Litigation Management

We supervise litigation on behalf of the business rather than trying the case ourselves. That means selecting and directing outside counsel, setting the budget and the case strategy, managing document preservation and discovery obligations, reporting to ownership and insurers, and evaluating settlement authority as the case develops. The trial lawyers handle the courtroom. We handle the decisions that determine what happens there.

We serve as the single point of accountability between the business and its litigation counsel, so that one person owns the budget, the strategy, and the reporting. Owners get a clear view of exposure and cost without having to manage lawyers themselves.

• Counsel Selection: identifying and engaging trial counsel with the right experience for the forum, the subject matter, and the size of the dispute.
• Budget Control: setting phase budgets, reviewing invoices against them, and requiring outside counsel to explain variances before they compound.
• Strategy Oversight: testing the litigation plan against the business objective and pushing back when the approach costs more than the outcome is worth.
• Litigation Holds: issuing and enforcing preservation instructions so the company does not create a spoliation problem on top of the underlying dispute.
• Discovery Coordination: managing the company’s side of document collection, custodian interviews, and witness preparation to reduce disruption to operations.
• Settlement Evaluation: valuing the case realistically at each stage and advising ownership on when and at what number to resolve it.

Legal spend in litigation is rarely out of control because outside counsel is acting in bad faith. It is out of control because no one on the client side is defining the scope, questioning the staffing, or comparing the cost of a task to its value in the case. A budget that is set at the outset and revisited at each phase changes the conversation from justifying invoices after the fact to approving work before it happens.

We hold outside counsel to a defined scope and a phase budget, reviewing staffing, billing rates, and task assignments against what the case actually requires. Spend becomes a decision the business makes rather than a number that arrives at the end of the month.

• Engagement Terms: negotiating rates, staffing limits, and billing guidelines before the representation begins rather than after the first invoice.
• Phase Budgeting: breaking the matter into pleadings, discovery, motions, and trial preparation so cost is approved in stages.
• Invoice Review: examining time entries for duplicated work, excessive staffing, and tasks that do not advance the case.
• Fee Arrangements: evaluating flat fee, capped, and hybrid structures where they align counsel’s incentives with the business objective.
• Vendor Management: controlling the cost of e-discovery platforms, court reporters, and expert witnesses that fall outside the legal fees themselves.

Owners, boards, lenders, and insurers all need information about pending litigation, and each of them needs it in a different form. Outside counsel status letters are written for lawyers. They describe procedural posture rather than exposure, and they rarely translate the case into the numbers a business uses to make decisions. Reporting that works answers three questions: what is this worth, what will it cost, and what happens next.

We translate litigation into business terms for the people who need to act on it, reporting exposure, cost to date, projected spend, and the realistic range of outcomes. Ownership makes decisions on the same information the lawyers are working from.

• Status Reporting: providing regular written updates on posture, exposure, and spend in language ownership can act on.
• Insurance Tender: identifying coverage, giving timely notice, and pressing carriers on defense obligations and reservation of rights positions.
• Carrier Coordination: managing the relationship with panel counsel and the adjuster so the insured’s interests are represented throughout.
• Reserve Analysis: helping the business set and adjust internal reserves as the case develops and the exposure becomes clearer.
• Disclosure Support: preparing the litigation information required for audits, financing, and diligence in a transaction.

Most of the cost and most of the self-inflicted risk in commercial litigation sits in discovery. Emails, text messages, shared drives, and systems that automatically delete data all become part of the record once a dispute is reasonably anticipated. A company that fails to preserve those materials can lose a case it would otherwise have won, and Florida courts have meaningful sanctions available when preservation obligations are ignored.

We take responsibility for the company’s preservation obligations from the moment litigation becomes reasonably anticipated, issuing holds, suspending automatic deletion, and documenting the process. The record shows a business that met its obligations rather than one improvising after a motion is filed.

• Hold Notices: drafting and distributing preservation instructions to the custodians whose records matter to the dispute.
• Systems Review: identifying where relevant data lives across email, messaging platforms, accounting systems, and personal devices.
• Custodian Management: tracking acknowledgments, reminding custodians as the case continues, and releasing holds when the matter closes.
• Privilege Protection: structuring communications and document collection so that privileged material is identified and preserved as privileged.
• Witness Preparation: coordinating with trial counsel so employees are prepared for deposition without unnecessary disruption to their work.

Every case has a point at which continuing to fight costs more than resolving it. Identifying that point requires an honest valuation of the claim, a realistic estimate of remaining fees, and a clear view of what the business gains from a judgment it may still have to collect. Cases that settle late usually settle at numbers that were available much earlier, after the parties have spent the difference on lawyers.

We advise on settlement posture by valuing the case against the cost of continuing, the collectability of any judgment, and the operational cost of the distraction. Settlement becomes a business decision made on numbers rather than a reaction to litigation fatigue.

• Case Valuation: assessing the realistic range of outcomes and the probability of each before recommending a number.
• Cost Projection: estimating fees and expenses through trial so the settlement figure is compared against a real alternative.
• Authority Recommendations: advising ownership on settlement authority and the timing of when to extend it.
• Mediation Preparation: setting the strategy, the opening position, and the walk-away point before the parties are in the room.
• Resolution Documents: reviewing settlement agreements and releases so the deal actually ends the exposure it is meant to end.

Businesses in litigation are usually managing something they have no infrastructure for. They have a trial lawyer, an hourly invoice, and no independent view of whether the case is being handled the way it should be. We fill that gap. We know how litigation is staffed, budgeted, and valued from the inside, and we apply that knowledge on behalf of the business rather than the firm billing the file. The result is a client that understands its own case.

Pomeranz Law provides the internal legal function that supervises litigation, controls the cost, and keeps ownership informed, working alongside trial counsel without duplicating the work they are engaged to do.

• We supervise trial counsel on behalf of the business rather than adding a second firm billing for the same tasks.
• We value cases honestly and early, telling clients when a claim is weaker than they believe it is.
• We treat legal spend as a business expense that has to be justified against the value it produces.
• We keep ownership informed in terms that support decisions rather than in procedural updates written for other lawyers.
• We stay involved after the case ends, addressing the contract terms or practices that produced the dispute in the first place.