Sooner or later you will be sued. Whether it’s a collection matter, a partnership dispute, a breach of contract claim, or something more complicated like a temporary injunction, getting sued has become part of the cost of doing business in Texas. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be the end of your business. Like all costs, it can be managed.
Nobody enjoys this. We have not yet met the client who looked forward to being served with a lawsuit. But if you are in business long enough in Texas, somebody is going to sue you. The question is not whether it happens. The question is what you do in the first 48 hours after it happens, and what you do over the next several months.
This is the map of what defending a Texas business lawsuit actually looks like, from the constable at your door through trial. Service, the answer deadline, insurance coverage, early dismissal motions, discovery where most of the money goes, mediation, and trial each get a section here. Each also has its own dedicated page for the deep dive.
If you’ve already been served, scroll down to the answer deadline section first. Then come back.
The lawsuit shows up. Don’t ignore it.
The first time you find out you are being sued is usually when a stranger walks up to your door with paperwork.
In Texas, the person at your door is most often a constable. Uniformed, calm, not there to arrest anyone, just doing the job of delivering legal papers. Texas also allows qualified private process servers to handle service for a fee, so the person on your porch may not be wearing a uniform at all. Either way, the right response is the same: open the door, accept the papers, and call us immediately. Trying to avoid service does not work. It never has. It delays things by a few days at most and makes you look like you have something to hide when you eventually do get served.
The lawsuit you receive will have two main parts. The first is the citation, which is the formal notice from the court telling you that you have been sued and identifying the deadline by which you must respond. The second is the petition, which is the lawsuit itself. The petition lists what the plaintiff says you did wrong and what they want from you.
Read both. Then send them to us. Same day if possible. Do not put the lawsuit in a drawer to “think about it.” Do not assume that because the claim looks frivolous, it will go away on its own. Do not assume that because you tried to call the plaintiff and they didn’t return your call, the case is over.
The law books are full of cases where the defendant sat on the petition until the answer deadline passed, the plaintiff took a default judgment, and the defendant called a lawyer two weeks later trying to figure out what happened. By that point, undoing the default judgment is harder and more expensive than answering the case ever was.
The Texas answer deadline that will catch you out
The answer deadline in Texas is one of the most commonly misunderstood things in Texas civil practice. Here is how it actually works.
District Court and County Court at Law. If the case is filed in district court or in a county court at law, your written answer is due by 10:00 a.m. on the Monday following the expiration of 20 days from the date you were served.
Example: you are served on a Thursday, the 5th of the month. Counting 20 days from service takes you to Wednesday the 25th. Your answer is due by 10:00 a.m. on the next Monday, the 30th. Not Sunday. Not the 25th. The 30th, at 10:00 a.m.
Justice Court (formerly Small Claims Court). Justice court is different and faster. Under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure Part V rules that govern justice courts, your answer is due on the 14th day after you were served, not counting the day of service. If the 14th day is a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline rolls to the next business day.
Federal court. If you’ve been served with a federal complaint, you have 21 days from service to answer or otherwise respond. The federal deadline runs from the day of service and does not roll to the following Monday.
These deadlines are not flexible. Miss them and the plaintiff can take a default judgment against you. We have undone Texas default judgments before, but the process is harder, more expensive, and not always successful. The right way to handle a deadline is to call us long before it arrives, not after.
If you forward the petition to us with even a few days of runway, we can answer the case on time, raise the right defenses, and protect your strategic options. If you forward it the day before the answer is due, we can probably still answer on time, but the work has to happen on an emergency basis. If you forward it the week after the deadline, we are in damage control.
The first thing we check: insurance coverage
After we read the petition, the first analysis we run is whether your insurance covers the claim. This matters because if the claim is covered, your insurance company has a duty to defend you, and the defense is paid for by the insurer rather than out of your pocket.
The categories of business insurance most often triggered by a lawsuit.
Commercial general liability (CGL). Covers bodily injury and property damage claims, and depending on the policy, some categories of personal and advertising injury. Most slip-and-fall and similar claims fall here.
