Keeping signed mass tort clients through the wait
Silence after signing is a complaint claimants make often, and mass tort lawyers admit it too. A plan for updates, scam warnings, records, and deadlines keeps clients informed, reachable, and still yours when the settlement comes.
I'm Joshua David Little. I've run my own consulting firm since 2004, I've helped attorneys prepare complex cases for trial, and I ran the first family-law ad on ChatGPT, before the platform allowed legal-services ads.
Both sides say the same thing
Ask people who signed up for a mass tort what went wrong, and many describe silence. One client wrote that they hadn't heard from their lawyer in the five months since signing a settlement. Another, eight years into a suit, asked strangers whether that was normal.¹
Lawyers say it too. A veteran New York mass tort lawyer, writing about law professors' interviews with hundreds of women in recent mass torts, most of them over transvaginal mesh, reported that many had never once spoken with the lawyer actually representing them, and that a common complaint was not being kept informed.²
These cases often run five years or more. A firm can sign thousands of people and then, without meaning to, go quiet for most of that time. The cost shows up later: clients who can't be found when their paperwork is due, clients who answer the wrong phone call, and reviews written in frustration. Keeping clients informed is marketing to the people who already chose you, and it protects the cases you've already paid to sign.
Scheduled updates and a status page
The fix starts with a schedule your clients can count on. A schedule might look like this:
- Every month, a short email in plain words: where the litigation stands, what's changed, and what the client needs to do, if anything. Most months the honest answer is "nothing yet," and saying so still keeps the client's trust.
- Every quarter, a letter by mail for clients who don't use email, and a call from someone at your firm to anyone who hasn't opened an update in months.
- Whenever something real happens, such as a ruling, a settlement announcement, or a new form to fill out, an update the same week.
Behind the emails sits one status page per tort on your site, written for clients and kept current: what stage the case is in, what's happened, what comes next, and how to reach a person at your firm. When a client asks a search engine or an AI for a lawsuit update, your page can be the answer they find.
When an offer arrives, clients will want to know what it means for them. Your lawyers explain that in their own words. We make sure the explanation reaches every client, in a form they can read on a phone.
One Illinois mass tort firm updates its clients at every step, because its cases often take five years or more to litigate.³
Scam warnings
Every big tort draws imposters. Scammers posing as Camp Lejeune officials promised one veteran's family a $5 million payout.⁴ In the earplug litigation, the court itself posted an order warning claimants about a scam, with a line no one could miss: "THIS IS A SCAM."⁵
Your clients should hear it from you first. A scam-warning page on your site, linked in every update, tells them how your firm will and won't contact them, what you'll never ask for, and how to check that a message really came from you. A short email repeats it whenever a new wave of scams hits the tort. The same page answers people who ask a search engine or an AI whether a call they got is real.
When a deadline arrives
Sooner or later a settlement program sets a date by which every client has to register or send something in. A firm that has kept in touch all along is ready for it. A firm that hasn't finds out how many clients it can no longer reach.
Know which clients you can reach today and which you can't, and start looking for the missing ones early. Tell every client what's needed, by when, and why, by email, by mail, and through your staff, more than once. Gather the records each client will need before the deadline is close. Track who has responded, and keep at it until everyone has.
Inline assessment
Want to know how many of your signed clients you could reach this week? We'll look at it together.
Records and proof
In drug and device cases, a signed client isn't a case until the proof is in: product identification, or PID, and proof of injury, or POI.³ Medical records are the second-most expensive part of a mass tort, by one Florida mass tort lead's reckoning.⁶
Clear emails and pages that tell clients exactly what to gather, where to find it, and how to send it can bring records in sooner and lose fewer cases along the way. They also give the client something to do during the wait, which most clients want.
Veterans and military families
Some clients are angry at the offers they've been made. One Camp Lejeune claimant called the Navy's settlement option one-sided, and an earplug claimant urged others not to take the payoff.⁷
Updates to these clients should respect that. Say plainly what has happened and what hasn't, avoid cheerful language about slow progress, and make sure every message tells them how to reach a person at your firm.
Older clients
Some torts draw older clients, such as hip and mesh patients, CPAP users, and veterans, and they need more follow-up through a slow case. The same Florida lawyer warns other mass tort lawyers not to let a slow case turn into a bar complaint.⁶
For older clients, that means letters by mail as well as email, larger type, fewer links, and a call from your staff when an update goes unanswered.
Who does the work
Your clients signed with lawyers. When they have a question during the wait, they should reach a person at your firm, and every update should tell them how.
We plan the schedule, write the emails, letters, status pages, and scam warnings, and track who is opening them and who has gone quiet. Your staff make the calls, and I can train them on the schedule, the scripts, and the follow-up so nobody falls through. To me, every update and every page like this is a way to build trust with the people who already chose you.
Joshua David Little is a Fractional CMO for law-firm owners and the founder of Aquila Law Firm Marketing. He has run his own consulting firm since 2004, and has done hands-on work helping attorneys prepare complex litigation for trial in family law, medical malpractice, personal injury, and unjust enrichment cases. He ran the first family-law ad on ChatGPT, before the platform allowed legal-services ads.
¹ Clients' questions on Justia's Ask a Lawyer and in comment threads, 2022 to 2024.
² A veteran New York mass tort lawyer, American Bar Association Mass Torts newsletter, fall 2022.
³ An associate at an Illinois mass tort firm, on a podcast for injury-firm owners, 2025.
⁶ The lead mass tort attorney at a Florida PI firm, in a legal journal article, November 2022.
⁷ Roll Call, September 22, 2026; a claimant's comment online.