new york attorneys

You are sit­ting in your office on the busiest day of the year, and just when you think noth­ing else could go wrong, a per­son walks in and utters the fate­ful words “You’ve been served”, while hand­ing you a stack of papers.   Your busi­ness is a party to a New York civil lit­i­ga­tion law­suit. Your busi­ness has  just been sued.  What is the best course of action you can take, and how can you pro­tect your­self as well as your business?

Who?

Read the papers that are given to you to find out the party that is suing you and the type of civil lit­i­ga­tion you are involved in.  Is it a cor­po­ra­tion, a part­ner­ship, or an indi­vid­ual?  Are they a cus­tomer or a sup­plier of your busi­ness? Who is the lawyer rep­re­sent­ing the party that is suing you?  This infor­ma­tion will help your attor­ney obtain a more favor­able result for you by research­ing the other party and its coun­sel. (Do they set­tle often?  Are they a big com­pany?  What are their finan­cial resources?  Do they have a rep­u­ta­tion to main­tain and there­fore may want to set­tle quickly?).

What?

What exactly are you being sued about?  Is it a breach of con­tract claim? Is it a non-payment claim, or a non-performance claim?  Those are many rea­sons why a busi­ness may be sued.

When?

In Civil Lit­i­ga­tion, tim­ing is crit­i­cal in a law­suit.  Responses must be filed within a set period, which in New York is  usu­ally within 30 days.  While an exten­sion can be granted, don’t wait until the last minute to con­tact your attor­ney.  It takes time to pre­pare an appro­pri­ate answer to the papers.  If you do not respond in a timely fash­ion, you will be con­sid­ered in default, and a judg­ment may be taken against you.  This means you may lose the case with­out the oppor­tu­nity to pro­vide a defense.

Also, don’t assume you are judg­ment proof, because judg­ments can be col­lected from future earn­ings as well as assets.  In addi­tion, do not assume that your insur­ance cov­ers every­thing, although it may be wise to notify your insur­ance car­rier as well as your attorney.

Where?

What court are you being sued in?   What county?  State or Fed­eral Court? You may be sued in a state far away if, for instance, you have done busi­ness in that state.  In that case, your New York attor­ney will have to obtain local coun­sel for your small busi­ness in the other state, and this takes time.

Why?

Why did the party resort to a law­suit?  Is it some­thing you can fix by hav­ing your attor­ney talk to the other side and nego­ti­ate a set­tle­ment?  Is there a run­ning ani­mos­ity between your com­pany and the other party, in which case set­tle­ment will be dif­fi­cult?  Do you need to file a coun­ter­claim against the other party?

How?

Imme­di­ately notify and sup­ply the civil lit­i­ga­tion  law­suit papers to your attor­ney.  Make sure you retain a pho­to­copy for your­self.  Inform your attor­ney of all the facts rel­e­vant to the case.  Your attor­ney will decide what is impor­tant and what is not.

Orga­nize your doc­u­ments per­tain­ing to the case so that you can min­i­mize the time the attor­ney must spend going through them.  This will save your attor­ney ’s time, and there­fore save you legal fees.  Do not talk to the other party’s attor­ney.  He works for the other party, just as your attor­ney works for you.  Let your attor­ney do this for you.  In addi­tion, remem­ber that in law, just as in any pro­fes­sion or busi­ness, there are rules and pro­ce­dures  your attor­ney knows and you may not.  To stay out of trou­ble, leave the legal work to your attorney.

A trial can take sev­eral weeks in New York, includ­ing prepa­ra­tion time.  There­fore, it may be in your best inter­est in cer­tain cases to set­tle.  How­ever, be real­is­tic in your set­tle­ment expectations.

Con­clu­sion

Hav­ing an ongo­ing attorney-client rela­tion­ship will help pro­tect you in the event of a civil lit­i­ga­tion law­suit.  The more your attor­ney knows about your busi­ness, the bet­ter the attor­ney will be able to help you.  In addi­tion, dis­cussing busi­ness options and prob­lems with your attor­ney ahead of time could help pre­vent a law­suit from ever start­ing.  Either way, it will save you money in the long run.

Please be advised that the above is for infor­ma­tional pur­poses only. If you have been sued, con­tact me at the Law Office of Fred­eric R. Abram­son at 212–233-0666.