having hired an expert in this field, I can tell you they aren't really that sophisticated. I found myself with an absolute mountain of cash after an accident as part of a settlement. My medical insurance won't pay claims until I've exhausted that cash. The claims I had were much higher than even the mountain of cash. The lawyer I hired use a pretty effective strategy: he contacted all of the claims against me and told them we could engage in N-way negotiations amongst all the parties until we came to a settlement so everyone got their nibble of the pie. Or they could get X today, where X was some amount that was a bit less than the rate the industry actually gets paid for those services. They all accepted.

The discounts he negotiated left me with tons of cash & were in excess of the fee he charged me.