Explore Settlement of Commercial Litigation Early On

Yes! Explore Settlement of Commercial Litigation Early On and Repeatedly Thereafter

Recently a client who CLF's team of attorneys is representing in connection with a lawsuit with respect to one of his businesses and a former employee of that business asked us whether we thought we should explore settlement of the lawsuit.

Several of the defendants had recently engaged counsel and their new defense counsel had requested that we present a settlement demand thereby presenting us with the issue of whether to explore settlement early on in the litigation.

We answered the client with an emphatic YES! We explained that we should explore settlement of the lawsuit immediately, early on, and repeatedly thereafter as the case proceeds to trial.

Commercial litigation is nothing if it is not costly, in terms of both time and treasure, and painstakingly slow. Given the vagaries of our legal system and courts, the results achieved in court can often be at unpredictable at best. So the whole notion of battling it out with your adversaries in court, and attempting to score the big court victory and settle the score, thereby causing justice to be administered and right to prevail over wrong, is one that we rarely advocate for our clients.

As a general rule, we recommend preparing for any litigation carefully, methodically, thoroughly to the point of exhaustion. Stop at nothing insofar as case preparation is concerned for preparation is strength and preparation and knowledge can very well be determinative. When it comes to business disputes and dispute resolution or commercial litigation, we always advocate and recommend proceeding tactically, surgically, sensibly.

And we then recommend settling the matter as soon as it becomes possible to reach a settlement with the opposing party on a basis that permits our client to continue to move forward in pursuit of its business objections and plans. Achieving the client's base level objectives and satisfying the client's minimal requirements, swiftly and for an affordable cost is often what "winning" looks like. Complete and total domination over the adversary is rarely achievable, much less affordable.