Case Cycle Time

The elapsed duration from a matter's intake or filing through its final resolution — settlement, judgment, or dismissal — and the resulting fee or cost recovery, used by contingency-fee firms and their capital providers to model expected cash-flow timing across a docket. Case cycle time varies enormously by practice area and procedural posture: a straightforward pre-litigation personal injury claim may resolve in months, while an MDL-consolidated mass tort matter, complex commercial litigation with extensive discovery, or a matter proceeding through trial and appeal can take years longer from filing to final distribution. Because contingency fee revenue and cost-advance recovery are both entirely deferred until resolution, case cycle time directly determines the duration of the cash-flow gap a firm must bridge with working capital, and a firm's blended average cycle time across its docket, weighted by case value, is one of the central variables in any case-cost financing or receivables facility. Firms and funders track cycle time not only in aggregate but by procedural stage — pre-suit, active litigation, post-verdict or appeal, post-settlement claims administration — because capital needs and risk profile differ meaningfully at each stage of the cycle.

Case cycle time, multiplied by the firm's average cost-advance-per-case, is the core calculation behind sizing any working-capital facility for a contingency-fee practice, since a longer average cycle time directly increases the peak outstanding balance the firm needs financed before cases begin resolving and repaying the facility.

Funders modeling case cycle time increasingly draw on structured outcome data — real docket resolution timelines and settlement patterns for comparable claim types and jurisdictions — rather than relying solely on an individual firm's limited internal case history, since a firm's own past cycle times may not be a statistically reliable predictor, particularly for a growing or newly diversifying docket.