The process to effectively resolve a business dispute doesn’t have to include expensive and time consuming business litigation.  Our local Courts are backlogged with cases, and a business dispute will easily (and usually) take much more than a year to litigate.  Most business owners don’t want to have a contingent liability on the books that long, let alone a continuing dispute that impacts business and important relationships.  They want action, resolution, so that they can recover resources and move forward.  The experienced business litigation attorneys at the Watkins Firm keep this clearly in mind when San Diego and California businesses are in dispute.  We offer a unique approach to litigation that leads to a negotiated settlement in the vast majority of the Watkins Firm’s business dispute cases.

The fastest and least expensive strategy to effectively resolve a business dispute is an effective leveraged negotiation.  Our attorneys work to document all of the facts and create a thorough chronology of events related to the dispute, as well the associated damages.  A thorough chronology and a mastery of potential damages are the keys to successfully resolving business-related litigation. The Watkins Firm contributes more than 40 years of proven experience to your side of the equation. We work to protect our clients by counseling them as they mitigate their losses while working to resolve the underlying dispute and recover just compensation.  In many contract disputes and breach of contract cases the key element is time, and we are able to negotiate additional compensation for our client while resolving issues surrounding timely delivery.

The old, “big law” method of handling these cases was to assign them to a partner, have every junior lawyer and paralegal touch the file as often as possible and increase the bill.  Drawing out disputes, arguing with the other party’s attorneys and filing several (non-productive) briefs helped to pad the bill.

Pro-Tip: “If you’re going to be in a dispute, you should know what the future holds for you. And the future for you is hopefully negotiation and resolution. Then if that isn’t successful, you may be in some sort of arbitration or trial, but before you get to an arbitration date or a trial, you’re likely going to be end up in a mediation or a settlement conference, meaning you’re going to have to go talk to a judge or a learned attorney about your dispute and have them try to help you resolve it while we represent and protect your interests and provide sound advice and counsel.

One universal thing we found after 40+ years of doing it is once the company starts making money, people will naturally rationalize their position to allow them to make a larger share of that money. Once it starts making money it’s worth fighting over.

Because we start with this thorough, well-documented chronology, a mastery of the damages, and all of our philosophies on how to prepare a case, we’re ready to go to trial. And we’ve tried lots of cases. If it’s a trial, we really enjoy jury trials. If it’s a settlement conference or a mediation, we’ve prepared our clients and we’re ready to discuss the situation and work to resolve it quickly and efficiently.  If it’s an arbitration, we’ve been around so long, we’re comfortable with the arbitrators. We have a good reputation here and we have excellent litigators here. We have older lawyers at the Watkins Firm who have got a proven, successful track record.  That’ll let any opposing council know if you want to go to trial with us, we’re fine with it. We’re ready for it. We’ve been there before and done that. And we’ve had some pretty amazing defense verdicts and plaintiff verdicts.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

The Watkins Firm approaches these disputes with a completely different model.  We provide a strategy, up front, that begins with effective leveraged negotiation.  If there are points of genuine principle or substantive disagreement it may be necessary to consider mediation or arbitration to resolve the matter.  The Watkins Firm provides a tiered budget that keeps costs down while working to reach a settlement that reflects our client’s goals and objectives.  As a result, we are able to effectively resolve a business dispute when for our San Diego and California business clients quickly and efficiently.

If you are involved in a business dispute or breach of contract we invite you to review our podcast Episode 11 – Resolving Business Disputes as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.