Various 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 Kitsap County, Washington you should first review any relevant documents, including past and current contracts. These documents may contain clauses that dictate how and where you should handle a dispute. However, the dispute may 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 particular situation presented. The fields of contract law and dispute resolution are defined by local state law. Kitsap County Attorneys are accustomed to handling disputes under Washington law, and can offer personalized advice for all types of business disputes. Negotiations may also proceed more smoothly when an attorney is consulted, which may even lead to a resolution outside of court.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Many contracts have terms that will determine how a dispute is handled. These are often referred to as Alternative Dispute Resolution or ADR clauses. These methods of resolution include Mediation and Arbitration, among others. 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 Kitsap County, Attorneys experienced in ADR can help if your business dispute is to be resolved out of court.