Several of the lawyers at the Knudsen law firm specialize in business litigation. It is a specialty in which we enjoy practicing. However, in our role as “counselors” we ask our clients to consider several factors before deciding to proceed with a business lawsuit. Some of the disadvantages of suing are:
Costs: Business litigation will be extremely expensive. It’ll cost you thousands of dollars.
Time: You may think you are in business to be in business, but once you proceed with commercial litigation you and your staff should be prepared to devote large amounts of time to the lawsuit. Attorneys will not be able to do it alone. You will be deposed. You will have to go over documents with your lawyer. You will have to prepare for court. You will have to locate any and all documents and e-mail even remotely relevant to the dispute. You will have to search every hard drive and every file cabinet. Deciding to sue is a large time commitment.
Privacy: By filing a lawsuit, you will expose your business practices and documents to a public forum. Even if you think some of your documents are extremely confidential, you should prepare to deal with the fall-out from having to produce those documents. Publicity about a lawsuit can also adversely affect business relationships and draw unwanted attention to your business from the friendly IRS.
The Principal of the thing: Suing over principal is rarely, if ever, a good business decision. Before proceeding make sure you think you have a legal and factual basis for success. Suing just because of perceived injustice will lead to disappointment in the result and more importantly could result in the litigation becoming about an all consuming goal – rather than the success of your business.
Pursuing a lawsuit is not an endeavor to be undertaken lightly. Sue only if the ultimate goal of the litigation would outweigh its disadvantages.
If you have a business dispute that you would like to review with one of our lawyers contact Kevin McManaman, Jeanelle Lust, Trev Peterson or Rod Confer at 800-714-3439
Jeanelle Lust
Managing Partner
www.knudsenlaw.com
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