JOURNAL
Litigation in Germany
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Your lawyer for litigation in Germany
Philipp Meier
Specialist lawyer for banking and capital market law
+49 (0)711 89 47 15 87
Legal Information
The conversation with your lawyer
The right exchange with your legal advisor has a decisive influence on the chances of success in the process. It is absolutely essential that your attorney fully understands your case. Whether this succeeds is largely up to the client, because all information on the case is supplied to the lawyer by him.
The first meeting
Before you see your attorney for the initial interview, be sure to read your entire file so that you can recall the process in your short-term memory. [Link: The optimal preparation for a legal dispute]. It helps to create a list of the most important events with dates at the same time, but it should not be longer than one page. In this way you create a memory framework that can be easily accessed at any time during the process. Any gaps in the file, such as missing documents, attachments or emails, must be filled in before the meeting.
If you have the option of sending your documents in advance, you should make use of this option. This is always easiest if you can send your files electronically or as a copy. This also has the advantage that you do not have to give your lawyer any original documents that you may need for other tasks (e.g. tax returns) during the proceedings.
Your memory is crucial!
In the first meeting, insist on being able to tell your case in full. If you have the feeling that your lawyer is not giving you the opportunity to do so, you should already consider whether you would prefer to change advisors. Your descriptions of the case are very important because, as the person directly affected, you certainly have a lot of perceptions in connection with your case that do not result from the mere file situation. If it is a business transaction that took place in your company, ask the employees entrusted with the processing to participate in the conversation and make sure that they are involved in the further communication.
What result do you want to achieve?
It is also important that you tell the lawyer how you feel about the case. Even if you are not a lawyer yourself, you should definitely not underestimate your own judiciary. Based on their life experience, every person has a natural ability to assess and evaluate the appropriateness of their own actions and the actions of third parties. Building on this, you should also state what you want to achieve or what result you would consider satisfactory. This procedure enables you to recognize any errors right at the beginning of the mandate and to develop realistic expectations.
The further processing of the mandate
In the course of the processing of the mandate, your lawyer will repeatedly submit the other side’s pleadings and ask you to comment on them or to discuss them with him. It makes sense to comment on opposing submissions paragraph by paragraph and to send the lawyer a two-column „list of comments“, which names the respective paragraph in the left column and your opinion on the opposing allegations and evidence in the right column. If you find that the opposing submission requires the submission of further documents, please send them to your lawyer as early as possible. He, too, needs time to grasp its content and often has queries that also take time to process.
The recommendations listed here have proven themselves enormously in practice. They are the result of years of litigation experience that HM Lawfirm’s attorneys have before German courts. We are happy to support you in processing your business and private matters in order to achieve optimal results in legal disputes.
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