§ 154.025.Moderated Settlement Conference

A case evaluation procedure, and its distinguishing feature is the panel.

The forum is for case evaluation and realistic settlement negotiations.

Each party and counsel present the party’s position before a panel of impartial third parties. More than one evaluator, unlike the single mediator or single neutral of the other procedures.

A panel carries weight a single opinion does not. A party told by three experienced neutrals that its case is weaker than it believed has something harder to dismiss.

The panel may issue an advisory opinion on liability, damages, or both.

The opinion is not binding. Subsection (d) says so flatly, with no agreement clause of the kind Section 154.024 provides for a mini-trial.

The value is information. Cases often stay open because the two sides value them differently, and a neutral evaluation narrows that gap.

Any resulting agreement is enforced under Section 154.071, like a settlement reached in any other procedure in this subchapter.

The panel members are impartial third parties, appointed under Section 154.051 where the court is making the appointment, and subject to the duties in Section 154.053.

The advisory opinion has no enforcement mechanism at all. Its whole value is persuasive, which is why the composition of the panel matters more here than in any other procedure in this subchapter.