Articles Tagged with litigation

  • An agreement to arbitrate that is contained in the governance documents of a business, e.g, an operating agreement or shareholder agreement,  may result in multiple proceedings when the dispute ripens into litigation.

  • A party may seek to stay a pending federal court action based on a collateral arbitration proceeding that is part of a state court action under the abstention doctrine, but it is sparingly applied.

  • Parties to a business dispute may be required to simultaneously litigate in different forums when not all of the parties are subject to an agreement to arbitrate the dispute.


Multiple lawsuits from a business divorce may not be entirely commonplace, but it does happen when the controlling governance documents contain an arbitration clause, but there are outsiders not bound by the agreement to arbitrate that are involved in the dispute.  These may be former employees, agents, competitors or vendors.gavel-2492011_1920-1024x569

Simultaneous Arbitration and Litigation in Court

The result is that some of the parties may be obligated to arbitrate, or that some of the dispute may not be subject to the agreement to arbitrate.  Consider the case in which there are disputed events that occurred while the parties still had fiduciary obligations to each other – such as between partners or employer and employee – and those that occur outside the fiduciary obligation.  These might include unfair competition or claims arising from a competitor hiring someone under a restrictive covenant. Continue reading

business litigation attorneysHere is the hard reality.  The chances that your case, or any case, will get to a real trial on the merits is way less than one in 10.  The truth is that only between two and five cases out of 100 will be resolved with a trial.

What does that mean for a party drawn into civil litigation?  The statistics point to a group of “best practices” that effective litigation counsel should employ.  It is a blend of efficient trial preparation, motion practice, management of discovery and, perhaps most of all, advanced negotiation skills.  We review some of those here as a starting point for developing a case strategy.

Civil Trials in Business Litigation is a Rare Event

Conflict and Negotiation Case Study: The Importance of Sincerity
One of the hardest things about being an effective negotiator is the ability to leave your ego at the door.  We need to listen, not impress.

Seasoned Negotiators, Effective Apologies

As negotiation trainer Jim Camp warns, an effective negotiator learns how to let the other side be “ok,” even when you’re not.  The fact is that no matter how well we listen, no matter how well we employ our negotiator’s tool kit to learn the real interests of the other side, we’re going to make mistakes.

confident

Lawyers must evaluate cases and try to predict the most likely outcome.  To be successful, to attract and win clients, they must do so with confidence. A recent study of the accuracy of those predictions, however, reveals that lawyers are often overconfident and overly optimistic in their assessments of a client’s case.

A recent study published in Psychology, Public Policy and Law revealed that the more confidence a lawyer expressed in his or her ability to achieve a possible result, the more likely he or she will fail to achieve those results.  You can read the full article here (Insightful or Wishful – Lawyers Ability to Predict Case Outcomes.pdf).

The lesson appears to be that clients might want to maintain some skepticism about the results that the supremely confident lawyer predicts, even as they recognize that the statistics don’t tell the whole story.  The lawyer who doesn’t believe in a case, or who lacks confidence will have a difficult time being the zealous advocate that is the touchstone of an effective litigator.  We may not meet our lofty goals as often, but that is not to say that we don’t do better for our clients when we are confident in the case.  In our next post, we’ll take a look at predicting the outcome in a business dispute case.

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