The type of lawyer you need to sue a company depends on what the company did to you. Physical harm points to a personal injury attorney. A workplace violation calls for an employment lawyer. A broken contract is business litigation. Deceptive practices belong to a consumer protection lawyer. And when a company has harmed many people the same way, you want someone who handles class actions or mass torts. Once you know which bucket your dispute falls into, the search narrows fast.
Personal Injury: Hurt by a Company’s Property or Product
If a company’s carelessness caused you physical harm, you want a personal injury lawyer. The field splits in two.
Premises liability covers injuries that happen on a company’s property: a slip on an unmarked wet floor, a collapsing shelf, a broken handrail. The company had a duty to keep its space reasonably safe. A premises liability lawyer knows how to prove the company knew about the hazard, or should have known, and did nothing.
Product liability covers injuries caused by something you bought — a defective appliance, contaminated food, a car part that failed. These cases turn on whether the product had a design flaw, a manufacturing defect, or inadequate warnings. Corporate defendants here usually come with deep legal teams, and product liability lawyers are used to that fight.
Employment Lawyer: Workplace Disputes
Problems with your employer call for an employment lawyer. That specialty covers wrongful termination, workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and wage theft. Employment attorneys work with the federal and state laws protecting workers, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.1U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
One trap catches people off guard. For most federal discrimination claims, you cannot go straight to court. You first have to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 180 days of the discrimination, or 300 days if a state or local agency also enforces a discrimination law where you work.2U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge After the EEOC investigates, or after 180 days pass, it can issue a Notice of Right to Sue. From the day you receive that notice, you typically have just 90 days to file in federal court.3U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Can Expect After You File a Charge An employment lawyer handles both the EEOC process and the lawsuit, but the sooner you consult one, the less likely you are to blow a deadline.
Wage disputes under the Fair Labor Standards Act work differently. You can file in court directly, or file a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. An employment lawyer can tell you which path fits your situation.
Business Litigation: Breach of Contract
When a company breaks an agreement — refuses to pay for work you completed, delivers something different from what was promised, or walks away from a deal — you want a business litigation or commercial litigation lawyer. These attorneys spend their days interpreting contract language and proving one side didn’t hold up its end.
Contract cases turn on specifics: what the agreement said, what each side actually did, and what financial harm resulted. A business litigation lawyer will assess whether the language supports your reading, what damages you can prove, and whether the dispute is worth the cost of suing. For smaller claims, they may point you toward small claims court instead.
Consumer Protection: Deception and Unfair Practices
If a company deceived you through false advertising, sold you a product that doesn’t work as promised, or used unfair business tactics, a consumer protection lawyer is the right fit. These attorneys handle misleading marketing, warranty violations, credit report errors, and illegal debt collection. Their work draws on federal law, including the Federal Trade Commission Act, which empowers the FTC to combat deceptive practices, and the consumer protection statutes every state maintains.4Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission Act
Class Actions and Mass Torts: When Many People Are Harmed
Sometimes a company’s conduct injures hundreds or thousands of people at once — a defective medication, a toxic release, a data breach. Two case structures exist for that scenario, and the choice matters for your lawyer and your payout.
In a class action, one or a few plaintiffs represent the entire group. Everyone’s claims are treated as essentially identical, and any settlement is divided across all members. You don’t pick your own attorney or make individual decisions about your case. This structure works best when every person suffered roughly the same harm in roughly the same way.
A mass tort is different. Each plaintiff’s case is handled individually even though plaintiffs share a common defendant and similar facts. You hire your own lawyer, your injuries are assessed separately, and your settlement reflects your specific damages. Mass torts fit situations where the same product or conduct harmed people in meaningfully different ways: one person’s side effects from a defective drug might be mild, another’s life-altering.
If you suspect you’ve been harmed alongside many others, look for a lawyer who specifically handles mass tort or class action work. They’ll know which structure fits and whether cases you can join are already underway.
Check Your Contract for an Arbitration Clause First
Before you start calling lawyers, dig out whatever contract or agreement you signed. Many employment agreements, terms of service, and consumer contracts contain a mandatory arbitration clause. Under the Federal Arbitration Act, these clauses are generally enforceable and require you to resolve disputes through private arbitration instead of a courtroom.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 9 USC 2 – Validity, Irrevocability, and Enforcement of Agreements to Arbitrate
Arbitration isn’t automatically bad. It can be faster and cheaper than a trial. But discovery is more limited, there’s usually no right to appeal, proceedings are confidential, and many clauses also waive your right to join a class action. That last piece is especially damaging in consumer disputes, where individual claims are often too small to be worth bringing alone.
