CALIFORNIA CIVIL LITIGATION
Contract and business disputes in California courts
If your company has been sued, or needs to sue
A corporation, LLC, or partnership cannot represent itself in a US court. Not through its owner, not its director, not an employee — the Supreme Court settled this in Rowland v. California Men’s Colony in 1993. Papers filed by a non-lawyer on a company’s behalf are stricken, and a default judgment can follow while everyone is still deciding what to do.
For a foreign company this is a hard stop. Your own counsel at home cannot appear. You need a California-admitted attorney, and you usually need one within weeks of being served.
Deadlines worth knowing now
California gives four years to sue on a written contract and two years on an oral one. Those periods run from the breach, not from the day you gave up on being paid.
If you are still exchanging emails about an invoice from three years ago, the time to call is now, not when the conversation finally ends.
How we work on these
We will tell you early what the case is worth and what it will cost to pursue, including the possibility that a claim is not worth bringing. Cross-border disputes carry a question most California lawyers do not raise: whether a US judgment can actually be enforced where the defendant’s assets are. That is worth answering before you spend money, not after.