The Disputes We Litigate
- Breach of contract. Unpaid invoices, broken agreements, failed deals, deals one side wants unwound entirely, and the prevailing-party fee clauses that often decide whether suing makes sense. The contract usually contains more leverage than clients realize, in both directions.
- Partner and ownership fights. Freeze-outs, deadlocks, expulsions, and forced buyouts have their own statute and their own playbook, covered across our business partner disputes pages, from derivative actions to suing a partner directly.
- Breach of fiduciary duty. Managers, officers, and controlling owners answer for self-dealing, diverted opportunities, and reckless control of other people’s money, inside companies and inside deals.
- Business torts. Tortious interference with contracts and customer relationships, unfair competition, and the ex-insider who left with the client list; that last one has its own playbook in former employee took the customer list. These cases reward fast, documented action while the relationships can still be traced, and they often turn on whether a non-compete or restrictive covenant was drafted to be enforced. A departure papered with a severance agreement, with its release and covenants read on both sides, often settles the question before it starts.
- Fraud and civil theft. Where money or property was actually taken, Florida’s civil theft statute adds up to three times the damages plus attorney’s fees, behind a statutory demand letter with a 30-day clock. It is the loudest opening move Florida offers, when the facts truly fit.
- Defense. Everything above, from the other chair, where the early weeks decide most of what follows.
A Trial Lawyer Who Also Builds the Paper
Kevin began his career as a Miami-Dade prosecutor, trying cases in front of juries before he ever drafted an operating agreement. He now spends the other half of the practice writing the agreements and structures these disputes are decided by, which changes how the litigation side gets built. He reads a contract the way it will be cross-examined, knows which clauses actually hold up because he has attacked and defended them, and builds cases with the endgame in mind, since a commercial case that cannot articulate its own settlement is just an expensive argument. The planning side keeps clients out of this section of the website; the litigation side is for when somebody else made that impossible.
How Business Cases Actually Resolve
The honest sequence, in most matters that come through this office, runs demand, discovery, mediation, resolution. A demand letter with the documents attached, and the fee-shifting or treble-damages exposure calculated, resolves a meaningful share of disputes by itself. Discovery, done with intent rather than volume, prices the case for both sides. Mediation is where most Florida commercial cases end, and the number a case commands there tracks the quality of the record built in the months before, not the aggression of the complaint. And when a case does run to judgment, winning is only half the work; collecting the judgment is its own discipline, and we build cases with that endgame priced in from the start.
Trial readiness is what makes all of it work. Opposing counsel can tell within a deposition or two whether a case is being built by someone prepared to try it, and settlement values move accordingly. We prepare every case as if it will be tried, so that it usually does not have to be.
A contract broken, a partner off the rails, or a lawsuit on your desk?
The early moves set the price of everything after. Book a free 30-minute consult and get an honest read before you commit to a path.
Book your free consultThree Rules Owners Learn the Hard Way
Your company cannot represent itself. Florida requires business entities to appear in court through licensed counsel, and a knowledgeable owner is not a substitute. The narrow exception lives in small claims court, at the trial level only, and expires at judgment. Budget for counsel in any plan where the company sues, defends, or collects.
The company’s lawyer is not your lawyer. Counsel who represents the business represents the business. When your interests and the company’s diverge, in an ownership fight especially, confiding in “our lawyer” can mean briefing someone who ends up across the table. Separate counsel the day the interests split.
Do not collect evidence by self-help. Logging into someone else’s email, recording calls without consent, and cloning devices can violate state and federal law and hand the other side a counterclaim. Florida already gives owners lawful pipelines, records rights and discovery, and the difference between the two paths is the difference between plaintiff and defendant.
Fees, Honestly
Business litigation is quoted at the consult, after we weigh the claim, the documents, and the realistic recovery, and the structure fits the case, whether hourly, contingency, or a hybrid. Two things we always price in the open. First, fee-shifting, because a prevailing-party clause or a fee-bearing statute can transform the economics, and we will tell you when one applies. Second, the walk-away answer, because some fights cost more than they can return, and hearing that in a free 30-minute consult is cheaper than learning it in month nine. Estate and trust disputes have their own practice page at probate and trust litigation.
Serving Business Owners Across Florida
Most commercial cases are motions, documents, depositions, and remote hearings, so we litigate in circuits across the state from our Miami office. Where your case gets filed shapes how it moves, from the judge assignment to whether a dedicated business-court division exists, and these city guides cover the local picture.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Counts as Business Litigation?
