To Litigate Or Not To Litigate…

Transcript

Hi, I'm Regina Campbell from The Campbell Law Group, and we're coming to you today to talk about whether or not to litigate. The question here is: to litigate or not to litigate? I'm sure Shakespeare did not have litigation in mind when he talked about "to be or not to be," but to litigate or not to litigate still remains a very important decision in most people's lives, and it certainly should not be taken lightly.

So, as an attorney, some of the things I tell people to look at when deciding whether to litigate or not are not just the costs involved, but what are the reasons? What are the objectives and goals of what you're trying to accomplish in a courtroom? What are your damages? What are your facts?

So basically, some of the things to look for, to be more clear on whether to litigate or not, are: do you have a case? You have to speak to a lawyer and talk about the elements that you believe are the basis for a cause of action. In other words, if you have a breach of contract, you would consider whether or not someone has breached the contract that the parties have signed. Is that breach obvious? Is it a material breach? Is it potentially an insignificant breach? And what are the damages that breach caused? Are they the type of damages that you're actually able to collect in court? Are they permissible damages and compensation that you're looking for from that cause of action?

And then, of course, you also want to consider the costs of litigation. Often people come to me and they've lost $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, and that is most certainly a lot of money to everybody, to most people. But it is something you want to consider: litigation itself can cost so much money. It costs $20,000 or $30,000 to go through a simple course of proceedings, even for a breach of contract case. You have to consider some of these issues when you're considering whether or not to litigate.

And probably one of the most important ones is the one people do not think about, and it's basically: what is your objective, and what is your goal here? If it's personal, you need to think long and hard about whether or not to litigate, because starting a litigation case based on personal anger or anguish, or for personal vendetta reasons, is often not a good reason to litigate, and it normally does not belong in the courtroom. If it is to be righted, so to speak, for a wrong or damage that you incurred, once again, we need to go through the analysis of whether it makes sense to litigate from a cost point of view, and also from a strength-of-the-case point of view.

You also want to consider the psychological and emotional effects that litigation has. Is that something you want to spend your time and energy on? So basically, these are some of the things you want to consider when you litigate.

One of the other things is that some people do these things for principle: "Ms. Campbell, I know this is going to be a difficult, fact-intensive case, but this person robbed me. They pretty much defrauded me. It's a Ponzi scheme. I don't want to just let them go. It's out of principle. Even though I may not be able to collect, I may not be able to have them thrown in jail, I may not be able to get certain remedies I think this person deserves, I want to do it for the principle."

So litigating for principle can not only be very expensive, it's not always a wise choice. It's something you need to really sit down and consider: your reasons for doing so, and what you expect to get out of court. Because often some of the remedies you think you're going to get are not available in court. For instance, moral and ethical breaches are the type of things you're not going to get reparation for.

So there are a lot of things that go into this decision, but it's a very large decision to make. It can affect every aspect of your case and your business. It takes away energy and time from your family and from your business, and potentially from growing. So these are things you need to consider when deciding whether or not to litigate. Hopefully this has been helpful. Please subscribe to our channel and follow us on social media platforms for more information. Take care.