In California, there are many 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 Woodlake, 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. If there are no dispute resolution clauses in the contracts, or there are no attending documents at all, the parties may always resort to the courts to resolve the dispute. California courts will look to your individual case and try to discover the best resolution. In determining the outcome, they will use a specific set of legal principles designed for situations where the parties have not agreed beforehand on how to handle a dispute. The laws designed to settle contract disputes are different in each state. Attorneys practicing in Woodlake are versed in the contract law of California, and can help you to handle the dispute should it go to court. 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. An attorney familiar with ADR in Woodlake can counsel you through the process if your business dispute is to be resolved by ADR.