Lawsuit 101: Understanding the Process of Business Litigation
We regularly receive requests to explain the process of litigation, which we always communicate (using dialog NOT monologue) to prospective clients during our initial consultation. We hope you will find our lawsuit synopsis helpful. Feel free to forward it to others and remember to contact us with any questions about any business or employment lawsuit.
The litigation process generally involves four (4) phases. The length of each phase varies with the legal and factual complexities of each case.
The initial phase takes place before anything is filed in court. The attorney meets with the client to determine the facts of the claim being advanced by the client or the client's defense to a claim brought by another. In either case, it is essential that the client meet with the attorney at the earliest opportunity as valuable rights may be lost by delay. Once the attorney meets with the client, the attorney will review any documents relevant to the matter, research the applicable law and possibly speak to witnesses in order to chart a course which is in the best interest of the client.
The next phase involves the filing of an initial pleading in court. Typically, this is the filing of a Complaint or an Answer to a Complaint. The discovery process begins, which may include serving the other side with written questions, called Interrogatories, obtaining evidence which may be in the possession of the adversary or some other party and taking depositions, the oral questioning of parties and witnesses.
Once this phase has been completed, the case is ready to be tried. A trial may be in front of a Jury or a Judge and can vary in length depending upon the number of witnesses and quantity of exhibits offered. Under our system of jurisprudence, the plaintiff has the burden of proof. The plaintiff's case goes first. The defendant then has an opportunity to respond to the plaintiff's case with witnesses and evidence to support the defense. If the defendant has brought a Cross-Complaint, it is tried in the same manner. Otherwise, the plaintiff has an opportunity to put on a rebuttal case to counter the evidence offered by the defendant and, on occasion, a defendant may offer a sur-rebuttal to reply to the evidence offered by plaintiff in the rebuttal case.
The final phase of litigation involves the post-trial matters including motions to vacate or correct the judgment, appeals and efforts to collect on the judgment.
Around the time the City of Santa Monica was resolving/settling the legal matter which caused it to hire outside counsel, the attorneys and the city realized there were disagreements about calculations and fees to be paid to outside counsel.
According to 
This may be the first antitrust case to address whether a social networking site can prevent its users from posting certain links. Representing MySpace, attorney Richard Stone stated ”MySpace doesn't prevent anyone from going to their competitors' sites, but, we have no responsibility to build a moving walkway to a competitor's store." Stone continued “And by including those links, MySpace would be risking exposure if sites such as vidiLife had any inappropriate content. “
