What is MDL matching and why does it matter

A client walks in with hearing damage from military service. You think VA disability claim. What you don't know: they used 3M Combat Arms earplugs during deployment. That's MDL-2885 — a $6 billion settlement. Individual payouts range from $7,000 to $750,000 depending on severity.

That case was sitting in your intake pipeline. You just didn't have a way to catch it.

This is the problem MDL matching solves.

What Is an MDL?

MDL stands for multidistrict litigation. When thousands of people are harmed by the same product, drug, or company, their federal lawsuits get consolidated before a single judge for pretrial proceedings. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation — the JPML — decides which cases qualify and where they go.

Right now, there are 160 active MDLs across 46 federal districts, covering nearly 200,000 pending actions. Defective drugs. Toxic chemicals. Faulty medical devices. Consumer products. The range is massive.

These aren't class actions. Each plaintiff files their own case. Each case has its own facts, its own injuries, its own potential payout. But the qualifying criteria — the specific conditions that make someone eligible — are defined at the MDL level.

That's where matching comes in.

What MDL Matching Actually Means

MDL matching takes a case's facts and checks them against the qualifying criteria for every active MDL. Not a keyword search. Not a Google query. An actual comparison of what happened to your client against what each MDL requires.

Every MDL has specific criteria. MDL-3094 (Ozempic/Semaglutide) requires evidence of GI injuries after taking semaglutide-based medications. MDL-2885 (3M Earplugs) requires military service during specific years with documented hearing loss. MDL-2924 (AFFF Firefighting Foam) requires exposure to aqueous film-forming foam and certain cancer diagnoses.

Your client doesn't need to mention the MDL by name. They don't need to know the drug's generic name. They just need to describe what happened to them — and matching does the rest.

Three Cases You'd Miss Without It

Case 1: A client mentions chronic stomach pain after "that weight loss shot her doctor prescribed." She never says Ozempic. She never says semaglutide. But the facts match MDL-3094. A single referral fee: $10,000-$50,000.

Case 2: A firefighter comes in with a thyroid cancer diagnosis. He spent 20 years running training exercises with foam suppressants. That's AFFF exposure — MDL-2924. Estimated individual settlement values range from $75,000 to $500,000.

Case 3: A veteran with tinnitus and partial hearing loss. Standard workers' comp referral, right? Except he served between 2003 and 2015 and used dual-ended earplugs during training. MDL-2885. 3M has already paid out over $3.1 billion to claimants.

None of these clients walked in asking about mass torts. None of them used the right legal terminology. All of them had cases worth real money — money that walks out the door if nobody catches it.

Why Manual Matching Doesn't Scale

There are 160 active MDLs right now. Each one has different qualifying criteria — specific drugs, specific devices, specific exposure windows, specific diagnoses. New MDLs are created every month. Existing criteria change as litigation evolves.

No attorney can memorize the qualifying criteria for 160 MDLs. No paralegal can manually cross-reference every intake against every active docket. The JPML publishes updated reports monthly — that's 160 sets of criteria to track, verify, and apply to every case that walks through your door.

This is a volume problem. And volume problems need automation.

How MDL Match Solves This

MDL Match screens your cases against every active federal MDL — automatically. Paste intake notes or case text. Get ranked matches with confidence scores in seconds.

The matching is semantic. Your client says "weight loss injection" instead of "semaglutide"? Caught. They say "foam stuff at the fire station" instead of "aqueous film-forming foam"? Caught. We understand case facts, not just keywords.

Our MDL index updates monthly from official JPML data. Qualifying criteria, lead counsel, settlement estimates, pending action counts — all current. You're always matching against the complete picture of active federal litigation.

One matched case pays for years of the product. The math is simple.

This Isn't Just for Mass Tort Firms

If you handle general PI, family law intake, workers' comp, or med mal — you encounter potential mass tort cases. You just don't know it yet. Your slip-and-fall client also took a recalled medication. Your car accident client also has a defective medical device. Your workers' comp client was also exposed to toxic chemicals on a job site.

MDL matching catches the case inside the case.

Mass tort cases are hiding in your intake pipeline. The question isn't whether they exist — it's whether you're catching them.