When you run a small business, a lawsuit can be a stressful distraction. You need to do everything you can to avoid a lawsuit and minimize the impact if you find yourself in court. Here are five tips for handling lawsuits as a small business:
1. Don’t Wait Until You Have to Litigate
When you’re a small business owner, an ounce of prevention can be worth a pound of cure. If you work with an attorney on an ongoing basis, you can identify things that may cause lawsuits before they start. You can look at your hiring and dismissal practices, contracts, buying and selling agreements, regulation, compliance and more. Thinking these things through can help you prevent a problem.
2. Touch Base with Your Attorney
Although litigation is never fun, it’s longer and harder when you don’t stay on top of it. It’s important for you to respond to your attorney’s calls and requests. If they need information, answers to questions or direction from you, it’s important to comply with their wishes. This helps your attorney move the litigation forward and advocate for your small business.
3. Work with Your Attorney to Minimize the Impact
When someone sues your small business, they might try to make it as painful as possible. They might try to bury you in paperwork in an attempt to wear you down and force a settlement. While it’s common for a lawsuit to take some time, there are things that you can do in order to minimize the damage.
Your attorney may be able to help you bring court motions to make the litigation shorter and less intrusive. A Motion to Quash or other kinds of objections to discovery can make litigation shorter and smaller. Filing and winning these kinds of motions can mean that you don’t have to produce records or answer questions. This can make the litigation process less cumbersome.
4. Keep Records
It’s hard for a small business to defend their legal position when you don’t have the records to back it up. Work with an attorney like Strauss Troy to develop a records retention policy. If litigation happens, you can have the records that you need in order to back up your side of the story.
5. Focus on the Best Possible Outcome
When you’re a small business, you have to focus on achieving the best possible outcome in court. In some cases, the best business decision is to defend your reputation and take the case to trial. In other cases, the best outcome is to settle the case quickly and get back to business. Your attorney can help you look at the big picture and make the best choice for you.
Making Litigation Small for Small Business
A lawsuit can create a serious small business interruption. There are things that you can do to minimize the chance that your business will face litigation. There are also things that you can do before and after a lawsuit in order to lessen the damage and get back to business as quickly as possible.