Editorial Policy

Last Updated: April 22, 2026

Most personal injury websites exist for one reason: to funnel you to a lawyer who paid for the privilege. They dress up marketing copy as "helpful guides" and hope you never notice. We built FairSettlement.org because we got tired of watching people get played like that.

This page explains exactly how we create, review, and maintain every piece of content on this site. Not the sanitized corporate version. The real process, with all its warts and workarounds and the occasional argument between our legal reviewer and our data team about whether a particular statistic actually means what everyone thinks it means.

Why This Page Exists

Google wants to see an editorial policy. We get that. But we also think you deserve to know how a website that helps you estimate your injury settlement actually puts its information together. Are we just scraping other legal blogs and rewording things? (No.) Are we making up settlement ranges to sound impressive? (Definitely not.) Do we sometimes get things wrong and have to fix them? (Yes, and we will tell you exactly how we handle that.)

The personal injury information space is, frankly, a mess. Half the "guides" online were written by content mills that could not tell you the difference between comparative and contributory negligence if their lives depended on it. The other half were written by law firm marketing departments that conveniently leave out information that might discourage you from hiring an attorney.

We are neither of those things. We are an independent publisher that makes money from display ads. Nobody pays us to recommend them. Nobody pays us to slant our numbers. That independence is the foundation everything else on this page is built on.

Our Editorial Standards

Every piece of content published on FairSettlement.org meets the following standards. Not "we aspire to" or "we strive for." These are non negotiable requirements, and content that fails them does not go live.

Accuracy Above Everything

Every claim, statistic, and legal reference gets verified against primary sources before publication. We do not publish speculative information as fact. When data is uncertain or varies widely, we say so. You will never see us present a single number as "the average settlement" when the reality is a wide range that depends on a dozen variables. That would be dishonest, and it would also be useless to you.

Our primary sources include government databases (NHTSA, BLS, CDC), published court records and jury verdicts, state statutes and administrative codes, insurance industry reports from the IRC and NAIC, and peer reviewed academic research. When we reference secondary sources, we verify the underlying data independently before relying on it.

Plain Language, Not Legal Jargon

Legal concepts can be explained clearly without dumbing them down. There is a huge difference between simplifying something and oversimplifying it, and we work hard to stay on the right side of that line. If a concept requires nuance, we provide the nuance. We just do it in language that a regular person can actually understand.

That said, we include proper legal terminology and statute citations because some of our readers are attorneys, paralegals, and insurance professionals who need that specificity. We try to serve both audiences without making either one feel like the content was not written for them.

Objectivity and No Hidden Agendas

Our content is written to inform, not to sell you something. We present settlement ranges, legal options, and statistical data without steering you toward any particular outcome. If hiring a lawyer makes sense for your situation, we will say that. If your case is probably not worth pursuing, we will say that too. We have zero financial incentive to push you in either direction.

Some of our articles will tell you that your case might be worth less than you think. That is not what a lead generation site would tell you, but it is what an honest information resource should tell you. We would rather give you accurate expectations than inflated ones that fall apart the moment you talk to an actual attorney.

Completeness Without Fluff

We cover all relevant factors that affect settlement values, including jurisdiction specific laws, comparative fault rules, statute of limitations, insurance policy limits, and medical treatment documentation requirements. But we do not pad articles with filler content just to hit a word count. If something can be explained in two paragraphs, we use two paragraphs.

Source Attribution

When we reference studies, court records, or industry data, we identify the source. Not buried in fine print at the bottom of the page, but right where we make the claim. You should always be able to verify our information independently without having to take our word for it.

The Review Process: How Content Goes From Draft to Published

Nothing on this site gets published by a single person making a unilateral decision. Here is the actual workflow, step by step.

Step 1: AI-assisted drafting

Every article begins as a draft generated by frontier AI models (primarily Claude Sonnet 4.5, occasionally Gemini 2.5 Pro for medical topics). The prompt includes the specific jurisdiction at issue, the sub-topic, the length target, and a structured list of primary sources the AI is instructed to cite and paraphrase. We do not use AI to pull "general knowledge" out of its training data, because that knowledge is often stale and unattributable. We use it as a writing assistant working from source material we have already gathered.

Step 2: Primary-source fact check

Every legal claim in the draft is checked by a human editor against the primary source: the governing statute as published on the state legislature’s website, the appellate court opinion on the court’s own docket, the current insurance code, or the regulatory filing. If the AI-drafted sentence does not match the primary source exactly, it is rewritten. Statutes and case law change, and LLMs do not always know about the latest amendment. This step is where that gets caught.

Jurisdiction-specific claims get extra scrutiny, because personal injury law varies dramatically from state to state. A sentence that is perfectly accurate in California can be dangerously misleading in Alabama. We flag any state-specific rule for a second pass against that state’s current code.

Step 3: Numbers check

Every statistical claim, dollar range, percentage, or benchmark number gets cross-referenced against its cited source. When a page says the average soft-tissue settlement in Texas ranges from $15,000 to $45,000, the editor verifies that range against Insurance Research Council reports, Rand Corporation civil justice studies, and published jury verdict databases before the number goes live. Numbers that cannot be sourced are removed.

Settlement statistics get repeated across the internet so many times that errors propagate and become "common knowledge" even when the original data says something different. This step strips those accumulated errors out and brings numbers back to what the primary sources actually show.

