What to Do if Your Company Has Been Sued in Florida

You’ve been sued. What now? If your company has been sued in Florida, there are steps you need to take promptly to protect your company’s interests both now and in the future. Right now, responding to the lawsuit should be your priority, and you will need to engage an experienced Miami commercial litigation attorney to help you take an informed, strategic approach focused on avoiding unnecessary costs and liability.

10 Key Steps to Take if Your Company Has Been Sued

Here are 10 key steps to take if your company is facing commercial litigation in Florida:

1. Don’t Panic

First, you should resist the immediate inclination to panic. Facing a lawsuit does not necessarily mean that your company will be found liable in court. Your company will have multiple opportunities to defend itself long before the case goes to trial. Right now, you are in the very early stages of the process, and your focus should be on working with your company’s defense counsel to make informed and strategic decisions about your next steps.

2. Promptly Engage Legal Counsel

Speaking of your company’s defense counsel, you will need to engage an experienced Miami commercial litigation attorney to respond to the lawsuit. Regardless of the veracity of the allegations in the complaint, facing a lawsuit presents legal risks, so experienced legal representation is essential. Along with responding to the lawsuit on your company’s behalf, an experienced commercial litigation attorney will also be able to provide critical insights as you move forward.

3. Ensure You Know the Deadline to Respond

Once your company has been sued, it has a deadline to respond to the lawsuit. It is critical to meet this deadline, so you should make sure you know when your company’s response is due. While your company’s defense counsel will prepare and file a response (or “Answer”) on your company’s behalf, it will be important for you and other key personnel to provide all records and information needed in a timely manner.

4. Implement a Legal Hold

Companies that are facing litigation need to implement a legal hold. This involves preserving all records that are potentially relevant to the litigation. If your company works with a third-party document storage or shredding company, you will need to ensure that no records are deleted or destroyed in the ordinary course of business. This is in addition to taking other steps to prevent the deletion or destruction of emails, files, or other potentially relevant communications or documents.

5. Conduct an Internal Investigation

Conducting an internal investigation is a critical step in responding to a commercial lawsuit. To make informed and strategic decisions about your company’s defense, you will need to ensure that you are aware of all relevant facts, and you will need to know what evidence is available. Once your company has implemented a legal hold, this internal investigation should begin as soon as possible. Due to the importance of conducting a comprehensive internal investigation, this process should be overseen by your company’s defense counsel.

6. Assess Your Company’s Risk

After conducting an internal investigation, you will need to work with your company’s defense counsel to assess your company’s risk in the litigation. This includes assessing both: (i) the likelihood that the plaintiff will succeed on the merits of its claims; and (ii) your company’s potential liability exposure in the event of an unfavorable verdict. Assessing your company’s risk will be key to informing your company’s initial defense strategy.

7. Assess Any Potential Counterclaims

Along with assessing potential defenses, it will be important to assess any potential counterclaims as well. This assessment should also be made following the completion of your company’s internal investigation. Asserting viable counterclaims can provide important leverage to defendants and can help spur favorable settlement negotiations when settlement is desirable.

8. Prepare Your Company’s Answer

Your company’s Answer is its formal response to the lawsuit, and timely filing an Answer is critical for preserving your company’s ability to defend itself in the litigation. As a result, when conducting an internal investigation and conducting the assessments we just discussed, it is vital not to lose sight of your company’s response deadline. Your company’s defense counsel should docket all deadlines, and he or she should work with you to ensure the timely filing of your company’s Answer and all subsequent pleadings, motions, and discovery.

9. Start Building Your Company’s Defense Strategy

Once you have gone through these preliminary steps, you can work with your company’s legal counsel to build your company’s defense strategy. Litigating commercial disputes takes time, and it is important to make the most of the time you have available. The steps you take early in the litigation process can have major impacts later on, so it is worth investing the time and effort now to ensure you have a strategic plan for moving forward.

10. Prepare for the Next Steps in the Process

After assessing your company’s defenses and counterclaims, filing your company’s initial response, and formulating your company’s defense strategy, you can then focus on the next steps in the process. One of the next major steps will be discovery, which involves both parties requesting records, written responses, and deposition testimony from the other. You can also work with your company’s defense counsel to assess the viability of filing any early pretrial motions, and if it is in your company’s best interests to settle, you can discuss settlement strategies with your company’s defense counsel as well.

Schedule a Call with a Miami Commercial Litigation Attorney Today

If your company is facing a lawsuit, we can help—and we encourage you to contact us promptly for more information. We defend companies facing all types of commercial litigation in South Florida. To speak with an experienced Miami commercial litigation attorney at Gonzalez Law Offices, P.A. in confidence as soon as possible, call us at 305-676-6677 or tell us how we can reach you online now.