Money, an earnout, a payout, your share of something you built. Whoever is holding it is betting you’ll let it go. That bet is the first thing we take away. The same bench the Fortune 500 pays $2,500 an hour for. Yours at $200.
Almost nobody who owes you believes they are in the right. They believe you will not spend what it takes to make them pay. Three things make them that confident. Each one has an answer.
On many claims the records that settle it sit in their systems, not yours, and they are comfortable because of it. Discovery is the part they least want to happen. It is how what you know becomes what you can prove, and it opens the moment the claim is properly on foot.
Memories fade, records thin, money moves. Nothing about this rewards waiting and nothing is cheaper than starting early. Moving now is the largest advantage available to you in the whole matter, and it costs one phone call.
At $2,500 an hour a genuine claim stops being worth chasing, and everyone on the other side knows it. That is the bet. At an effective rate near $200 the arithmetic turns over, the claim is worth pursuing again, and their most reliable defence is gone.
Big firms bill $2,500 an hour and up, because at those firms the hour is the product. We rebuilt the back end around AI and process, so our clients land near $200. That is not a discount. On a money claim it decides whether the claim is worth bringing at all.
All four are settled in the first few weeks, before anything is filed. That is why the first call is worth more than the filing.
You already know the story. The work is attaching a document or a named person to every part of it, while the record is still intact. We do that first, and it is what makes the demand letter land instead of bounce.
A judgment is worth what the other side can actually pay, so that is the first question we ask rather than the last. What they hold, where it sits, and what keeps it from moving. Asking early is what turns a claim into a payment instead of a piece of paper.
The moment a claim is live, both sides have to stop destroying anything relevant, and their routine deletion becomes a problem for them rather than for you. We put that obligation on them in writing early, and we tell you in one page exactly what to keep on your side so the argument stays about what they did.
On a money claim the invoices look like the whole number. They rarely are. The days you were shut down, what you paid to buy elsewhere, the overtime, the interest. Itemised properly and documented at the time, the figure is usually larger than the one you walked in with.
A case is a list of things that must be proved and, beside each one, the document or the person who proves it. We build that list before you file. It is also why so many of these end at the demand letter: the other side reads it and understands the work is already done.
We read the contract and what its dispute-resolution clause says about where this goes. Then we build the list the case turns on, and we screen whether the other side can actually pay. In the first week we freeze your own records, so nothing gets deleted by routine. That happens before we send anything.
We send a demand letter that tells the story, states the sum and, where it helps, attaches the complaint we are prepared to file. It shows the threat is real. Their denial letter is the first honest preview of the defense. A preservation letter goes with it, naming their actual systems, dates and people, because that is the version a court will enforce.
This is where the case is decided and where most of the money goes. We send written questions for the basic facts. We demand their records. We make them admit what is not really in dispute, so it stops being argued. And we take depositions, which is sworn questioning of anyone who has to commit to an answer. Where the rules of the forum allow it, their insurance and their ability to pay are asked for early, because they bear on what the case is worth. Requests stay focused, because discovery runs both ways.
We put a number and odds on each way this can end. Then when we disagree with the other side, we can point at which number we disagree about, instead of arguing in the dark. The claim is what you say you are owed. The case is what that claim is realistically worth after cost, delay and risk. Offers get measured against the case. Most disputes end in a negotiated resolution. If yours does not, the file has been built for the alternative from day one.
Joe Prencipe trained at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, the leader of the Magic Circle of global law firms, at Baker McKenzie, the fourth largest law firm in the world by revenue, and at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, and he clerked at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That training sits on your side of the table, at around $200 an hour effective. If your case has to be filed in a state where he is not admitted, a lawyer from that state signs the papers and Joe stays on the file. The lawyer who reads your file on the first call is the one who writes the demand, takes the deposition and sits in the negotiation, start to finish, and it is not an associate at any point.
Three full episodes, recorded this year. Nothing hidden behind a signup. They are the same plain answers you get on the phone. If a lawyer cannot explain your position in words you already use, he cannot explain it to anybody else either.
Most of these never see a courtroom. They end when the other side works out that you are prepared, that fighting you now has a real cost, and that paying is the cheaper option. Here is what that takes.
These are the matters that come through the door from people who are owed. We name the work under each one, because naming a claim is easy and building one is not.
One call. What can be proved, who and what proves it, what the other side can actually pay, and what the first step costs against what the claim is worth. You will finish the call knowing your position and knowing exactly what happens next.