I don’t know who said it first. But I often remember the illustrious observation: “It’s not what he doesn’t know that scares me. It’s what he knows for sure that he just doesn’t.” Most of the time, business decision makers are highly trained to identify the root of the problem. They know how to recognize the important aspects and to throw the false tracks. Without that skill, they wouldn’t last long in the business world. But they too can be victims of their own prejudices and misconceptions. With all the hype about our litigious society and how easy some think it is to sue companies and land big prizes or settlements, it’s easy to forget that the business person on the other side almost never wants a law to follow more than you do.

Small business owners could take advantage of many missed opportunities if they had a better awareness of the other company’s aversion to litigation and were willing to take reasonable steps to avoid it. Entrepreneurs spend a lot of time looking for ways to make it easier for their customers to buy. It is surprising how little time some of them spend thinking about ways to facilitate dispute resolution without resorting to the unpleasant distractions of mediation, arbitration, or litigation.

With that in mind, here are some common sense facts and ideas that could make a big difference in your business;

1. You don’t have to sign everything they put in front of you

Most service contracts are not set in stone. And many companies will accept minor changes. People are sometimes afraid to make the slightest change to a contractual document for various (usually imaginary) reasons. They fear this will automatically involve lawyers, making everything more expensive and slowing down the process. But in my experience, that fear is often unfounded.

Let’s say you read the contract and found that you will be billed for late payments if your payment is not received within thirty days. Your typical schedule for processing accounts payable doesn’t exactly match the other company’s billing cycle. And it is very possible that your payment will arrive more than thirty calendar days after a certain invoice. You take your contract, draw a line through that sentence, and write on top of the strike, even though it changes from thirty days to forty-five days. Then you fax or email the modified document along with a phone call to explain why you need this change.

If you were seriously concerned about this, you’ve likely come up with some of your other clients before. If so, they already know whether or not they can accept this change and will approve or deny it immediately. Note that I didn’t suggest just calling them without sending a red line version by fax or email. This is because it is too easy for them to say no. It also assigns them the responsibility for making the change. In your organization, that may mean passing the document to another custodian who manages the contract documents. It’s become a lot easier for them to tell you that your company never does that than it does to work with you. On the other hand, if you have already submitted a signed contract with the change already made, it is often easier for them to record the “sale” and process it than to go back and forth over it. If your change has not been requested and clearly resolved before, there is still a good chance that what happens next will not create the additional cost or delay that you fear.

In that case, the next step will likely depend on the size of the other company. If the other company has fewer than 500 employees, it is very likely that they do not have an in-house attorney. Typically, these companies address these issues with a manager who thinks they know the law and make decisions about the contract language all the time, or with an outside consultant to whom they send important contracts for review. If they have an internal manager who you think knows as much as a lawyer, the decision will be made quickly anyway. Otherwise, they may be reluctant to incur the expense of an outside attorney to make a purely business decision and will make it right away. If the company has 500 or more employees, it probably has an internal legal department. In that case, they usually have the resources to handle minor change requests very quickly.

If your concern is not a purely business matter, such as legal limits affecting liability or choice of law and where lawsuits should be brought, you really should consult with an attorney before signing the nonsense.

2. You can almost always settle your disputed debts for less than the full amount.

What if you have received invoices that you do not agree with and have not been able to resolve your differences? The lawsuits have gotten uglier. And now the other company is threatening or more generally (involving) litigation if it is not paid in full by a specific date. For them, it is now necessary to weigh the cost of hiring a lawyer and the risk of losing against playing this against the bird in hand that they might get by settling now. Unless you’ve signed a contract that says the loser pays attorney’s fees, chances are, you won’t collect attorney’s fees even if you win. So the potential cost of going that route could be significant to them.

The fact is, with the exception of companies like the insurance industry, whose business structure anticipates a constant stream of lawsuits, most companies hate lawsuits. They see them as a huge distraction and a waste of time and resources. Very large corporations with their own legal departments have the luxury of doing a pure cost / benefit analysis before deciding whether to pursue an avoidable lawsuit. But for small businesses, the cost is too unpredictable and too far removed from the processes and infrastructure on which their business model is based. So unless the amount in dispute is very large, they will almost always seriously consider any reasonable offer just to get it off their plate. However, they will probably not agree to settle for what you asked for. So make your first offer at least two iterations below what you expect them to accept.

3. You don’t always “get what you pay for” when you hire a Big-Gun law firm for legal services.

As an internal consultant for an information technology company, I have worked with several of the largest law firms in St. Louis over the years. I have also worked with some of the best attorneys. But some of the best lawyers do not work for the largest law firms. In fact, some of the best Missouri attorneys I know are freelancers or small business professionals. When you consider what you get versus what you pay for, going for the Big-Guns doesn’t always make more sense. Large companies have the advantage of having a wealth of experience and resources to draw on. But they won’t always give you the best results for the least amount of money.

Most attorneys will tell you that until an attorney has been in practice for at least five years, the level of experience could be a major factor in the results you are likely to see. I’m sure there are exceptions, but generally it takes about five years of real-world experience for an attorney to develop the skills to do their best work for you. When you first take your case to a large law firm, you will probably speak to a partner (translate that to mean that you will pay $ 250 per hour to $ 500 per hour or more for the privilege). There’s a good chance that most of your direct consultation is with a partner as well. But much of the work, including writing legal documents, research, and sometimes even negotiations with the other party’s legal counsel, will be done by associates or paralegals. Associates generally have less than five years of experience and bill at roughly the same rate (if not more) that you would expect to pay the attorney handling your case at a small firm.

Compare that to the services you get from a small business. Most of the small firm attorneys came from large firms and / or the corporate world. There is a good chance that the attorney for the small firm who is billing his services at $ 175 per hour was billing his services at $ 275 per hour before leaving the large firm. They typically have many years of experience and bill at or below the rates you would pay for an associate’s job in a large company. If you hire a competent attorney from a small firm, she knows her own limitations. If you need a lawyer from a large firm. The small firm’s attorney will inform you and, with your approval, will not hesitate to bring them in to work on your case. The difference is that you decide when and if it will be worth the cost. And there is no incentive for the small firm’s attorney to encourage you to incur additional expenses if you don’t have to. To save money and get more value, it makes sense to consider hiring a small firm attorney.