case evaluation?

Im going through a medical malpractice lawsuit right now. My lawyer had told me in the beginning he would estimate the case to be worth 350-400,000...i know thats just his estimate, but they went for a case evaluation last week, and i got the letter today, and it was valued at 90,000...i got the letter after his office is closed, so i will talk to him about it tommorow, but i was just wondering if the evaluation is usually accurate for what you could get at trial, or if anyone had rejected it and gotten more at trial...im just baffled at how much less it is than what he had told me...any ideas?


Answers:
I worked for an attorney who did mainly personal injury auto accidents, but we occasionally did Med. Mal. as well. My experience with his estimates was that he was pretty dead on with what you would receive, but it could be a little different with your atty. Some atty's will overestimate to make themselves seem more important, and some will underestimate so that they look better and you feel happier with the outcome. Also, their initial estimate is usually not very accurate because they haven't looked at the medical records and the actual damages yet. In the beginning, they simply give you an estimate based on what you tell them. My experience with that has been that clients tend to over exaggerate a little bit (not saying that you did that) and the story that they tell the attorney in the beginning has some holes in it that are found later by the attorney that make the case worth less money. I don't think that a lot of people do this on purpose, they just leave out details that they don't think are important that are found out later to be very important to the case.
An 'evaluation' is just an educated guess based on similar cases in the past. Once the case proceeds and various facts are uncovered that may positively or adversely affect the value of the case, evaluations change.