One major exception exists. Federal law now lets people alleging sexual assault or sexual harassment reject any arbitration agreement they previously signed and take the case to court instead.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 9 USC 402 – No Validity or Enforceability The choice belongs to the claimant, not the company. Outside that exception, a lawyer can still represent you in arbitration, and can evaluate whether the clause itself might be unenforceable on contract-law grounds like unconscionability.
Deadlines That Can End Your Case Before It Starts
Every type of lawsuit has a statute of limitations. Miss it by a day and the court will dismiss your case no matter how strong it is. People lose winnable claims this way more often than you’d think.
For personal injury against a company, most states set the deadline at two or three years from the date of injury. Written contract disputes typically get longer, often four to six years, though states range from three to fifteen. Defamation is frequently just one year. The specific limit for your claim type and state is one of the first things any lawyer will check.
Employment discrimination moves on a far tighter clock, as noted above: 180 or 300 days to file with the EEOC, then 90 days from the right-to-sue letter to file in court.2U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge Claims against government entities often require a separate pre-suit notice within 60 to 180 days, which trips up anyone who assumes they have the full statute of limitations to act.
Consult a lawyer early even if you’re not ready to file. An initial conversation can tell you exactly how much time you have.
When You Might Not Need a Lawyer at All
Not every dispute with a company justifies hiring an attorney. Small claims court lets you present your case directly to a judge without formal representation. Maximum claim amounts vary by state, generally between $2,500 and $25,000. Filing fees are low and the procedures are simplified. If a company owes you $4,000 for botched work and you have the receipts, small claims court is often the fastest and cheapest route.
Before any lawsuit, consider sending a demand letter: a formal written notice telling the company what happened, what you’re owed, and what you’ll do if they don’t pay. Many disputes settle at this stage because companies would rather write a check than defend a lawsuit. A demand letter also shows a court that you tried to resolve things reasonably. You can write one yourself or hire a lawyer to draft it for a flat fee, which costs far less than full representation.
How These Lawyers Get Paid
Most personal injury and many consumer protection lawyers work on contingency. They take a percentage of your settlement or verdict as their fee, usually around one-third but ranging from 25% to 40% based on complexity, whether the case goes to trial, and state rules that cap contingency fees for certain claim types. You pay nothing upfront. If you lose, you owe no attorney fee.
Case expenses are separate from the fee. Court filing fees, expert witnesses, medical record retrieval, deposition transcripts, and trial exhibits all cost money. Some lawyers advance these costs and deduct them from your recovery at the end. Others expect you to pay as they come up. Ask upfront, because on a complex case, expenses can run into several thousand dollars.
Business litigation and contract lawyers more commonly charge by the hour. Rates vary with experience and geography, generally $200 to $500 or more per hour for commercial litigation. Many require a retainer, an upfront deposit billed against as work proceeds.
Whatever the structure, get it in writing before any work begins. The agreement should state the percentage or hourly rate, who pays expenses, how expenses are deducted from any recovery, and when additional costs might arise. Vagueness leads to ugly surprises later.
Finding and Choosing the Right Lawyer
Start with your state bar association’s lawyer referral service, which matches you with attorneys by practice area and confirms that each is in good standing. Online directories can supplement that, and personal referrals from people who’ve dealt with similar disputes are worth chasing down.
Once you have a short list, book consultations. Many attorneys offer the first meeting free or at a reduced rate. Treat it as a two-way interview. Ask whether they’ve handled claims like yours and how those cases turned out. Ask how they’d approach your case specifically; a lawyer who has handled dozens of employment discrimination claims will give a more concrete answer than one who dabbles. Pay attention to whether they explain things clearly or retreat into jargon, because that style will follow you through the whole case.
Before the meeting, gather everything relevant: contracts, receipts, medical records, employment agreements, emails, photos, and any correspondence with the company. Write out a timeline of what happened, when, and who was involved. List witnesses with contact information. Add up your financial losses — medical bills, lost wages, repair costs, whatever applies. A lawyer can assess your case far more accurately from documents than from memory.