Certum Group has launched Certum Legal Solutions, a new Managed Services Organization (MSO) designed to help mass tort law firms handle the operational complexities of litigation at scale. The platform integrates three core capabilities—litigation funding, litigation insurance, and operational services—into a single system, making it the only integrated offering of its kind for law firms managing mass tort cases.
Unlike traditional separate vendors, Certum Legal Solutions provides end-to-end support from initial client intake through settlement claims processing and funds distribution, allowing firms to outsource operational burden while maintaining control over legal strategy. The launch, announced in early December 2025, represents a significant shift in how mass tort firms can structure their back-office work. For a law firm managing 500 plaintiff cases across a pharmaceutical litigation, for example, Certum can handle medical record collection, client communications via an in-house call center, document workflows, and settlement claims processing—work that traditionally requires dedicated internal staff or fragmented vendor relationships.
Table of Contents
- What Problem Does an Integrated MSO Solve for Mass Tort Practices?
- The Technology and Operational Services That Power Certum Legal Solutions
- Leadership and Experience Behind Certum Legal Solutions
- How Firms Access and Price Certum’s Services
- Practical Considerations and Limitations for Law Firms Evaluating the Platform
- Certum Group’s Background and the MSO’s Origins
- Current Scale and the Vendor Maturity Question
What Problem Does an Integrated MSO Solve for Mass Tort Practices?
mass tort litigation generates enormous operational complexity that has little to do with legal strategy but consumes substantial resources. Intake alone—collecting client information, authorizing representation, gathering medical records—can require dozens of staff hours per case. When a firm has thousands of cases across multiple litigation tracks, the cumulative burden becomes unmanageable without either massive infrastructure investment or cobbling together multiple vendors, each with different systems and reporting protocols. Certum Legal Solutions addresses this by consolidating vendor relationships into a single platform with integrated workflows.
A law firm no longer needs a records vendor, a call center vendor, a document management vendor, and a settlement administration vendor operating in silos. Instead, one system coordinates all four functions. This integration matters practically: when a client calls about their case status, the call center agent has real-time access to their medical records, discovery phase, and settlement timeline—all in one interface. A fragmented approach forces the client service representative to juggle multiple systems or request information from other departments.
The Technology and Operational Services That Power Certum Legal Solutions
Certum’s platform combines intake, pre-litigation investigation, plaintiff discovery support, settlement claims processing, client communications, and funds distribution into a managed workflow. The technology layer includes proprietary integrations for rapid medical record collection, a mobile client app for case management, automated document workflows, electronic signature systems, and an in-house call center staffed to handle client inquiries. These components are built to handle volume—the kind of throughput required when managing thousands of concurrent cases. However, the platform’s strength in operational efficiency can mask a critical limitation: Certum Legal Solutions handles logistics, not legal work. A law firm still cannot outsource legal strategy, case evaluation, settlement negotiation, or litigation decisions to the MSO.
What firms can outsource is everything that happens around those decisions—scheduling, document collection, compliance tracking, and client wrangling. For a firm stretched thin managing hundreds of cases, this distinction is crucial. Outsourcing operations frees capacity for legal work; outsourcing legal work itself would be malpractice. The integration of automated document workflows and electronic signature systems reduces friction in settlement processing, a stage where delays can cost clients tens of thousands of dollars in lost time value. Yet reliance on any third-party system for case data introduces custodial risk; the law firm remains liable if Certum’s systems fail, are breached, or lose data. Firms considering the platform should verify disaster recovery, cybersecurity certifications, and data ownership clauses.
Leadership and Experience Behind Certum Legal Solutions
Asim M. Badaruzzaman, CEO of Certum Legal Solutions, brings 15+ years of mass tort litigation experience directly to the platform’s design. He previously served as partner and chair of the mass tort practice group at Sbaiti & Company, a New Jersey law firm where he helped clients recover over $100 million from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. This is not a venture-backed startup founded by people who read about litigation on the internet; it is a platform built by someone who spent a decade and a half actually doing mass tort work.
