Business Litigation & Disputes

Most people picture a courtroom. Most disputes never get there.

01 — Read the paper. The contract, the emails, the invoices. What you signed usually decides more than what happened.

02 — Demand, in writing. A letter that states the position and the deadline. A real number of disputes end at this step, and it is the cheapest one.

03 — Negotiate or mediate. Two lawyers, or a neutral in the room. You keep control of the outcome here. After this, you stop having that.

04 — File, if filing is the move. Every case gets prepared as though it is going to trial, because that preparation is what moves the settlement number.

The thirty-minute consult is step zero: an honest read on which of these four you are standing in.

Also handled: pre-litigation strategy — demand letters, cease and desist letters, responding to one that arrived, negotiation, and mediation before a suit is ever filed.

Prosecuting and defending contract claims in CT, NY, and MA state and federal courts. Breach claims brought and defended, demand and negotiation before a suit exists, and trial and appeal where it has to go that far.

The paper decides most of it. Whether a liability cap was paired with a consequential-damages exclusion, whether the indemnity runs both directions, whether notice was given the way the agreement required — those are the questions that set the range before anyone argues about what happened. Which is why the read starts with the contract itself rather than the story around it.

The firm prosecutes and defends contract claims regardless of who drafted the agreement. Where it is a contract this firm wrote, there is no learning curve on what it says or why — and no hourly spent acquiring one.

Not every contract fight is worth running. Part of the first conversation is what the claim is realistically worth against what it costs to pursue, and whether a demand letter closes it at a fraction of both.

Also handled: disputes arising from commercial contracts the firm drafts · claims that surface after a separation, which often arrive as employment matters before they arrive as contract ones.

Fraud and misrepresentation, tortious interference, unfair competition, and breach of fiduciary duty, in CT, NY, and MA state and federal courts.

A breach of contract claim requires a contract between the parties. A business tort does not. It can involve someone you never had an agreement with, and it can carry different damages and remedies than a contract claim would — which is why the two get assessed together rather than in sequence.

In practice they usually arrive together. The counterparty who misrepresented what they were selling also breached the agreement. The competitor who induced a customer to walk also used something they should not have had. Handling both in one matter is faster and cheaper than running them separately.

The claims that involve information taken on the way out — source code, customer lists, pricing — sit on the line between unfair competition, trade secret misappropriation, and breach of a restrictive covenant. Which theory carries the claim depends on what was signed and what was actually taken, and that question gets answered before anything is filed.

Also handled: breach of fiduciary duty claims against officers, managers, and members · defending a tort claim brought against the company.

Deadlocks, buyouts, and breakups between business owners in CT, NY, and MA.

Owner disputes threaten the whole business rather than one relationship inside it. Resolving them quickly, and privately where possible, protects the value everyone built — which is why these run toward negotiated outcomes wherever the facts allow.

Deadlock between equal owners has more exits than most owners realize. A negotiated buyout. Mediation. A deadlock-breaking mechanism, if the operating agreement or bylaws contain one. Court-ordered dissolution or buyout as a last resort. Which applies depends on what the governing documents say and how far the relationship has broken down — and the governing documents are read first, because they usually decide more than the argument does.

Buyouts turn on valuation as much as law: structuring an owner’s exit, and establishing what the interest is worth on terms both sides can live with. Where a partner or officer put their own interests first, that is a fiduciary duty claim rather than a disagreement. Where the business genuinely cannot continue, dissolution winds it down in an order that preserves what value remains.

Also handled: dissolution and winding up · governance documents drafted to prevent this, which is the cheaper version of the same conversation.

A firm that says yes to everything is a firm learning your industry on your invoice. The better outcome, most of the time, is the dispute that does not happen.

Business legal audit — one written pass across the contracts in force, the governance documents, IP ownership, and the employment file, reporting what would become a problem and in what order.

Outside general counsel — an ongoing relationship on a monthly retainer, which is how the questions that precede a dispute get answered while they are still cheap.

Medical malpractice — birth injury, anesthesia errors, and dental malpractice — is handled separately. See Medical Malpractice.