In this post we wanna talk a little about the case, that had us running around, battling other lawyers while knowing we’re right and not being able to prove it. We all have grown quite a bit both as lawyers and people while working on this case.

A small business owner, whose name we will not be revealing, reached out to us when a larger company in their market decided to sue them, because they though he was using that company’s name in their website: http://www.limorichmond.org and it was somehow illegal. If you think that websites aren’t a big deal in 2016 you’re mistaking.

From the very beginning, we knew that the law was on our side, we just didn’t know how to go about it yet. At it’s core it was a trademark issue in which case the larger company’s name was the name and city of service in that area, it was generic. For example: if you were looking for limousine service in Richmond, Virginia and the company’s name was that exact phrase, that is consider a generic name and cannot be trademarked unless the company proves that a secondary meaning for that phrase is indeed their brand, which in that case was impossible. With that being said, that particular company was a leader in their market, partially because of the name, and could not tolerate competition. Another thing that wasn’t helping us was the army of lawyers they had hired just for this case.

Funny thing though… This client was actually a referral from Melvin shortly after we were done with his case. Usually trademarking isn’t what we prefer, so the main reason we took this one was because of Mel and we also could really use the money to grow. You know what they say… The best way to capitalize your business is by using someone else’s money, which is exactly what we did.

After two months of fighting with the law firm they hired, we have gained the upper hand on the case. Like we said in the beginning… Law is on our side and there’s no arguing about it. In the process we have found out that the larger company was losing 30 percent of their business to our client simply because of the outstanding customer service he was providing and amazing prices. To this day we believe that he wasn’t making any real money by charging so low, but instead was building reputation and authority in the marketplace.

We all are very thankful to this particular business owner because he had opened and expanded our minds to think outside of the box as well as thinking much bigger than we were. From the very beginning he knew for a fact that he was on the right side of the law and wouldn’t back down or settle for less than a win. His complete dedication to his business taught us the same about our firm. It taught us to never rely on anyone else to resolve your problems for you unless it’s their job and they have proven to be a great investment.

In all honesty, there are so many cases that have changed the way we think and the way we do business. Hopefully we will be able to cover some more in the future posts. Stay tuned and have a great day.