Any dispute where a business, or your stake in one, is on the line. The common lanes are breach of contract (unpaid invoices, broken agreements, botched deals), fights among owners and partners, breach of fiduciary duty by managers and insiders, business torts such as tortious interference with your contracts or customer relationships, and fraud or theft claims, where Florida’s civil theft statute can award up to three times the damages plus attorney’s fees on the right facts. We handle both sides, prosecution and defense.
What Is Tortious Interference?
It is the claim for a competitor or ex-insider who wrongfully wrecks your business relationships, for example poaching a customer under contract, inducing a vendor to breach, or torpedoing a deal out of spite. Florida recognizes claims for interference with both contracts and advantageous business relationships, and the fights usually turn on whether the interference was wrongful or just hard competition, and on proving what the lost relationship was worth. Strong cases are built on documents and timelines, not adjectives.
Can My LLC Go to Court Without a Lawyer?
Generally no. Florida requires business entities to appear through a licensed attorney, and a member, manager, or officer cannot stand in for the company no matter how well they know the facts. The exception is small claims court at the trial level, where a principal or authorized employee may appear, and even that ends once judgment is entered. Any plan in which your company sues, defends, or collects should have counsel in the budget from the start.
How Much Does Business Litigation Cost?
It is quoted at the consult after we understand the claim, the documents, and the amount at stake, because no two cases price alike. Depending on the matter it may be hourly, contingency, or a hybrid, and we will tell you plainly when the honest math favors a demand letter and a negotiation over a courtroom. Fee-shifting changes the calculus, since many contracts carry prevailing-party fee clauses and some statutes, civil theft among them, award fees to a winner.
How Long Does a Business Lawsuit Take?
Contested commercial cases commonly run a year or more through discovery, and most resolve at mediation rather than trial. The useful reframe is that leverage arrives much earlier than judgment. A well-built demand with the documents attached, followed by targeted discovery, often produces a business resolution in months. We build every case to be tried, because the other side can tell, and that credibility is usually what settles it.
My Dispute Is With My Own Business Partner. Is That Different?
Different enough that we built a whole set of pages for it. Partner and ownership fights run through Florida’s LLC statute, with special rules about who may sue, whose claim it is, and how buyouts get forced, and the strategy differs from an arm’s-length commercial case because you are usually fighting over something you also want to preserve. Start with our business partner disputes hub; the rest of this page still applies to the litigation itself.
Do You Defend Businesses That Get Sued?
Yes. Defense is half the practice, and early defense decisions matter as much as early plaintiff decisions. Answer deadlines are short, counterclaims are often available, insurance sometimes covers more than owners assume (tender the claim early), and the worst mistakes, reactive money moves and record cleanups, happen in the first month. If your company has been served, the time to call is this week, not after you have tried a few things.
We Are Out of State but the Dispute Is in Florida. Can You Handle It?
Yes. Florida disputes belong in Florida courts under Florida law regardless of where the owners live, and a large share of our clients are out-of-state or international owners of Florida companies and deals. We work remotely by phone and video and appear where the case is.
Common Situations
The vendor who stopped paying. A distributor runs up $220,000 in invoices, then goes quiet. The contract carries a prevailing-party fee clause, which changes everything. A demand letter with the ledger and the clause attached produces a payment plan with security in three weeks, because defending a documented claim that also pays the plaintiff’s lawyers is a losing trade.
The ex-manager with the client list. A departing manager joins a competitor and, within a month, five key accounts follow. Preservation letters go out the first day, the timeline gets built from emails and phone records, and the interference case settles with an agreed standstill and a payment, before the sixth account moves.
The company that answered late. An owner tries to handle a lawsuit himself for a month, misses that his LLC cannot appear without counsel, and comes in with a default looming. It gets cured, at a cost, and the defense that follows spends its first weeks repairing the opening month. The consult would have been free.
Sources of Law
- Fla. Stat. §772.11 (civil remedies for theft: threefold damages, attorney’s fees, 30-day written demand). Florida Revised LLC Act, ch. 605, §§605.04091, 605.0801 to 605.0806 (fiduciary duties; direct and derivative actions). Retrieved 2026-08-07.
- Szteinbaum v. Kaes Inversiones y Valores, C.A., 476 So. 2d 237 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985) (entities must appear through counsel); Fla. Sm. Cl. R. 7.050(a)(2) (limited small-claims exception, trial level only).
- Tortious interference with contracts and advantageous business relationships is recognized under Florida common law; elements and defenses are case-specific.
Updated on August 7, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Outcomes depend on the specific facts; past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.