Civil Litigation Attorney Carlsbad

Many lawyers use the phrase civil litigation to describe what they do.  However, you won’t find a “civil litigation” section in the yellow pages.  So what does civil litigation mean?  “Civil” is the opposite of “criminal,” so we are not talking about crime.  “Litigation” is “going to court,” so we are talking about lawsuits.  That excludes a great deal of what lawyers do, such as negotiating and drafting contracts, forming corporations and limited liability companies, arranging mergers and acquisitions, preparing wills and trusts, and giving tax advice.  On the other hand, civil litigation includes many things lawyers do that aren’t usually referred to as civil litigation because they have their own more specific names.  For example, there are lawyers who do personal injury lawsuits, lawyers who do collection lawsuits, lawyers who do medical malpractice lawsuits, lawyers who do divorces, and lawyers who do evictions.  In practice civil litigation means civil lawsuits that don’t fall into such well-defined categories - in other words, what’s left over.  That includes lawsuits over a breach of contract or fraud, such as a default by a borrower on a loan or concealment by a seller of a defect in his house.  Civil litigation has always been a substantial part of what I do.  It tends to involve basic rules of law rather than narrow statutory interpretation.  I enjoy piecing together the story of who did what to whom.  It’s something like putting a jigsaw puzzle together or solving a mystery.