Directors and officers (D&O) insurance. Covers claims against directors and officers of the company for breaches of fiduciary duty and similar wrongs. Critical in shareholder oppression and derivative suit defense.
Employment practices liability (EPLI). Covers employment-related claims (discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination).
Professional liability or errors and omissions (E&O). Covers professional services claims against the company.
Cyber liability. Covers data breach and similar cyber-related claims.
Coverage analysis is not always obvious. Policies have exclusions. Insurers issue reservation of rights letters that purport to limit their obligations. Sometimes the insurer denies coverage when the policy actually requires it. When an insurer denies a defense that should be provided, the Texas Insurance Code gives the policyholder real leverage, including potential bad faith claims. We pursue that leverage hard when it applies.
If the claim is not covered by insurance, then the case proceeds with the cost of defense on you. That is when the strategic decisions about how aggressively to fight the case, and how quickly to push toward resolution, become the most important calls we make.
Early dismissal: motions that can end the case fast
Texas has several procedural tools that allow a defendant to test the legal sufficiency of a lawsuit early, before the expense of discovery. The two most useful in Texas business litigation are the Rule 91a motion to dismiss and the TCPA anti-SLAPP motion.
Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 91a allows a defendant to move to dismiss a cause of action that has no basis in law or fact. The motion has to be filed within 60 days of service and decided within 45 days of filing. It is heard on the petition itself. The court does not consider evidence outside the pleadings. Rule 91a motions are not appropriate for cases that turn on disputed facts, but for cases where the plaintiff’s claim fails as a matter of law on the face of the petition, Rule 91a can end the case in 105 days for the cost of one motion and one hearing.
The Texas Citizens Participation Act (the TCPA, also called the Texas anti-SLAPP statute, codified at Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 27) is a different tool entirely. The TCPA was designed to give early protection to defendants whose lawsuits implicate the exercise of free speech, the right to petition, or the right of association. It applies to a wider range of business disputes than people expect, including some defamation, business disparagement, tortious interference, and trade secret cases. When the TCPA applies, the defendant can file a motion to dismiss within 60 days of service. Discovery is stayed. The plaintiff has to come forward with clear and specific evidence supporting each element of the claim. If the plaintiff cannot, the claim is dismissed and the defendant recovers attorney’s fees.
The TCPA is not available in every case, but in the cases where it applies, it is an enormously powerful early-dismissal tool. We evaluate every defendant case for both Rule 91a and TCPA possibilities at intake.
For deeper treatment, see Rule 91a Motion to Dismiss and TCPA / Anti-SLAPP in Business Litigation.
Other procedural tools at the front end include venue motions (transferring the case to a more appropriate Texas county), motions to compel arbitration (sending the dispute out of court entirely if the contract contains an arbitration clause), removal to federal court (when diversity or federal question jurisdiction exists), and special appearances challenging personal jurisdiction. See Venue Selection in Texas Business Litigation and Removal of Texas Business Cases to Federal Court.
Discovery: where most of the money goes
If the case survives early dismissal motions, it proceeds to discovery. Discovery is where the lawyers on both sides figure out what evidence exists, who knows what, and what documents prove what. It is also the most expensive phase of a Texas business lawsuit, by a wide margin. Discovery costs frequently exceed the value of the underlying dispute when nobody is managing them.
We work hard to keep your case in perspective and to manage discovery costs aggressively. That said, here is what discovery actually involves in Texas civil cases.
Initial disclosures. Since the 2021 amendments to the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, parties in Texas civil cases must serve initial disclosures within 30 days of the answer date, without waiting for a request. Initial disclosures cover basic information about the case: witnesses, documents, legal theories, damages calculations. This is now an automatic obligation, not something the other side has to ask for.
Interrogatories. Written questions submitted by one side to the other, answered under oath. In a typical Texas business case under Level 2 discovery rules, each side can serve up to 25 interrogatories.
Requests for production. Written requests for documents and other tangible things. This is how each side gets the other side’s records. We routinely bates-stamp the documents we receive to keep the “shenanigans” to a minimum, if you know what we mean.
