grabbing the value of a field in view.edit.php

I am trying to grab the value of the 'name' field in an edit view...

I was trying to use $this->bean->name or $bean->name 

however those don't work, what would the correct way to do this be? I am using a subpanel to create a new entry and on quickcreate I have an if statement which executes correctly however I am having trouble grabbing the value of the 'name' field on create. Is this even possible?