1. What does winning actually look like?
Clients arrive talking about principle; courts deal in remedies. Before anything is filed, write down the concrete outcome you need — payment, performance, an injunction, a precedent — and its value in money and time. If no available remedy matches the goal, negotiation is not surrender; it is the only forum that can deliver what you want.
2. How strong is the record today?
Arguments are cheap; exhibits are not. I audit the documents, messages and testimony as an opponent would. Gaps found in week one can sometimes be closed — a missing notice cured, a witness secured. Gaps found in month six become the other side’s opening statement. Never file hoping the record will improve itself.
3. What will this cost — fully loaded?
Fees are only the first line. Add executive time, employee distraction, customer awareness and the opportunity cost of a dispute that runs for two years. Our early case assessments price all of it, because a “win” that costs more than settlement is a loss with better stationery.
4. Who needs to save face?
Most commercial disputes persist because someone cannot afford to look defeated. Mediation works when it offers both sides a story of prudence rather than surrender. Structure the off-ramp — confidential terms, mutual releases, a forward-looking commercial gesture — and watch supposedly intractable cases resolve in an afternoon.
5. What happens if we do nothing?
Delay is itself a strategy, and sometimes the right one: limitation periods, expiring leverage, a counterparty whose position weakens with time. But deliberate patience differs from drift. If waiting is the plan, set the tripwires — dates, events, thresholds — that convert patience back into action.
The through-line: decide from evidence, not emotion. A two-week assessment that answers these five questions will save most clients more than any single motion ever could. If you are weighing a dispute now, bring it to us early — early is when advice is cheapest.