In California, there are several different grounds that can lead to a business dispute. Often, prior agreements and contracts have terms that the businesses disagree upon. Disputes can also occur over property matters, billing issues or other disagreements.

What to Do in a Business Dispute?

The first step when involved in a business dispute in Hughson, California should be to review any documents relevant to the matter, such as contracts. It may have already been decided in these documents how disputes will be handled. Not all contracts have dispute resolution clauses, of course, and sometimes neither business has any documents relevant to the dispute at all. If that is the case, a court may be needed to resolve the dispute. California courts look to the individual cases in determining the best resolution. Where two parties have not agreed beforehand on how to handle a dispute, a particular set of legal principles is used instead. Each state has different business laws about dispute resolution and contract law. An Attorney practicing in Hughson can help you handle your dispute in accordance with the applicable California laws. With an attorney's knowledge of the law, the parties of a dispute may be able to avoid going to court entirely, since negotiations often proceed more smoothly with representation.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Disputes in contracts must often be resolved outside of court according to a dispute resolution clause. Methods of resolving a conflict outside of court are called Alternative Dispute Resolution or ADR. These methods include Mediation, Arbitration and Collaboration. ADR makes going to court unnecessary, because it is designed to reach the same result that a court would have. Still, some methods of ADR entail their own formal procedures, most enlisting a third party to decide a dispute based on local law just as a judge would do. In Hughson, Attorneys practiced in ADR can help if your business dispute is to be resolved out of court.