Dispute Resolution & Litigation

Our Expertise

Our litigation solicitors have considerable experience and expertise in handling all forms of litigation before the civil courts.  With recognition in the respected national Chambers & Partners publication, as leaders in the field, you know you are in safe and experienced hands.

We regularly represent clients before the High Court and County Courts and in the following areas:

• Partnership and Shareholder Disputes
• Franchise Disputes
• Freezing Injunctions and Search Orders
• Contract Disputes
• Property and Boundary Disputes
• Landlord and Tenant Disputes
• Probate and Estate Disputes
• Insolvency Litigation
• Construction Adjudications and Arbitrations

Resolving disputes early is often the most sensible approach, but sometimes, an obstructive and difficult opponent can make that almost impossible to achieve. In these cases, a direct, strategic and hard-hitting approach may be called for, which then shapes how the dispute is progressed and ultimately resolved. Litigation is about strategy, the law and the Court Rules, and exploiting legitimate commercial interests to leverage maximum advantage at all times.

Funding Legal Proceedings

Court claims can be expensive – there is no doubt about it!  However, our litigation solicitors can guide you through the funding maze and enable you to depart from the usual hourly rate system which most lawyers are still stuck with.  We are passionate about achieving the right outcome and have no qualms with working hard to achieve the right result.  Our aim is to establish longer term relationships, not to charge as much as possible for any given claim that a client wishes to pursue.  We will always be as flexible and innovative as possible with our funding solutions to ensure you can proceed as you need to with you case.

We will review your case with a view to identifying whether we can depart from the usual hourly rate approach adopted by most firms, with the possibility of sharing in the risk of the litigation with you and working on a conditional fee basis.  It’s obviously in our interests to work to make sure you get the right outcome.

Given our expertise, we have unique recognition with third party funders and purchasers, that can either help fund your action or defence, or alternatively, purchase it completely from you and pay you a sum of money, therefore avoiding any litigation risk or the distraction from dealing with the dispute altogether, particularly in an insolvency context.

Alternatively, we can look at capping of fixing our fees or taking a share of damages if you wish to bring a claim and do not want to fund it on the old fashioned hourly rate basis.

Here are a few examples of the kinds of things that our litigation solicitors have been involved with:

National

• A landmark claim in the High Court and Court of Appeal relating to the law of nuisance against the developers of the Cube (part of the Mailbox) in Birmingham.
• Numerous franchisor and franchisee claims for breach of agreements and urgent injunctions.
• Acting on an 8 day trial before the High Court for the successful client on a complex partnership dispute with elements of commercial fraud.
• Obtaining injunctions to prevent breach of restrictive covenants in recruitment and employment contracts.
• Obtaining an injunction on the day of instruction to restrain interference with a commercial property by a landlord, resulting in an almost immediate resolution to the issue and minimal expense.

International

• Successfully appealing the English High Court’s decision to hear a claim against a Cypriot Hotel in England, where doing so was against EC Law.
• Service of proceedings in Spain on a multi-million financial services related claim.
• Advising numerous parties on proceedings under the European Enforcement Order.