Trial prep
The second-largest box. Most of the work of a trial happens before the trial.
Where you are
No exit worked. There's a date on the calendar, and everything now runs toward it.
You can still end this here.
How settlement works →Cost so far
You are now at roughly 53× the cost of answering that first letter.
What this is
Trial prep is the concentrated, expensive work of turning a case file into a performance: what the jury sees, hears, and is allowed to consider.
Witness preparation — every witness worked with repeatedly. Not scripted; taught. How to answer, how to handle cross-examination, how not to volunteer. This consumes days of your people's time, and you will be one of those people.
Exhibits — every document you'll show gets selected, sequenced, formatted, and fought over. Both sides argue about what comes in.
Motions in limine — pre-trial motions to keep specific evidence out. Winning one can matter more than anything that happens in the room.
Jury instructions — both sides propose the rules the judge reads to the jury. This is technical, contested, and disproportionately important.
Expert work — reports, Daubert challenges over whether an expert can testify at all, and preparation of your own.
Voir dire planning — how you'll select and challenge jurors.
What it costs you
Large. On the map it sits with Trial as one of the three cost centers, and it lands in a compressed window — weeks, not months — which means it hits your cash flow harder than the number alone suggests.
Typical time: commonly two to four months of concentrated work, intensifying toward the date.
And the cost nobody invoices: you, your co-founder, and your key people, largely unavailable, for weeks. If that collides with a raise or a launch, that is a real number and it belongs in the settlement math.
What you decide here
Do you actually want the verdict?
A trial is the only phase where you hand the outcome to twelve people you've never met, on rules you don't control, in an afternoon. Every phase before this was expensive but predictable. This one is expensive and random.
The pressure of a trial date is also, reliably, what makes cases settle. Both sides are now spending heavily on something neither may want. That is why so many cases end on the courthouse steps — and if you're going to end up there anyway, ending up there before you've paid for this box is worth a great deal.
What you actually do this week
Reprice the case one more time, with the trial-prep number and the calendar cost both in it.
Protect the business. Decide now who runs what while you're unavailable. Tell your board before it's obvious.
Take witness prep seriously. The single highest-return hours in this phase.
Ask what the settlement posture is as the date approaches. It usually changes.
Ask about the appeal scenario — including what a supersedeas bond would cost if you lose and want to appeal. Founders learn about this after the verdict, which is too late to plan for it.
The mistake at this stage
Deciding that having paid this much, you may as well see it through.
Sunk cost again, at the most expensive point on the map. The trial-prep money is spent whether you settle tomorrow or try the case. The only question is whether the trial is worth its own price plus the risk of a verdict you don't control.
The second mistake: letting trial prep consume the company. A founder who disappears for two months without handing off is running two risks and only paying attention to one.
You can still end this here
Cases settle during trial prep constantly, and they settle on the morning of trial, and they settle after openings. Nothing about a trial date makes settlement unavailable — it usually makes it more likely. → How settlement works
Where Story fits
This is the phase where planning the business around the litigation stops being advice and becomes the job.
You and your key people are about to be substantially unavailable for weeks, during whatever else is happening. Someone has to decide now who runs what, what slips, what the board hears and when, and how the ordinary legal work — contracts signed, people hired, consents executed — keeps moving while your attention is in a conference room.
A platform where routine legal work runs on process rather than on your availability is worth the most exactly when you have none.
This is general educational information from the attorneys who build Story. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney-client relationship, and it is simplified — litigation procedure varies significantly by jurisdiction and by case. Talk to a licensed attorney about your actual situation.
We're lawyers, remember? Please read this important note:
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