Business and Trust Litigation: How Much Will It Cost?

On Behalf of | Mar 28, 2014 | Business Litigation

One of the most frequent and reasonable questions that Buffington Law Firm’s business, trust, and real estate litigation clients ask us is: “how much will my lawsuit cost me?”  Whether you are a plaintiff or petitioner on the one hand, or a defendant responding to a lawsuit on the other, the answer to this question matters.  Very few clients have unlimited deep pockets.  While our clients always have a solid case, almost none of them have unlimited budgets.  Cost is always a critical consideration.

In business and trust litigation it is never possible to give a precise answer to this question when our clients ask it, because much of what happens in a lawsuit is determined not by what we do, but by what the other side does.  If both sides act rationally (believe it or not, this usually is the case) a lawsuit will be litigated in a manner that is commensurate with its size and the amount of money or property at stake.  We will usually handle a lawsuit in which $50,000 is at issue differently than one in which $5 million or more is at issue.  While our Firm has the staffing and resources to go toe-to-toe with the opposition in large stake lawsuits, we recognize that many or most of our clients are on a budget and that we must achieve our clients’ objectives within reasonable cost parameters.

Far more cases are resolved by settlement agreement than by trial.  The costs involved in trying a case are one of the primary reasons that settlement is often an excellent means of resolving business, trust, and real estate disputes.  It is often (but not always) in our clients’ interests to try to achieve their objectives by settlement rather than trial.  On the other hand, if the matter requires resolution by trial, we are always prepared to go the distance.  Frankly, we have found that when the other side sees that our Firm is ready and able to take the case to trial, more often than not this motivates the opposition to seek settlement.

Everyone has heard stories about lawsuits that have become ruinously or at least excessively expensive.  This does happen, but it does not have to be that way.  If you are involved in a lawsuit the results of which are important to you, but you have a limited budget for it, give us a call for a free legal consultation directly with one of our experienced trial attorneys.  In this meeting we can discuss your case, and generally we can give you a reasonable estimate of its cost.  You may be sure that we will always do our best to litigate the case within your budgetary parameters.

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