If you start a business and act as the owner or CEO, then you might feel proud. Perhaps you only started the company after years of planning and finding funding for it. It’s like your baby, and the more prominent it becomes, the better you feel.
If someone brings a lawsuit against your company, you might feel threatened. You will need to look into things like how business liability affects personal injury case value. You might feel bewildered and not know the best steps to take.
In the following article, we will discuss a few actions that make sense in this scenario.
Hire a Lawyer
First, you should probably hire a lawyer, if you don’t have one already. Many companies already have an attorney on standby. The bigger and more prominent your company becomes, the more likely you will encounter lawsuits. Someone will often find cause to sue you, whether that’s justified or not.
You may have a business lawyer who helps you in certain areas, but this individual might not have the best advice about what to do if someone sues you. Talk to your current attorney and ask if they can advise you in this matter. If they can’t, or if they’re don’t know this area of the law well enough, ask if they can recommend someone who can.
Ideally, you want to hire a lawyer or law firm that knows all about civil cases. If you have a criminal lawsuit pending, that will require a different kind of attorney.
Consider Settling the Case Before It Goes to Trial
Let’s assume that you have a pending civil case against your company and not a criminal one. If you have a pending civil action against you, then you and your lawyer need to look at what’s behind it.
Your lawyer can probably look at the evidence and determine whether the lawsuit has any merit. If it doesn’t, then they might advice you to go to court and battle it out instead of admitting any wrongdoing. If someone brings a meritless lawsuit against you, then you might feel it’s an affront, and you will want to clear your name.
However, if your lawyer thinks that the case has merit, and they feel you might lose at trial if you take things that far, then probably offering the plaintiff a settlement makes the most sense. Maybe one of your products hurt the defendant. If so, then offering a settlement that covers things like their lost wages or medical bills might end the matter before it ever gets into a courtroom.
You might also consider trying to settle with the plaintiff even if your lawyer doesn’t feel the case has merit. That might seem odd, but sometimes, settling for a relatively small amount of money may be the best path forward. If you try to fight, then that might get your company a lot of negative press.
You should think about whether a small amount of money might make this lawsuit go away. It probably won’t hurt to at least have your lawyer extend an offer to see if it satisfies the plaintiff.
Address Your Employees
You will also probably want to address your employees. You might craft a message that you deliver to all of them in person, or maybe you will send it to all of them in an email.
No matter which delivery method you choose, you’ll want to reassure them that’s everything’s fine, and that the company will get through this. You might address the specific issue that brought the lawsuit and tell your workers that you’ll do better in this area going forward.
Employee morale matters in these moments. If you can project an air of confidence, your workers will probably follow your example.
Consider Hiring a Crisis Management Agency
Your lawyer might recommend that you hire a crisis management agency. One of these entities can meet with you and discuss some options.
They may suggest that you call a press conference and address the media. They might think that’s the best move if you’re already getting some negative press, and they feel you should try to get ahead of the story or tackle it head on.
They may have some additional suggestions as well. It’s probably best that you listen to them. These agencies handle these types of situations all the time, and there’s probably nothing they haven’t seen. With their help, you can weather this storm.
Address the Issue That Caused the Lawsuit
Finally, you will need to address whatever issue or problem caused the lawsuit. If you feel the lawsuit doesn’t have merit, then there’s nothing you’ll need to address. However, in almost all circumstances where someone’s suing you, there’s something you can do differently that should prevent it from happening again.
For instance, if it’s a product liability lawsuit, then you need to pull that product off of store shelves before it injures someone else. If it’s just one batch of a product, but the rest don’t have this issue, then you need to track down all the products in that particular batch.
If someone within your company very clearly caused the problem that brought about the lawsuit, then you must probably address it by firing them. That’s not appropriate every time, but if there’s a direct line you can trace from the issue back to a single person or group of people, then you must oust them for the sake of the rest of your business entity.
If you take all of these actions, then hopefully, you’ll get through this. You will get out from under the dark cloud that threatens your business and perhaps emerge stronger for it.
Unfortunately, the larger and more successful your company becomes, the more likely you will encounter the occasional lawsuit. It’s the price of success. You might also find that if you work in certain niches or industries, more lawsuits come with the territory.