Requests for admission. Written requests asking the other side to admit specific facts. We use these to narrow the disputed issues so we are not spending trial time proving things nobody actually contests.
Depositions. Oral testimony given under oath in front of a court reporter, often video-recorded. Depositions are usually the single most valuable form of discovery. They are the only chance you get to lock down a hostile witness’s testimony before trial. They are also expensive. Court reporters charge per page for the transcript, and a full day of testimony can run several hundred pages.
Expert discovery. Many Texas business cases require expert testimony. Expect the cost of retaining an expert to range from several thousand dollars for a simple matter to many tens of thousands for a complex one. We have seen retained experts charging $1,000 per hour and up. Expert costs are one of the biggest line items in a contested business case, and managing them properly is critical to keeping the case in proportion to the stakes.
If discovery is not managed properly, the cost of the litigation will exceed the value of the dispute. That is not a theoretical risk. It happens all the time to clients whose lawyers either don’t know how to limit discovery or don’t care to.
Mediation and settlement: the system is built to settle cases
The vast majority of Texas business cases settle before trial. The court system is designed to encourage that outcome. Most Texas district courts will order the parties to mediate before allowing the case to go to trial.
Mediation works like this. The parties and their lawyers meet at the office of a mediator, a neutral third party, often a retired judge or a senior lawyer experienced in dispute resolution. Each side typically presents its case briefly in an opening session, then the parties separate into different rooms. The mediator goes back and forth between the rooms, conveying offers and looking for common ground. Mediations have run anywhere from an hour to multiple days.
We advocate settlement when settlement is in the client’s interest. We have never had a client call us six months after settling a case and complain that they settled. We have had many clients call us six months after declining a settlement and ask how things ended up costing so much more than the settlement number.
Not every Dallas business litigator takes this approach. Some lawyers run cases up to trial regardless of the strategic calculus, because that is how the lawyer makes the most money. If you intend to run a cost-effective lawsuit, raise this topic with the lawyers you are interviewing. Make sure you and your lawyer are on the same page about the role of settlement in the case before you sign an engagement letter.
See Mediation and ADR Strategy in Texas Business Litigation for more detail.
Trial, and the wait to get there
Clients want certainty about when the case will go to trial. In most of the busy Texas counties, a quick trial is not possible. That is the honest answer. Trial in Dallas County, Tarrant County, Collin County, Harris County, and most other large Texas counties typically commences 18 to 24 months after the lawsuit is filed. Some courts are faster. Some are slower. Trial in federal court usually happens on a tighter schedule but with stricter procedural deadlines along the way.
When the case is tried, each side presents its evidence and witnesses, cross-examines the other side’s witnesses, and argues the case to either a jury or a judge. The decision about whether to try the case to a jury or a judge is one of the most important strategic calls in any business case. See Bench Trial vs. Jury Trial in Texas Commercial Cases.
After trial, the judge enters a final judgment in favor of the winning party. The winner is entitled to recover damages, court costs, and, under the Texas attorney’s fee statutes that apply in many business cases, reasonable attorney’s fees. If the losing party wants to challenge the judgment, the next phase is appeal. See Appeals from Texas Business Litigation Judgments.
Other pages on this site for defendants
This site has dedicated pages for the most common defendant-side situations we see.
- Sued by a Business Partner in Texas: the special dynamics of partner-vs-partner litigation
- Defenses to a Texas Breach of Contract Lawsuit: the standard contract-defense playbook
- Defending Against a Non-Compete Lawsuit: enforceability defenses and counterattack strategies
- Defending a Fraud Claim in Texas Business Litigation: fraud-specific defenses, particularity requirements, statute of limitations
- Responding to a TRO Against Your Texas Business: what to do in the 14 days between a TRO and the temporary injunction hearing
For the procedural and strategic toolkit that runs across all defendant cases, see the rest of this Procedure & Strategy cluster, linked in the sidebar.
