Civil Litigation & Trial
Contract, partnership and professional negligence claims — pleaded to be tried, not just filed.
A business dispute usually arrives with an employment problem attached. We keep the groups under one roof so nothing gets referred out mid-matter.
Contract, partnership and professional negligence claims — pleaded to be tried, not just filed.
Formation, shareholder agreements, sales and successions for companies with real operating history.
Wrongful termination, wage claims and executive exits — represented from either side of the table.
Purchase disputes, easements, construction defect and entitlement work across three counties.
Dissolution, parenting plans and support modifications, handled quietly and without theatre.
Wills, trusts, administration and the contested estates that follow when the drafting was rushed.
State and federal charges, from arraignment through appeal. Two former prosecutors on the team.
Vehicle, premises and product claims on contingency. You pay nothing unless we recover.
Four stages, each with a decision point where you can stop. You are never carried into litigation by momentum.
Thirty minutes with a partner. You describe what happened; we tell you whether there is a claim and what it would cost to pursue.
We read every document, pull the record, and return a written assessment: strengths, exposure, realistic range, recommended path.
Most matters open with a demand letter that carries a credible trial threat behind it. If it fails, we file within the week.
Negotiated settlement, mediation, or trial. You approve every number before it is offered or accepted.
Which one applies depends on the matter, not on what you can be talked into. The basis is written into the engagement letter and it does not change mid-case.
Costs are separate from fees, in every arrangement. Filing fees, service, deposition transcripts, expert witnesses, records requests and mediator time are billed at what they cost us, with receipts attached to the invoice. On contingency matters we advance them and recover them out of the settlement — and if there is no recovery, we absorb them. You will get a written estimate of likely costs before the first filing.
Every call and message gets a substantive reply before we close, not an acknowledgement from an assistant.
Hourly, flat or contingency — written out, with a monthly ceiling you approve. No line item arrives as a surprise.
Roughly one in five people who call us are advised to settle, wait, or do nothing. That advice is free.
No rotating associates, no handoff at trial. The name on the engagement letter is the name at counsel table.
Nothing. The intake call runs about thirty minutes and is with a partner, not a screener. If we think you have a matter worth pursuing, we will quote a fixed fee for the written file review before any further work begins. If we think you do not, we will say so on that call.
Three ways, agreed in writing before work starts. Injury and some employment claims run on contingency, typically a third of the recovery. Business, family and estates work is hourly with a monthly ceiling you approve in advance. Discrete pieces — a review, a trust, a demand letter — are flat fee.
The median across our practice is seven months from engagement to resolution. Matters that settle after a demand letter close in six to ten weeks. Matters that go to trial in Springfield County are currently taking fourteen to twenty months from filing, largely because of the court’s calendar rather than anything either side does.
No. The partner named on your engagement letter runs the matter and appears at every hearing. Associates draft and research under that partner, and you will see their names on invoices, but the person you met in the first meeting is the person at counsel table.
We appear across California and are admitted in Nevada, Oregon and the Ninth Circuit. For matters further afield we will either associate in local counsel or refer you out entirely — and we will tell you which, and why, at the first call.
No, but the clock is short. A California response is generally due thirty days after service, and a default judgment is far harder to undo than it is to avoid. Call the office rather than using the form — say you have been served, and you will be put through to a partner the same day.
Send the outline and a partner will call you back the same business day. If it is urgent — you have been served, or a deadline is inside a week — use the phone number instead.
Everything you send is confidential. Submitting this form does not create an attorney–client relationship.
Typical reply: same business day before 18:00 Pacific.