Civil Litigation: Dispute Resolution In And Out Of Court
Whether you’ve lost money, peace of mind, opportunities or property due to somebody else’s incompetence, carelessness, greed or malice, a court can give you the chance to replace them — or at least replace their worth.
Yet, a lawsuit is not something anyone pursues on a whim. There are consequences for filing a frivolous lawsuit, and the constant risk of being ordered to pay the other side’s legal fees and costs.
Before you go to court, it’s important to have a good, realistic perspective of how likely it will be for you to recover from your losses through a lawsuit.
Before Litigating, Find Out What You’re Getting Into
It’s important for you to know what you’re getting into before pursuing your disagreement in court. Whether you want us to handle a dispute with a business, individual, neighbour or family member, we will discuss a number of factors to help you decide. These include:
- Your goal: It’s important to know what you hope to get from court, whether it’s money to cover economic loss or loss of other expenses at home or loss of enjoyment of life, getting the other party to do what he or she was supposed to do, or some sort of punishment for his or her bad behaviour.
- Your chances: We will talk about the law as it applies to your situation, the case we’ll have to build and the likelihood of your winning. We will also talk about whether the other party can pay the amount owed to you and your chances of collecting any amount awarded to you.
- Costs: These include costs to your time as well as money. We’ll talk about how long the process will likely take, what we may have to spend to get the evidence, reports, expertise and prepare your case for trial, and that the court can order a party to pay the other party its legal fees.
- Alternative ways to resolve your dispute: These may include negotiation, mediation, writing letters or any number of other approaches. We’ll talk about whether pursuing one of those avenues might be a better approach for your situation.
If, when we’re done, we still feel that court is the best approach, we can represent you skillfully in civil court.
As lawyers, our aim is to do what’s best for our clients, not simply take their money and push them through a long, difficult process that may not give them what they need.