Many different grounds can give rise to Business disputes in Washington. Often, businesses will disagree over the exact meaning of terms found in contracts or prior oral agreements. Billing issues and property matters also commonly form grounds for disagreements between businesses.

What to Do in a Business Dispute?

If you are involved in a business dispute in Blaine, Washington you should first review all relevant documents, including past and current contracts. These documents might contain clauses that dictate how and where you should handle a dispute. However, the dispute might need to be taken to court if contracts do not have resolution clauses, or if there are no documents relevant to the dispute. Where the parties have not agreed beforehand about how to handle disputes, legal principles have been designed to determine the resolution. When they are called upon, Washington courts try to discover the best resolution by looking to the facts of the specific situation presented. Each state has different business laws about dispute resolution and contract law. An Lawyer practicing in Blaine can help you handle your dispute in accordance with the applicable Washington laws. With an attorney's knowledge of the law, the parties of a dispute might be able to avoid going to court entirely, since negotiations often proceed more smoothly with representation.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Disagreements 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. All types of ADR are designed to reach the same decision a court would have, without needing to actually go to court. They carry their own sets of procedures and protocols, and they often involve a neutral third party listening to both sides of a dispute and making a decision based on local law. An attorney experienced in Alternative Dispute Resolution can help you with your business dispute in Blaine if it is to be resolved out of court.