Areas of Practice / Litigation & Dispute Resolution / Litigation & Dispute Resolution Experience

Joel's Litigation & Dispute Resolution Experience:

You may be surprised to hear a lawyer say this, but filing a lawsuit is often an inefficient and frustrating way of settling a disagreement. It's not like the movies. It rarely ends in a stirring triumph of justice after an exciting 120 minutes. Real-life litigation is time-consuming, expensive and emotionally exhausting. It often takes years to get a case to trial and rarely does either side score a "win."

While lawsuits are sometimes unavoidable, Joel Russman's common sense approach to resolving disputes outside the courthouse can often help you get what you really want while avoiding the time-consuming and relatively costly course of litigation. Joel uses a variety of creative strategies to bring parties into agreement. So instead of spending your time sitting through depositions, copying documents and wringing your hands, you can devote yourself, your time and your money to building your business, or just enjoying your life.

Joel is skilled in myriad methods used to address and resolve differences-from negotiation through court appeals. He is experienced in such areas as mediation, arbitration, discovery, document review, research, development of novel and persuasive briefs, litigation, and trials.

Challenges have included a panoply of cases, ranging from personal disagreements to substantive commercial disputes, often in real estate-related matters. A typical scenario is business co-owners going through what essentially amounts to a "business divorce."

Joel's first steps, unless dictated otherwise by circumstances or wishes of his client, are to get the opposing party's attention and attempt to engage in reasonable discussion and negotiation. In many cases, settlement is reached well short of trial or other court action. However, when the going gets tough, Joel is prepared to engage on a more forceful level.