Business Litigation
Your claim has a price. So does your grudge.
Most business lawsuits come down to money and a broken expectation, a contract one side didn't honor, a partner who took something, a competitor who crossed a line. Hank has litigated business disputes for 29 years across automotive, aviation, energy, entertainment, healthcare, real estate, software, and other industries, and he sizes up early what a claim is worth so you spend on the fights that pay and settle the ones that don't.
Hank prosecutes and defends the claims businesses face, breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty among partners and officers, tortious interference with a contract or a relationship, and theft of trade secrets or customers by a departing employee. When the dispute is among owners, he handles the deadlock, the buyout, and the breakup, and when a deal sours he pursues or defends the indemnity and the damages the contract assigns.
Strategy turns on more than the law. Hank weighs the strength of the claim, the cost of pursuing it, the other side's ability to pay, and how a fight affects relationships and reputation before committing you to a course. When a noncompete is broken or a trade secret walks out the door, he moves for a temporary restraining order; when the better outcome is a number, he negotiates from a position built on a record the other side doesn't want aired at trial.
Hank has stood on both sides of these cases, for the company bringing the claim and the one defending against it, through trial and settlement alike. Every engagement works toward the same result, a resolution that protects the dollars at stake without spending more than the dispute is worth.
Services Include
- Contract disputes
- Business torts
- Ownership and partnership disputes
- Noncompete and confidentiality disputes
- Commercial collections
- Real estate disputes
- Injunctions
- Settlement and trial strategy
Business Litigation Insights
Breach of Contract in Texas: Elements, Defenses, and How Courts Decide Who Broke the Deal
Breach of contract is the most common business dispute in Texas courts. Every vendor disagreement, every failed partnership, every unpaid invoice, and every undelivered service starts with the same question: did someone fail to do what the contract required?
Read articleBusiness Fraud and Misrepresentation in Texas: When a Deal Goes Beyond Breach of Contract
A breach of contract means someone didn't do what the agreement required. Fraud means someone lied to get the agreement signed in the first place. Both can produce financial harm, but the legal claims, the burdens of proof, the available defenses, and the recoverable damages are different.
Read articleBreach of Fiduciary Duty: When Partners, Officers, or Managers Violate Their Obligations
A fiduciary duty is the highest obligation the law imposes on one person's conduct toward another. When a partner, corporate officer, LLC manager, or director owes fiduciary duties and violates them, the remedies go beyond what contract law provides.
Read articleTortious Interference in Texas: When a Competitor or Third Party Disrupts Your Business
Texas encourages vigorous competition. Offering a better price, a superior product, or a more attractive deal to win a customer away from a competitor is lawful, even if the competitor loses revenue as a result. But when a third party goes beyond competition and intentionally disrupts an existing contract or prevents a prospective business relationship from forming through wrongful conduct, the injured party has a cause of action for tortious interference.
Read articleTemporary Restraining Orders and Injunctions: When Your Business Needs the Court to Act Before Trial
Some business disputes can't wait for trial. A departing employee who's downloading your customer database while packing their desk. A former partner who's soliciting your clients in violation of a noncompete. A vendor who's about to liquidate assets that secure your receivable.
Read articlePartnership and Ownership Disputes: Deadlock, Buyouts, and Dissolution Under Texas Law
When business co-owners can't agree, the business can't function. A 50/50 LLC where the two members disagree on every decision is paralyzed. A closely held corporation where the majority shareholder diverts profits to personal compensation while the minority receives nothing is oppressive.
Read articleThe Texas DTPA in Business Litigation: When It Applies, When It Doesn't, and Why It Changes the Calculus
A breach of contract claim provides the prevailing party expectation damages and attorney's fees under CPRC Chapter 38. A common law fraud claim adds exemplary damages but doesn't guarantee attorney's fees. A claim under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act (Texas Business and Commerce Code Chapter 17) can produce treble damages and mandatory attorney's fees, which is why the DTPA is the most powerful litigation tool available to plaintiffs in Texas commercial disputes and the most feared by defendants.
Read articleCalculating Damages in Texas Business Disputes: What You Can Recover, What You Can't, and How to Prove It
Proving liability is only half of a business lawsuit. Proving damages is the other half, and in many cases it's the harder half. A plaintiff who proves breach of contract, fraud, or fiduciary duty but can't prove damages with sufficient certainty recovers nothing (or next to nothing).
Read articleArbitration Versus Litigation for Texas Business Disputes: How the Forum Affects the Outcome
Every business contract with a dispute resolution clause forces a choice: arbitration or litigation. That choice, made at the drafting stage when no dispute exists, determines how the dispute will be resolved years later when the stakes are real.
Read articleRelated Work
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