False Claims Act cases are high-risk matters, given their potential to result in “company-busting judgments,” which requires defendants to treat the budget for the matter as an actual part of the litigation strategy. Deploying sufficient resources at the first and second stages of these matters is a key factor in achieving early resolution, and saving significant expense.
“Given the very high percentage of early resolutions achieved in the first two stages of FCA cases, one might think it is unnecessary to budget significant resources at these stages—that these higher budget amounts are required only if the case reaches the stage of more extensive discovery and trial preparation,” write Jones Day attorneys J. Andrew Jackson and Stephen Sozio. “Our experience and data suggest taking a counter-intuitive approach in crafting the case budget, specifically focusing resources on the early stages.”