Our team takes all steps necessary to try to spare clients the expense and uncertainty of litigation, through careful and collaborative planning, problem solving, transaction structuring, and drafting. But when the need arises, The Franchise Firm attorneys have a franchise litigation practice with attorneys barred in multiple jurisdictions and experienced in handling Lanham Act claims, franchisee wrongful termination claims, litigation of supplier issues, regulatory and compliance issues, and various other franchise-related disputes under state and federal franchise and/or deceptive and unfair trade practices claims in federal court, state court and arbitration. We have represented franchisors around the country, successfully defending against millions of dollars in claims. Our teams are armed with deep knowledge and experience and are ready to handle whatever challenges arise for our franchisor clients.
Franchise Arbitration
Many claims in franchise-related disputes end up in arbitration under the applicable franchise agreement dispute resolution clause. We arbitrate cases all over the country for franchisors and franchisees. We carefully research arbitrator panels in an attempt to gain an advantage in the particular dispute and work as efficiently as possible to resolve the dispute before or at a final hearing.
Franchisee Litigation
We are franchise compliance experts and use our knowledge in the franchise arena to the advantage of franchisees across the country. The Franchise Firm attorneys represent franchisees, multi-unit developers, and private equity investors in dispute with franchisors. We understand that franchisees often don’t have the same deep pockets as their larger adversaries, therefore we make every effort through an internal dispute resolution process to resolve conflict; however, we have litigated claims involving financial performance representations, statutory unfair trade practices, franchise disclosure law violations, failure to train or support, system overhaul, abuse of advertising fund spending, unreasonable rebates and markups, encroachment by other franchisees and/or franchisor, wrongful termination, injunctions, and misleading or omitted disclosures in the FDD.
Mediation and Dispute Resolution
Our team has represented individual franchisees to groups of hundreds in various forms of dispute with their franchisor. We assist clients in mediation and dispute resolution forums across the country including the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and JAMS. We also carefully include a strong, enforceable dispute resolution provision in our franchisor clients’ franchise agreements to limit franchisee liability and damages both on the company and ownership side.
