Writing Demand Letters: Where Science Meets Settlement Part 1 – The Missouribar

Dr. Aaron DeShaw Esq., J.D., D.C. Related seminars and products: 21

Trial Lawyer, Retired Doctor

DeShaw Trial Lawyers

Dr. Aaron DeShaw, Esq. has individually, and in cooperation with other law firms, obtained settlements and verdicts for his clients in excess of $1 Billion. He is the leading author in the U.S. on the subject of Colossus, the computer assessment program used by most auto insurance companies for evaluating personal injury claims. DeShaw is author of three books, and is featured in multiple professional education videos on the topics of traumatic injuries and insurance.

Aaron holds a Doctorate of Chiropractic from Western States Chiropractic College and a Juris Doctorate from Willamette University College of Law. As a doctor, he was on staff at the exclusive Hale Clinic in London England, and additionally practiced in five countries treating people from over 100 nations. He lectures extensively for both physician and legal professionals.

Aaron has been elected by his peers to Super Lawyers in multiple years. In addition to working at his own firm in Oregon, he is of counsel with the nationally prominent firm of Friedman | Rubin in Seattle, Washington.

Presently, more than 90% of Aaron’s cases involve traumatic brain injuries, with the remainder of his personal injury cases being catastrophic injuries such as quadriplegia, spinal cord injuries, amputation, and wrongful death cases. He has extensive experience doing jury trials on complex medical injury cases. Known for his unusual frontal attack of defense medical witnesses’ opinions, his cross-examination of one witness uncovered the “doctor’s” lack of an M.D. degree. Other defense doctors simply refuse to show up to testify against his clients.

DeShaw is a board member of the Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon, an association of doctors, lawyers and other health care providers who are dedicated to helping people with life changing brain injuries.

He is also a musician, and photographer.

Charlette Sinclair Related seminars and products: 6

Legal Consultant

Charlette Sinclair has dedicated her career to helping lawyers maximize settlement value for their legitimately injured clients. Her background isn’t traditional – while working as a paralegal for mass volume law firms she realized the ineffectiveness of the traditional, narrative-style demand letter. She then learned about the Colossus bodily injury claim software and other claims evaluation software from subject expert Aaron DeShaw, who taught her “there is an art to advocacy, but a science to settlement.” As she continued to develop her knowledge of the insurance industry evaluation process, she had the privilege of learning more from former insurance adjusters and insurance claim process experts who provided great insight, and embarked on a mission to help change the way law firms prepare and present their cases to insurance companies.

Over a series of years studying and writing demand letters, Charlette has refined a series of demand letter templates that are formatted to trigger the bodily injury software systems, and traditional evaluation methods that insurers use to evaluate bodily injury claims. Often referred to as a law firm’s "secret weapon," she led a team of doctors, nurses and paralegals who helped law firms outsource demand package preparation, treatment chronologies, etc. More recently, she has consulted directly with law firms, training lawyers and their staff on the use of her proprietary demand letter formats as a tool to achieve higher settlement offers and avoid costly litigation for their clients. She often is called in to consult with firms who are consistently getting “low ball” offers for their cases in order to turn around their claim values.

Charlette has also gained experience working with a variety of lawyers as a visual media consultant for High Impact – training at their headquarters in Denver, and interacting with their team of medical illustrators, animators and medical specialists. While training in legal visual exhibits, she acquired niche skills in advanced visual claim presentation methods, that allows her to better serve lawyers during the demand submission process, in ADR, and during trial. Through a series of products she intends to produce for Trial Guides, Charlette will share her invaluable knowledge and methods with attorneys and physicians who are interested in better serving injured people. She is currently working as a freelance legal consultant on a part time basis, and is phasing out of her involvement in the legal industry.

When she’s not consulting, she enjoys traveling, spending time with friends and family, driving sports cars, fishing, and playing with her 10 year old pitbull, Enzo.