Corporate defendants litigating and trying (possibly) multiple lawsuits across multiple jurisdictions require a cohesive and streamlined defense plan that maximizes internal and external resources while simultaneously controlling legal spend. Many challenges exist when defending these suits, and some are venue specific. They range from defining the company's approach, identifying key (and potentially harmful) documents and persons with knowledge, selecting trial counsel, and creating a legal budget that includes a settlement matrix to resolve cases and limit exposure. Not an easy task. However, a cohesive and centralized defense plan allows companies to nimbly respond to a lawsuit filed in a venue where the company has not previously defended a lawsuit, and quickly educate defense counsel hired to defend it in that venue. Moreover, the plan defines the defense mission statement and company story to permit the company to consistently respond to serial lawsuits, to control outside counsel spend, and to move cases more efficiently to resolution. 

Preliminary Considerations

Some preliminary issues must be considered. The most basic is whether a company-wide defense plan is required, meaning, is a cohesive defense strategy needed so significant legal spend should be committed to hiring outside counsel and occupying legal function resources to develop the plan. Multiple factors must be weighed including how many claims the company is aware of, how many lawsuits have been filed, what business units are involved, venue, existence of "bad documents," similar industry lawsuits, plaintiffs' law firms involved, and government regulatory or recall issues at play. If multiple claims or lawsuits have been filed by top plaintiffs' firms, in judicial hell holes, with company documents recognizing a defect identified in a recall or deviating from industry/government standards, and competitors are battling similar lawsuits in similar venues, then a defense plan is needed.