Badaruzzaman’s litigation background shapes what Certum Legal Solutions prioritizes. He understands which workflows kill productivity, where clients become frustrated, and which operational bottlenecks create settlement delays. His experience with pharmaceutical and medical device litigation—two of the largest and most complex mass tort verticals—informed the platform’s medical records integration and discovery support features. The leadership choice signals that operational service design will be driven by actual litigation needs, not generic business process management.
How Firms Access and Price Certum’s Services
Certum uses a customized fee-for-service model rather than per-case flat rates or percentage-of-settlement arrangements. This means fees are negotiated based on the scope of services and the estimated value of each engagement. A firm handling 1,000 cases in a medical device litigation pays differently than a firm with 100 cases across multiple tracks. The customized approach allows flexibility but requires detailed contracting; firms cannot simply plug in a standard rate card. The fee structure creates an important tradeoff compared to building internal operations.
Outsourcing reduces fixed overhead—no salaries, benefits, office space, or management hierarchy for back-office staff. But it replaces that with variable costs that scale with caseload. A firm that bulks up or consolidates cases with another firm might see per-unit costs rise as engagement size shifts. Conversely, a firm can scale operations down without laying off staff if a case concludes early or settles. For mid-size firms managing volatile caseloads, this flexibility often outweighs the loss of cost certainty that in-house operations provide.
Practical Considerations and Limitations for Law Firms Evaluating the Platform
Certum Legal Solutions is designed for firms managing substantial caseloads—the kind of volume where operational complexity justifies outsourcing. A solo practitioner managing 20 cases does not have the scale to benefit. A mid-size firm with 500+ active cases across multiple litigation tracks does. The value threshold is important because the onboarding and integration effort is real; firms must migrate case data, train staff to use the mobile app and client portal, and adapt workflows to align with Certum’s processes. For a small firm, that overhead outweighs the savings. The platform cannot replace a firm’s litigation management system entirely; it works alongside case management software rather than replacing it.
This means firms still need to maintain their own legal case files, matter timekeeping, and work-product management. What Certum takes off the plate is the operational busywork that surrounds legal case management. Firms should verify integration capabilities with their existing systems before committing; incompatible software stacks can undermine the efficiency gains Certum promises. A warning for firms considering the move: outsourcing client-facing operations introduces reputational risk. If Certum’s call center mishandles a settlement question or the mobile app fails during a critical period, the client contacts the law firm with a complaint. The firm remains liable for the quality of service even when it is contractually Certum’s responsibility to provide it. Law firms should negotiate service-level agreements with teeth—guaranteed response times, staffing minimums, and penalty clauses for failures.
Certum Group’s Background and the MSO’s Origins
Certum Group was founded in 2013 and is based in Plano, Texas. The company originally operated under the name Risk Settlements before rebranding to Certum Group in January 2023. The name change from Risk Settlements to Certum (Latin for “certainty”) reflected the company’s broader evolution beyond settlement administration into litigation finance and now operational services.
This rebranding context matters because it shows Certum’s trajectory toward integrated legal services rather than a sudden pivot into unfamiliar territory. Certum Legal Solutions itself was built inside Sbaiti & Company, the New Jersey law firm where CEO Badaruzzaman was based, during 2024. This internal incubation allowed the MSO to be refined using real litigation workflows before being acquired by Certum Group in 2025. The result is a platform that emerged from active litigation practice, not theoretical best practices or consulting frameworks.
Current Scale and the Vendor Maturity Question
Certum Legal Solutions currently manages thousands of cases for law firm clients across the United States. This volume provides real-world data on what works operationally and what requires adjustment, but it is also modest compared to the total mass tort caseload nationally. The legal industry remains skeptical of operational outsourcing; many firms view their back-office as proprietary and prefer to keep it internal or work with long-standing vendors they know.
Certum’s platform is new enough that long-term track record data does not yet exist. Firms considering adoption should ask for references from existing clients and request multi-year performance data if available. A platform’s early success does not guarantee it will survive competitive pressure, scaling challenges, or economic downturns.
- —