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Portland Business Lawsuit Tip: Take the Time to Draft a Meaningful Timeline

Posted by: Phil Nelson
October 20, 2011
Topic: Business Litigation & Arbitration

Even in the most successful and efficient pieces of litigation, my Portland and Seattle business law clients share one wish: they wish it wasn't so expensive.

Part of the solution to that problem is selecting the right law firm--one that is focused on achieving your business goals efficiently, not on achieving its business goals with the meter on.

But part of the solution lies with you, the client. An involved client is a good client. My best business law clients are those that are involved in the litigation. They take advice, but they also provide it.

If you start this involvement early, you can not only increase your chances of prevailing in your business or contract dispute, you can decrease your costs in getting there.

A great deal of litigation costs are spent getting your attorney up to speed on the issues involved in your case. Part of this cost is simply unavoidable, but part of it can be dealt with by taking the time to sit down and provide your attorney a timeline of events.

A key event timeline can short-circuit what is often a lawyer's sweeping fact-finding mission (or worse, a needle in a haystack search mission) by providing the lawyer with a roadmap of the issues relevant to the litigation and a working timeline (that can be used throughout the case) of significant events.

It's almost always the first thing I ask my clients for, and the ones who have had a successful and efficient business lawsuit experience have one thing in common: the timeline is a lawsuit tip they take seriously.