Step 4: Publication

Content must pass both the primary-source legal check and the numbers check before it goes live. Anything that cannot be fully source-verified is either revised, rewritten, or dropped. We do not publish content that our own editor cannot stand behind with a link to a primary source.

Where Our Data Comes From

Transparency about data sources separates legitimate information from marketing. Here is exactly where we get our numbers.

• Government Databases: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) crash and injury data, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) wage and employment data for lost income calculations, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) injury surveillance data, and state court electronic filing systems.
• Court Records: Published jury verdicts, settlement reports, and case outcomes from state and federal courts across all 50 states. We review both publicly available databases and subscription court record services to ensure comprehensive coverage.
• Insurance Industry Data: Reports from the Insurance Research Council (IRC), National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), and individual state insurance department filings. These provide aggregate claims data and settlement trend information that informs our calculator algorithms.
• Academic Research: Peer reviewed studies on personal injury outcomes, medical cost projections, and actuarial analyses published in legal and medical journals. We prioritize recent research but also reference foundational studies that established key methodologies (like the multiplier method).
• Legal Authorities: State statutes, administrative codes, published appellate court opinions, and regulatory guidance that govern personal injury claims in each jurisdiction.

We do not use anonymous tips, unverified user submissions, or "industry insider" claims as data sources. If we cannot verify it, we do not use it.

How We Keep Content Current

Legal information has a shelf life. Statutes change, courts issue new rulings, and settlement trends shift. Content that was perfectly accurate six months ago might be misleading today. We take this seriously.

Quarterly state-page reviews

All 51 state-specific pages are reviewed every three months against the current published state code and recent appellate decisions. This is when we catch legislative changes, new court rulings, and damages-cap adjustments. Each review updates the lastmod date in our sitemap so search engines and readers can see when the page was last verified.

Real-time updates for major legal changes

When a significant legal change occurs, like new tort-reform legislation or a landmark appellate ruling, we update affected content within 5 business days. People making decisions about their claims deserve current information as soon as we can verify and publish it.

AI model refresh

The analysis engine is not a static formula. As Anthropic and Google release improved reasoning models, we evaluate each new release on a fixed test suite of case scenarios with known fair-range outcomes. Model versions only get rolled into production when they match or outperform the prior version on that suite. The current production model is documented on the Methodology page.

When We Get It Wrong: Our Corrections Policy

We are not perfect. Despite our review process, errors occasionally slip through. Here is how we handle them, because how a publication deals with mistakes tells you more about its integrity than how it handles its successes.

Reporting Errors

If you find an error in any of our content, email us at [email protected]. We review all reported errors within 48 hours. Not an auto reply saying we will "look into it eventually." An actual human review within two business days.

How We Categorize Corrections

Minor corrections include typos, formatting issues, and small factual clarifications that do not change the substance of the information. These get fixed promptly without a formal notice because flagging every fixed typo would just create noise.

Material corrections are the ones that matter. If we discover a substantive error that could affect your understanding of your settlement value or legal rights, we correct the content immediately and add a visible correction notice at the top of the affected page. The notice includes the date and a description of what changed. We do not quietly edit pages and pretend nothing happened.

Calculator errors are treated as critical priority issues. Any reported bug or calculation error is investigated within 24 hours. If confirmed, a fix is deployed as soon as technically possible and affected estimate ranges are recalibrated.

Internal Accountability

We maintain an internal log of all material corrections, including what went wrong and what process changes we made to prevent similar errors. This is not something we publicize (it would mostly be boring reading), but it drives real improvements in our editorial workflow over time.

Independence and Conflict of Interest Policy

This is where most personal injury websites fall apart, so let us be very specific about what independence means at FairSettlement.org.

No Law Firm Sponsorship

We do not accept funding, sponsorship, or editorial direction from any law firm, insurance company, or legal referral service. Period. No exceptions, no "strategic partnerships," no "sponsored content" sections. Our content is produced entirely independently.

No Lead Generation

This is a big one. The vast majority of personal injury information websites are actually lead generation operations. They collect your information and sell it to attorneys, sometimes for hundreds of dollars per lead. That business model creates an inherent conflict: the content is designed to make you think you need a lawyer, because that is how the website makes money.

FairSettlement.org is a free service for accident victims. Our revenue comes from referral fees paid by law firms in our vetted partner network when a visitor who requests a free case review chooses to connect with one. Visitors are never charged, and connecting with a firm is always optional. We never sell raw user data, and our editorial content is independent of any partner relationship.

No Pay for Placement

No attorney, law firm, or service provider can pay to be featured, recommended, or ranked higher in our content. When we mention outside resources, it is because our editorial team determined they are genuinely useful, not because someone wrote us a check.

Advertising Separation

Sponsored content and partner mentions are always clearly labeled and kept separate from editorial content. Partner relationships do not influence our settlement estimates, legal information, or article recommendations. The referral revenue keeps the lights on. That is where its influence ends.

Staff Disclosure Requirements

All editorial team members must disclose any potential conflicts of interest. No team member holds financial interests in law firms, insurance companies, or legal referral services. If a conflict were to arise, the affected team member would be recused from content involving that conflict.

Our Commitment to You

We recognize that people visiting FairSettlement.org are often dealing with injuries, financial stress, and confusing legal processes. That is not the time to encounter unreliable information or hidden agendas. Every editorial decision we make is guided by a simple question: does this genuinely help the person reading it?

If you ever feel that a piece of our content falls short of these standards, we want to hear about it. Contact our editorial team at [email protected], or visit our About page to learn more about the people behind FairSettlement.org.