Your business relationship ran its course. You can still cross the finish line with a hand-shake.™

Clients sometimes call me and say, “This probably isn’t going to be anything, but something happened you should know about…” The “something” is often an incident or a pattern of behavior with another party that has prompted them to wonder if a “business divorce” is impending. Their instincts are generally correct that a dispute of some kind is brewing.

As soon as you have a gut instinct that a dispute with a business partner, vendor, customer, or other party “might” be brewing, it behooves you to contact a lawyer. It is possible you can take action early on to address or diffuse the situation. If not, you have legal support in each step you take as the situation unfolds.

It can be unsettling, confusing, and overwhelming to contemplate conflict. But once the initial shock subsides, with a legal advocate by your side, the earlier in the process you develop a strategy, the more options for resolution you will have.

Yes. When a dispute arises, the first step is generally to assess if the parties can voluntarily work together to settle the dispute without entering into a legal proceeding. Before asking a third party arbitrator or judge to decide the case for them, a voluntary resolution allows the parties to maintain control and incur less in legal fees and court costs. Mediation is an additional form of dispute resolution which may be contractually required before or in lieu of proceeding with a lawsuit in court.

Please contact us for a complimentary review of your specific facts as fees are customized to each client’s case.

In general, we try to bill on a Flat Fee basis for every legal matter. A Flat Fee is a one-time total fee for all actions required for that legal matter. This provides the client with predictability and control. The Flat Fee includes our popular “Unlimited Pass™” of communication between attorney and client in all mediums to be sure the client understands the legal process and can ask questions, and take as much time as is needed to understand and be educated on their matter.

A Flat Fee works well if the project does not have too many variables or unpredictable factors. Dispute resolution presents unique challenges in terms of predicting how much time will be required as, by definition, there is another party (and possibly their lawyer) involved who is not in agreement with your position. Whether we can bill on a Flat Fee will depend on the nature of the dispute, how many lawyers are involved, your goals, risks, and budget, and how close you and the other party are to resolution (i.e. have you verbally agreed but need to put it in writing, or are you in opposite camps and not sure if you’ll ever agree).

If a Flat Fee is not possible, then an hourly rate will be applied, and we will discuss a projected budget.

Either way, we encourage clients to apply the “2.5% rule” and allow 2.5% of the value of the transaction for legal fees.

We will work to ensure that your legal budget adds value to your transaction and peace of mind.

We would love to chat with you about how we might work together to accomplish your goals within your budget.