Have you just been sued in San Diego or anywhere in California?  What should you do if you are an individual, business owner, or company who has just been sued or served papers in a lawsuit?  The first thing you should do is take a deep breath.  We can help.  The second thing you should do is take immediate action and contact the Watkins Firm for a free consultation at 858-535-1511 and we’ll discuss how to resolve this quickly and cost-effectively.

3 Important Things to Know if You’ve Just Been Sued:

• You need to respond.  The failure to respond in a timely manner gives the opposing party immense power to seek a default judgment and begin collections.
• Business disputes are all about the financial damages associated with the lawsuit.
• There are several proven strategies to resolve the situation if you’ve just been sued, and move the matter toward a quick, cost-effective resolution.

How Do You Resolve a Lawsuit in San Diego?

The first thing you need to know when you are served with any lawsuit, is there is to respond.  You aren’t going to be able to bury your head in the sand and hope it goes away.  It won’t.  And if a lawsuit has been filed, you usually have 30 days to file your response with the Court and to serve opposing parties and their counsel.  If you don’t respond, the party that sued you will immediately ask the Court for (and in the majority of cases, immediately receive) a “default” judgment, awarding them everything they asked for, and immediately opening the door for aggressive collections and other legal action.  You must respond.

The cost to respond is minimal, and is the first opportunity for you to not only keep your own options wide open, but to begin to assault the other party’s case and create some allegations of your own.  The response actually sets up the best possible process to solve the problem(s) at hand, and move forward.

There are four significant primary steps to resolve a business lawsuit: Negotiation, mediation, arbitration and ultimately when necessary, litigation.  The Watkins firm takes a unique approach to lawsuits and disputes that we’ve specifically designed to ensure prompt efficient resolution.  It should comfort you to know Watkins Firm is able to resolve the majority of lawsuits and business disputes through effective leveraged negotiation. This is the fastest, and least expensive option for resolving any lawsuit, contract dispute, or business-related legal matter.

In some cases we can help to prepare our clients to have their own crucial conversations.  When our clients have the legal insight, knowledge and tactics to negotiate their own resolution it is not only a financial win, but a satisfying personal achievement.  We begin by quickly and efficiently creating a well-documented, thorough chronology of events, as well as a mastery of available damages.  These are the tools required to gain the other party’s attention and engage them in a constructive and productive manner while seeking to resolve the issue(s) at hand.

Our experienced attorneys have a strong track record at trial, and this provides leverage as we open negotiations with the opposing side.  They know we are prepared to take the case to trial and win, and that simple fact provides the substantial leverage needed to drive the situation to a prompt end that accomplishes your goals.

Business Disputes are All About the Damages

If you’ve just been sued in San Diego or anywhere in California you need to understand that business disputes are all about the damages.  We work to quickly identify the financial damages associated with the  lawsuit.  A San Diego business owner, member, investor, or shareholder who has just been sued or served should understand the purpose of a lawsuit is to seek financial damages.  Understanding the damages and the responsibilities of the parties to mitigate their losses and take prompt prudent action to avoid additional damages is another of the important keys to these cases.  We work to negotiate a resolution or settlement that meets your objectives for the case.

Mediation and Arbitration

When there are principled areas of disagreement that cannot be resolved through negotiation alone, our attorneys represent you in mediation and/or arbitration. The pandemic and the sheer volume of cases in San Diego and California Courts requires the parties to attend settlement conferences and seek mediation prior to going to Court.  This is not only often a legal requirement but is also in our client’s best interests.

Mediation is a strong alternative for dispute resolution for those who have just been sued.  Mediation is private, confidential and out of the public eye (and more importantly, the public record).  As experienced San Diego business and dispute resolution attorneys we are able to maintain a high level of influence and control over the negotiations during the mediation, while a neutral expert third party helps the parties to find common ground and resolve the dispute.

Many contracts specify arbitration as an alternative to trial.  Arbitration is a separate legal vehicle from mediation or trial.  Arbitration is a lot like what you’ve come to know about a trial, but it eliminates a lot of the legal posturing, motions and wasted efforts and focuses the parties upon the central facts, evidence and legal underpinnings of the case. The arbiter is usually agreed upon by the parties and establishes the process for the arbitration itself.  It is important to know that the ruling of the arbiter is final in almost every case.  It cannot be appealed except in the very rare instance of fraud or collusion on the part of the arbiter themselves.

Pro-Tip: “So what’s the first step that our clients or a business should take if they’re being sued? When you finally get sued, first things first, you’re going to find out about a lawsuit, either by being served or someone’s going to tell you. You’re going to find out in a multitude of ways, and that’s very important how you find out. Because when you find out there’s going to be a a time clock ticking away of action items you have to take in order to have that lawsuit go your way, the longer you wait, the worse it gets for you. So you’re going to want to find out, and I’m going to want to know as a lawyer, how did you find out? Did someone who’s suing you tell you? Did somebody who’s a potential witness tell you, did you get some kind of letter from a lawyer? Or did you get served with a process server? All those things have implications. So once you’ve gathered yourself, organized your thoughts and you know the facts and the dates, and contact us right away.

You want to hire the Watkins firm. But if you don’t hire us, hire somebody because somebody else has hired a lawyer to go after you. What that means is they’ve literally hired a professional hitman to go after your money or your rights, who’s good at it. You wouldn’t play chess without knowing the rules. You wouldn’t even play checkers. And that’s what it’s like representing yourself. Going into a game where you don’t know the rules and anything you say can be used against you. You have to have a lawyer, even if it’s just to get an initial consultation about where you’re supposed to go and what you’re supposed to do. You need to get a lawyer on your side.

We’re going to listen. We’re going to listen as lawyers and we’re going to be interested and we’re going to care. What you say means more to us than you can imagine because it’s the keys to us solving your litigation problem. You provide us with detailed information, things that are bothering you, upsetting you, all those things matter to us and we’re able to organize them in such a way that every piece of information you give us turns into ammunition we can use to defend you.

Once you hire us and we agree on a game plan or a budget that’s ‘go get them time’ for us, you’re going to unleash us and we go do what we do and what we love doing, which is destroy the other side’s case. We will do everything we can to work with you. In fact, we’ll help you put your case in really good chronological order. It’s like a looking glass. When you put a case in chronological order the way we do and present it back to the client, all of a sudden all of the issues that we see just come to light. And then the client sees the issues, you see the issues and they provide you with even more and more information that destroys these issues that the other side has to deal with. So, we make our chronology as strong as possible for our client.

95% of our cases settle. So as a client you should ask your lawyer, how does settlement, how does mediation, how do these different vehicles we call ADR, Alternative Dispute Resolution, how do they work? If 95% of cases are going to go through this process, you should know how it works and there’s a lot of strategy. So let’s talk about that. Number one, settlements. Settlements are just between lawyer to lawyer. We write letters, we make phone calls, we try to go back and forth from us to the client, back to us to opposing counsel to their client and we go back and forth and see if we can make a settlement, reach an agreement.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

Sound Advice and a Proven Track Record of Success Defending Those Who Have Just Been Sued

Any San Diego business owner who has just been sued is understandably more than a bit concerned.  The good news is there are always actions you can take (and in many cases are required to take by contract or law) which will substantially improve your position.

There are many alternative paths to seek the resolution of a business lawsuit. The experienced business litigation attorneys at the Watkins Firm work to resolve your challenges as quickly as possible and in a cost-effective manner.  This lawsuit doesn’t have to take more than a year and run up a huge bill.  There are effective strategies, and your best alternative at this moment is to review our podcast Episode 31 – The ABCs of what to do if You are Sued as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.