Numbers with reasoning
A bounded exposure range built claim by claim — each figure traceable to a legal test and an evidentiary assessment, not to instinct.
Dispute exposure opinion
Before you decide, know what the downside actually costs.
Written legal opinions from Aun & Co. quantifying dispute exposure: claim strength, realistic ranges and settlement value, for boards, deals and hard decisions.
A dispute exposure opinion is a written answer to the question every decision-maker asks and few get answered plainly: if this goes to war, what happens and what does it cost. The opinion assesses each potential claim — the legal test, the evidence on both sides, the probable outcome band — and converges on numbers: a realistic exposure range and a defensible settlement corridor. It is built for boards, transactions and moments where a decision needs a document behind it.
The work spans
- Claim-by-claim strength assessment with the governing legal tests
- Quantified exposure ranges: lower and upper bounds, reasoned
- Settlement corridors: what resolution should cost and why
- Deal-context opinions: exposure priced for transactions and provisions
- Update opinions as facts develop and positions shift
- The board must approve a provision, a settlement mandate or a fight — and wants numbers, not adjectives.
- A transaction requires the target's or your own dispute exposure quantified and documented.
- A demand letter arrived and the response depends on what losing would actually cost.
- Two courses of action carry different legal downsides and the comparison must be on paper.
The method is the firm's case-analysis discipline applied prospectively: the other side's documents read first for admissions, a timeline built from source records, each claim component run through its formula — legal test, evidence, predicted outcome — and the results converged into a summary table with a bounded range. The opinion states its assumptions and its confidence honestly, including where the answer is genuinely uncertain.
04 · What you get
A document that stands
Written to be relied on later: by the board that decided, the auditor that provisioned, the negotiator that held a line.
Honest uncertainty
Where the law or facts genuinely cut both ways, the opinion says so and prices it — false confidence is the most expensive product in law.
A typical engagement: a company weighing whether to terminate a strained commercial relationship commissions an exposure opinion. Each potential counterclaim is tested and priced; the board decides on a documented range and a settlement corridor instead of on the loudest voice in the room.
Described in abbreviated, anonymised form to preserve client confidentiality.
What is a dispute exposure opinion?
A written legal assessment quantifying what a potential or threatened dispute would realistically cost: the strength of each claim, an outcome range with lower and upper bounds, and a reasoned settlement corridor. It turns a legal risk into a decision-grade number.
How accurate can litigation exposure estimates be?
Honest ones are ranges, not points. Rigour comes from method — testing every component against its legal formula and the actual evidence — and from stating assumptions openly. A bounded, reasoned range consistently beats a confident guess.
What materials are needed for an exposure opinion?
The contracts, the key correspondence, any pleadings or demand letters, and the financial documents behind the amounts. From these the firm builds the timeline and the claim map; the opinion typically follows within one to three weeks depending on scale.