Case Study: Anvil — a 50-State Workers’ Comp Settlement Estimator Built From Statutory Schedules
Anvil was a free workers’ compensation settlement estimator we published on Alumniyat.com, our former product lab: choose your state, the injured body part, and an impairment rating, and it estimated a permanent partial disability (PPD) settlement range using each state’s real statutory schedules — scheduled-loss weeks, comp-rate caps, and the formulas that connect them. Alumniyat is now part of Webmaster & More; this post preserves the project.
The problem it solved
Injured workers searching “how much is my workers’ comp settlement worth” mostly find either attorney ads or generic articles. The actual answer is surprisingly computable: most states publish scheduled-loss tables (a thumb is worth X weeks of benefits, an arm Y weeks) and weekly comp-rate caps. Nobody had put that math in one free, plain-English place.
How it was built
Like our other lab tools, Anvil was a static page — vanilla JavaScript reading a compiled `data.json` of per-state schedules, computing everything client-side. No accounts, no data collection, no backend to maintain. The engineering effort went into the dataset: normalizing 50 different statutory schemes into one schema that a simple calculator could drive, with the statutory citations shown next to the numbers.
What we learned
Public data is an underused moat. The most defensible content on the web is often sitting in statutes and government tables, unreadably formatted. Turning it into an interactive answer is real work — which is exactly why so few competitors do it.
High-intent tools deserve a conversion path. A person who just calculated their PPD estimate is one of the highest-intent legal leads that exists. Our published version stopped at the estimate; the obvious next step for any firm running a tool like this is a “get a free case review” form right below the result.
Distribution decides outcomes. Anvil was accurate and genuinely useful, but as a new page with no promotion it saw little traffic. Tools work as lead engines when they’re paired with SEO or advertising — not instead of them.
For law firms and professional practices
If your clients arrive with a “what is my case worth?” question, a calculator built from the real statutory math is a differentiator no stock website has. We design and build these as custom, fixed-scope projects — no third-party plugins, fast static delivery, your branding.
Book a free consultation if you’d like to explore one for your practice.
Frequently asked questions
Where is Anvil now?
Alumniyat Tools was consolidated into Webmaster & More in July 2026. Anvil was retired, and its URL now points to this case study.
Was it accurate?
It used each state’s published schedules and caps, with citations shown — but real settlements depend on facts no calculator can know, which the tool said plainly.
Could a tool like this feed leads to my firm?
Yes — that’s the natural design: estimate first, then an optional free case-review form. We can build both halves.