Many business people wonder “why should we hire an attorney to resolve San Diego business breach of contract disputes?”  Why should you spend the money to hire an experienced, proven business dispute resolution attorney from the Watkins Firm instead of trying to resolve it yourselves?  Breach of contract and related contract disputes are a serious legal issue.  Each party in the dispute has specific legal responsibilities in order to protect their rights and interests under the contract.  Many of our business clients don’t want to take their focus off of managing the business and maintaining forward momentum to handle a dispute.  It often comes back to that question “Are you working ON your business or FOR your business?”

Successful business people work ON their business, and effectively delegate tasks to those who are most capable to handle them.  This is true when working to resolve San Diego business breach of contract disputes as well.  Generally speaking, there isn’t a legal way to force a party to perform on their agreement (outside of real estate).  So it will come down to a negotiated or mediated settlement, or in what many consider to be a worst case scenario, a protracted legal dispute.  By the time your breach of contract case reaches a point of mediation or litigation its all about damages.  If the other party is responsible for the breach, you have responsibilities under California law to mitigate the damages associated with the breach.  The failure to do so will limit your options for recovery, or relinquish your rights altogether.

The attorneys at the Watkins Firm have helped our clients to resolve San Diego business breach of contract disputes for decades.  Our first goal is to develop a thorough, well documented chronology of events, as well as a mastery of any potential damages.  We use these tools to help find common ground and negotiate a solution which accomplishes our client’s goals and objectives.  This will be the fastest and least expensive resolution, and it usually also ensures that the breach by a vendor doesn’t disrupt our client’s own business commitments.  They entrust the matter to us knowing that we have the skill and experience to engage the issues at hand and resolve them.

It may surprise you to learn the Watkins Firm is able to resolve the vast majority of our business breach of contract cases through effective, leveraged negotiation.

Pro-Tip: “A breach of a contract is when someone breaches a material term of the agreement or an immaterial term of the agreement. And you have different remedies for either.

Was there a failure to perform most of or part of the contract or an important part of a contract, anything that would render the benefit of the bargain not received? A minor breach means that you still have a contract. You still have an agreement and you can demand performance, or you can demand that you have to give less performance on the other side, but yet the contract isn’t completely breached and it’s not over. A material breach gives you more remedies, remedies that are important and may sound minor today. But there’s been many a situation where having a material breach gives the party who was breached or damaged the right to rescind the contract or the right to specific performance, and forced the performance of the contract. All of these things have amazing consequences, if you look at factual situations in breach of contract law.

That’s what’s called choice of remedies in a material breach. The person who’s been damaged by the breaching party has all kinds of choices they can make. And depending on the kind of contract, the subject matter of contract, whether it’s a real estate contract or a commercial contract, they have the right to choose through a whole list of remedies, including provisional remedies and the list goes on and on. This is as opposed to a minor breach. Whereas your remedies are, are much less.

The primary remedy for a breach of contract is damages. That’s the term a lot of people don’t understand. What are damages? Great question! When I advise my clients, I tell them the most important item in litigation is not whether you are liable or they’re liable, or somebody breached. I say the three most important things in a lawsuit are: damages damages damages.

And I say, it just like, you know, location, location, location, because it’s that important in the type of damages you can obtain are so varied that if you focus on whether you’ve been damaged under the law, there will be a statute or a case that says you are entitled to those damages. So if you track it backwards from I lost a hundred thousand dollars in this deal and how you lost it on those facts and what you did lose, you’ll probably find 99% of the time, a statute or a law or a case or something that gives you a remedy, a right to those damages and how you can collect.

Damages are what the law can afford you in a civil case. In a criminal matter, the law can afford you incarceration of the offending criminal, but in a civil matter, since your contract and your agreement was mostly about money, then you get money back. And the only time you don’t just get money is when it’s a case where a law will afford you an injunctive or provisional remedy, which is for unique types of damages and unusual circumstances.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

There is also a strength that comes from having your attorney contacting the other party – it simply changes the nature of the conversation.  Opposing parties (and their counsel) usually realize that our clients are serious and begin to work to resolve the issue.  If you are involved in a breach of contract dispute, or are concerned about performance on a business contract we invite you to review our podcast Episode 5 – Breach of Contract as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.   Ask about our unique approach and how to resolve your San Diego business breach of contract disputes in a timely, efficient manner.