Commercial Civil Litigation

What It Is

Commercial civil litigation is the process of taking legal action to resolve non-criminal disputes between parties who are making, buying, selling, trading or managing something.

Commercial civil litigation takes place in the public courts with the parties’ dispute being decided at a trial.

There is much litigation, however, that occurs before trial.  Such pre-trial activities make up the bulk of the work of a civil litigator.  For example:

  • Reviewing contracts and party communications
  • Drafting lawsuits
  • Conducting legal research in aid of a lawsuit, or to dismiss it
  • Filing procedural motions
  • Making written legal arguments and presenting them in court
  • Serving discovery requests
  • Responding or objecting to discovery requests
  • Issuing, or responding to, subpoenas
  • Taking, or defending, depositions

Isaac Post has extensive experience litigating, and trying, cases in the commercial realm.  He is admitted to practice law in the state courts of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the District of Columbia and at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Whether as a plaintiff or a defendant, Isaac Post Law PLLC will act as your dedicated counsel and advocate in court.

Types of Disputes and Examples

 Companies or individuals may find themselves in a commercial-type dispute involving differing types of problems, such as:

  • contract disputes, especially breaches of contract; e.g. breaches of a construction or home renovation and remodeling contract, a real estate sales contract or an employment contract
  • property disputes, such as landlord-tenant disputes, mortgage and mortgage foreclosure disputes, co-owner disputes; e.g. tenant does not pay the rent or landlord is constantly entering the property unannounced
  • intellectual property disputes, such as the misappropriation of trade secrets;
  • agency disputes, such as breaches of fiduciary duty; e.g. a trustee of a trust is profiting from the sale of trust property at the beneficiaries’ expense
  • equity and equitable remedies, such as declaratory judgments, unjust enrichment, quantum meruit, injunctions; e.g. expecting to be paid, an individual does some work for someone else but then is refused compensation
  • statutory liens, such as mechanic’s liens;
  • intentional torts, i.e. civil wrongs, such as conversion, meaning non-criminal theft, defamation, intentional interference with a contract or business expectancy, and fraud; and
  • unintentional torts such as negligence, including the professional negligence of a lawyer.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

There are alternative methods of resolving disputes besides courts.  For example, sometimes contracts require that a dispute be resolved via arbitration, a private, and less formal process in which the parties agree to abide by the final decision of a neutral third-party, often a retired judge.

Less formal still is mediation, where a neutral third-party helps the disputants reach an agreed resolution.

In addition to trial work, Mr. Post has significant experience resolving disputes through arbitration and mediation.