Can a San Diego Business Litigation Attorney Help if Your Company is Sued?

A San Diego business litigation attorney can provide legal representation to companies involved in a variety of disputes. Businesses can be sued for many different reasons, whether the lawsuit arises from an alleged breach of contract, a personal injury or allegations made by a disgruntled employee.

While there are myriad possible causes of action that can result in a business being forced to defend itself, the goals of most civil cases are the same: plaintiffs want to obtain a monetary remedy from the company or plaintiffs wish to obtain some other type of remedy, such as the court ordering a defendant to refrain from or engage in a particular type of behavior like following through on contractual obligations or re-hiring an employee who was wrongfully terminated. A San Diego business litigation attorney will work with businesses to develop the right legal strategy, whether that involves settling or defending a case in court.

How a Business Litigation Attorney Helps Your Company Settle Lawsuits

According to the New York Times, anywhere from 80 to 92 percent of civil cases settle. Cases settle for a reason: it is often more costly and risky for a company to go to court. In 24 percent of cases, defendants made the wrong choice about whether to proceed to trial and ended up paying more than they could have paid to settle the case. When defendants were wrong about going to trial and had to pay plaintiffs more than they could have settled for, the difference was substantial. Defendants who went to trial when they shouldn’t have paid around $1.1 million more than settling expenses would have cost.

Whether to settle or not will depend upon factors including the amount a company can afford, the damage to the company’s reputation that can come from a prolonged trial and the strength of the plaintiff’s case.

Determining whether settling is likely to permit your business to keep more money can be highly subjective and requires years of experience to predict. Factors that can impact whether to settle include the likelihood of a plaintiff’s victory, the strength of the plaintiff’s evidence, the availability and feasibility of affirmative defenses, potential legal remedies that a plaintiff is seeking, and possible damage to your company’s reputation if a trial is publicized. Because many considerations require knowledge of precedent and an understanding of the statutes under which a plaintiff’s claims arise, companies named as defendants in a lawsuit can benefit tremendously by retaining a litigation attorney before deciding how to proceed.

How a Business Litigation Attorney Helps Your Company Fight in Court

When your company is sued, fighting in court is sometimes the best course of action, such as in the case of  frivolous lawsuit. It may be, in appropriate instances, worth the added expense and time of going to trial to vigorously defend a frivolous lawsuit and prevail at trial. This can establish a precedent that you will not reward parties for filing frivolous lawsuits, preventing such suits from being filed against your business down the road. Frivolous lawsuits are a serious problem within the legal system. A recent article in theWall Street Journal indicates every family in the U.S. loses as much as $3,520 annually due to costs associated with frivolous lawsuits. You can avoid making your business an easy target for such suits by not backing down if your business is the target of frivolous claims.

A defendant who wishes to defend against a case in court will need to introduce doubt as to their liability or breach of legal duty, or will need to raise affirmative defenses justifying their conduct. Juries don’t have to be 100 percent convinced of a defendant’s liability to find for a plaintiff. There is a lower burden of proof in civil cases than criminal ones, so plaintiffs must only show liability by a preponderance of the evidence. This lower standard of proof makes it easier, but not easy, for plaintiffs to win and vital for defendants to be able to introduce significant doubt in the plaintiff’s evidence.

Affirmative defenses such as a plaintiff’s misuse of a product in an injury claim, a bona-fide job-related reason for an employer’s actions in an employment dispute, or an intervening act as justification for breach of contract will need to be proved if these defenses are to allow a defendant to avoid an adverse ruling.  A litigation attorney can provide assistance in introducing doubt or proving affirmative defenses.

Getting Help from A San Diego Business Litigation Attorney

The business litigation attorneys at Gehres Law Group have a long track record of representing companies in San Diego and surrounding areas when those businesses have been sued. We understand the financial and reputational damage that can result from legal action and our firm helps you to resolve the claims against you as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

To find out more about the ways in which a San Diego business litigation attorney at our firm can help you with the development of a legal strategy and with the execution of that strategy to get the best possible outcome in your case, give us a call at 858-964-2314 or contact us online today.

SaveSave

The post Can a San Diego Business Litigation Attorney Help if Your Company is Sued? appeared first on Gehres Law Group.

from Gehres Law Group http://ift.tt/2tWTAts
via IFTTT