For many decades, legal noticing, class administration, and class member payments in the US have been conducted using old, paper-based methods, such as advertising in the classified ads and legal notices section, as well as using paper checks. With most of the world going paperless and adopting digital technology, this aspect of the legal industry is seemingly left in the past.
Changing times call for changed approaches, so Angeion Group, a Philadelphia-based independent and internationally-recognized settlement administration company, is seeking to innovate the sector by bringing in technologies and approaches that have already been proven in other industries. One example of this is Angeion’s harnessing of behavioral and economic psychology principles to design claim processes and reduce fraud, as well as relying on neurocognitive data to determine choice prompts in the class member journey. These concepts have already been used to great effect in the marketing and advertising industries, and Angeion uses them to create potent strategies for reaching out to class members.
Angeion Group was founded in 2013 by a group of individuals led by Steven Weisbrot, Esq., who is now the company’s president and CEO. Weisbrot’s legal career involved extensive work in class action lawsuits, and he experienced firsthand how outdated the system was. When the opportunity to found a settlement administration business came, Weisbrot made sure that the company focused on using “smarter, faster, and better technology”, to drive the industry into the 21st century. To date, Angeion has managed more than 3,000 cases and more than $15 billion in settlement funds in a more efficient and effective manner.
Steven Weisbrot, President and CEO of Angeion Group
From an initial team of five people, Angeion Group now has more than 150 employees, distributed across the US and internationally. It is active in overseas markets such as Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Argentina, and Brazil. Soon, Angeion will begin work in Australia.
Angeion Group has made a lasting impact on the market by spearheading the shift of class member notification from largely paper-based to digital-based, using methods such as programmatic display advertising, social media, and influencers. According to Weisbrot, data is much more readily available from digital methods as it’s easy to know how many people clicked an online banner versus how many people looked at a newspaper advertisement. Angeion also uses chatbots to answer class members’ queries. With this shift to digital methods, Angeion frequently works with large technology companies from Silicon Valley and beyond, as they speak the same language as these companies.
Angeion is also digitizing the distribution of class action suit settlements. Instead of sending paper checks in the mail, it uses digital money platforms such as PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle to send money to people. This puts the money in the recipient’s hands without any further action needed from them, as paper checks often get lost or are never negotiated. Weisbrot adds that, with over 20% of Americans being unbanked or underbanked, many check recipients have no choice but to bring their checks to a check cashing store, where they get charged high rates of 10% to 13% to receive their payment.
The company’s efforts to modernize the industry have not gone unnoticed, and it has won several major industry awards. It was voted as the best claims administrator by the readers of the National Law Journal in its 11th annual Best of 2022 readers survey, as well as being inducted into The Recorder’s Best of Hall of Fame after earning top three placement in three consecutive years. It has also been named to the prestigious Inc. 5000 list of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies for two years in a row. The company has received a Great Place to Work® certification, recognizing its focus on diversity, openness, and work-life balance.
“The class member experience has been very clunky and difficult for everyone involved,” Weisbrot says. “Angeion walked into an industry that was not known for innovation and demanded change. It was because we saw the opportunity to use technology to create a streamlined and seamless experience. We’re not just changing the rules, we are writing the rules, and class members, attorneys, and judges are taking notice.”
Media contact:
Name: Gabriella Ward
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