Whether you’re an established company owner facing a conflict or an entrepreneur just getting started, the attorneys of Rosen Hagood can act as your skilled and trusted legal advisors. And nowhere is this more critical than where the day-to-day operation of your business becomes the subject of a dispute – litigation. Today, litigation is an unavoidable side effect of operating any kind of enterprise. As litigation attorneys, we see our role as minimizing the impact of these disputes, so our clients can focus on their business. In a very real sense, if we do our business well, our clients can do theirs.
For over seventy years, we have represented individual clients, partnerships, LLCs, corporations, and financial institutions in a wide range of business and commercial litigation and transactional matters, from contract disputes to disagreements over partnership formations and dissolutions. We are very well-known to both the bench and the bar throughout the state – we regularly appear in courts and tribunals throughout South Carolina, from our home base in Charleston, often acting as local counsel for global law firms who need to litigate here.
An actual courtroom trial is rare, and we view it as a last resort. Almost always, negotiation and settlement is preferable, and the two are in fact interrelated. Our attorneys are skilled, aggressive trial lawyers, with a reputation for both adroit negotiation and highly effective representation. This typically makes opposing counsel reluctant to try cases against us, and makes settlement discussions both more productive and more favorable to our clients.
All the technology and change in the world do not alter the fundamental, ancient skills required to excel as courtroom advocates. It’s a short, simple list of skills that require an entire career to begin to master, and that define the difference between a genuinely skilled, effective trial lawyer and one who is … not. The first of these is simple experience. Collectively, our attorneys have litigated hundreds of cases, with some of our senior attorneys’ track records going back more than 40 years. There is simply no substitute for this kind of knowledge, patiently built up over decades.
A corollary to experience is our deeply rooted belief in preparation. An effective litigator, we believe, is one who is never surprised, who has researched the relevant issues thoroughly, reviewed the record carefully, and immersed himself or herself in the evidence. A prepared litigator is focused, has a clear and complete understanding of all the arguments that may be raised, and uses time, energy and advocacy where, and how it will have the most impact.
Finally, a rarely discussed but critical aspect of effectiveness in the courtroom is familiarity. Our roots in the region and the state go very deep. Three of our attorneys, to cite one example, have been President of the South Carolina Bar. Whether you’re a client from elsewhere seeking to prevail here, or a local client who needs effective representation, our longstanding presence is a marked advantage. We know the strengths and weaknesses of the attorneys we typically oppose, and the most effective strategies. We know which experts to use, when, and why. Familiarity makes us effective.
In litigation, no matter what the context, the goal is always the same: to win. Our skills in the courtroom, our bias towards exhaustive research, and our time-tested reputation in the South Carolina business and legal community make Rosen Hagood the firm to call on to make that happen.