When the lawsuit reaches beyond business litigation
Some defendant cases involve issues that extend into the firm’s other practice areas. If you are a landlord being sued by a tenant, see Dallas Landlord Lawyer. If the lawsuit is a collections matter being brought against you, see Texas Collections. If the plaintiff has obtained a TRO and we need to respond on an emergency basis, see Dallas Injunction Lawyer. Integrated representation across these adjacent areas means you do not need to retain a separate firm for each related issue.
The first 90 days decide most defenses
What we do for a defendant is front-loaded. We respond fast, because the answer deadline is hard and the window between service and that deadline is when the strategic decisions get made. We evaluate every case for early dismissal, Rule 91a, TCPA, plea to the jurisdiction, motion to compel arbitration, because ending the case for the cost of one motion beats six months of discovery. We manage discovery aggressively; undisciplined discovery is the single biggest source of wasted expense, so we push back on overbroad requests and keep the cost in proportion to the stakes. We tell you the real settlement value, with the reasoning, and we do not pad cases to manufacture trial. And we pursue attorney’s fees when the law allows, because a successful defense in the right case can leave the plaintiff paying your bill.
Being sued is no fun, but knowing what to expect and having experienced counsel can help you survive it. All lawyers are not equal. Make certain yours understands the issues you face, the costs involved, and your tolerance for fighting versus settling.
The one thing that consistently costs defendants the most is delay. Every day the petition sits in a drawer is a day of position you give up before you start fighting back. If you have been served, or threatened and want to be ready, the time to act is now, not after the answer deadline passes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to answer a lawsuit in Texas?
In a Texas district court or county court at law, your written answer is due at 10:00 a.m. on the first Monday after 20 days have run from the day you were served. Justice court is shorter: 14 days from service, not counting the day you were served. Federal court gives you 21 days. Blow any of these deadlines and you hand the plaintiff a default judgment.
Will my insurance pay for my defense?
It depends on the type of claim and the type of policy. Commercial general liability, directors and officers, employment practices liability, professional liability, and cyber liability policies each cover different categories of claims. The first analysis we run when a client forwards us a petition is whether any insurance policy is triggered. If coverage exists, the insurer typically has a duty to defend you and pays the defense costs. If coverage is denied when it should be provided, the Texas Insurance Code gives you leverage to push back.
Can a Texas business case be dismissed early without going through discovery?
Sometimes. Rule 91a lets a court throw out claims that have no basis in law or fact, judged on the petition alone without evidence. The Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA) offers an early exit in certain matters touching speech, petitioning, or association. Other opening moves, a motion to compel arbitration, a special appearance, and the like, can also dispose of a case or push it out of court. Which, if any, fits depends on a close read of what was actually pleaded.
How much does it cost to defend a Texas business lawsuit?
It depends on the case. A case that ends on a Rule 91a or TCPA motion in the first 90 days costs relatively little. A case that goes through full discovery, expert depositions, summary judgment, and a multi-day trial can cost six figures or more on each side. The single biggest variable is how aggressively discovery is managed. A lawyer who lets discovery run unchecked will multiply your cost without improving your odds.
Should I countersue if my Texas business is sued?
Sometimes. If you have legitimate claims against the plaintiff that arose from the same facts, those are compulsory counterclaims under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 97. They have to be brought in this lawsuit or you lose them. Permissive counterclaims are a strategic decision. Counterclaiming can shift the balance of the case, but it can also expand the discovery and trial scope and increase costs. The decision depends on the facts.
How long until a Texas business case goes to trial?
In most busy Texas counties, plan on roughly 18 to 24 months from filing to the start of trial, though some courts move quicker and some slower. Federal court usually gets there faster, but it holds you to tighter procedural deadlines on the way. And most cases never reach trial; they settle first, often at or just after mediation.
What happens if I lose at trial?
The court enters a final judgment for the winning party, including damages, court costs, and in many Texas business cases, reasonable attorney's fees. If you want to challenge the judgment, you can appeal. Appeals are a separate process with their own deadlines, briefing requirements, and standards of review. Post-trial deadlines move fast. If you intend to appeal, the work begins immediately after the judgment is signed.