Lieb at Law's litigation methodology
The Napkin Litigation Framework
Find facts. Build leverage. Protect value.
Four connected phases organize how Lieb at Law approaches disputes involving fragmented evidence, contested economic rights, and assets that may be difficult to access or divide.
Why a connected method matters
The dispute may be larger than the document.
A contract may describe one part of a relationship while tax filings, financial records, governance decisions, communications, contributions, and years of conduct describe another. Different people may assert rights to several assets or income streams across multiple entities.
The Framework starts with the economic relationship. It asks what was built, who funded and controlled it, where value moved, what legal rights may exist, and what result can actually protect or unlock that value.
A favorable ruling has limited value if the client still cannot collect, control, transfer, divide, sell, or protect the asset.
Questions that keep the full dispute in view
Follow the relationship and the value.
The firmwide method
Four phases. Twelve protocols.
Each phase addresses a part of the dispute. The protocols identify recurring areas of inquiry. The work can move back and forth as evidence, financial information, and business conditions change.
Phase one / Protocols 1 to 4
Protect & Audit
Secure the proof, map the assets and relationships, understand the money, and choose how to protect the position while the dispute develops.
Secure the record
Identify and preserve documents, communications, testimony, and financial information held by the parties and others. Consider privilege, coverage, and immediate preservation needs.
Map rights and assets
List the disputed property, interests, obligations, and income streams. Separate title from beneficial ownership, economic participation, authority, and actual access.
Reconstruct the finances
Trace contributions, revenue, compensation, distributions, expenses, and transfers to understand who funded the enterprise and who benefited.
Protect the position
Assess the forum, timing, negotiation options, interim protections, notices, and procedural steps that fit the asset and the immediate risk.
Examples of tools that may be considered
Depending on the matter, counsel may consider preservation notices, forensic collection, interviews, financial tracing, books and records demands, accounting requests, subpoenas, interim relief, standstill agreements, mediation, or arbitration.
These are examples, not steps required in every case. Availability and timing depend on the governing law, evidence, forum, and procedural posture.
Phase two / Protocols 5 to 7
Test Governance
Compare the formal record with the contributions, representations, financial treatment, decisions, and conduct that shaped the relationship in practice.
Test paper against practice
Examine where agreements, filings, and governance records align or conflict with how authority, ownership, and economic benefits were exercised.
Evaluate claimed contributions
Assess whether capital, property, services, expertise, risk, or promises may support an enforceable ownership, repayment, compensation, or profit right.
Examine advisors and conflicts
Identify who advised whom, who may hold material evidence, and how privilege or professional conflicts could affect the dispute.
Examples of tools that may be considered
Depending on the facts, counsel may evaluate records demands, accountings, contract and equitable theories, declarations of rights, evidence of performance, tax admissions, privilege questions, and conflicts involving advisors.
A contribution does not automatically create ownership. Incomplete paperwork does not automatically defeat a claim. The evidence and applicable law control.
Phase three / Protocols 8 to 10
Integrate Strategy
Connect the legal disciplines, entities, assets, liabilities, and proceedings that affect ownership, control, risk, and value.
Connect the governing law
Identify the business, real estate, estate, employment, intellectual property, tax, insurance, creditor, or regulatory questions that materially affect the case.
Address control and separation
Examine misuse of authority, diversion of value, breached duties, deadlock, and whether a protective or separation remedy fits the injury.
Make the evidence usable
Understand how the enterprise creates and transfers value, then organize records, transactions, communications, and timelines into a coherent account that can be tested.
Examples of tools that may be considered
Depending on the matter, strategy may involve direct or derivative claims, property or estate proceedings, fiduciary duty claims, buyout or dissolution rights, compensation issues, insurance, regulatory exposure, discovery, forensic review, and attorney-verified technology assisted analysis.
Phase four / Protocols 11 to 12
Recover & Stabilize
Translate legal rights and litigation leverage into an enforceable result that protects or unlocks economic value.
Locate and protect value
Identify where assets are held, whether value was transferred or diverted, and which legally supported sources of recovery may be available.
Make the result workable
Consider collection, liquidity, control, buyout, sale, division, separation, continued operation, or improved governance after the dispute.
Examples of tools that may be considered
Depending on the case, counsel may evaluate asset tracing, turnover and enforcement procedures, claims involving transfers or successors where supported, negotiated buyouts, sales, dissolution, financial controls, and revised governance documents.
Liability against any individual, entity, fiduciary, transferee, or successor requires its own factual and legal basis.
What the method is designed to produce
A legal result that works in the real world.
Clarity
A documented account of the deal, the assets, and competing claims.
Financial visibility
A clearer view of contributions, transfers, distributions, and value.
Leverage
Strategy grounded in evidence, law, available remedies, and economics.
Protection
Measures suited to preserving evidence, assets, operations, and liquidity.
Resolution
A path to recovery, buyout, division, sale, separation, or enforcement.
Stability
Clearer authority, financial controls, succession terms, or exit rights where needed.
Where it applies
Built for disputed access to valuable assets.
The Framework can apply when ownership, control, economic participation, or access to value cannot be established from one source. The asset and legal theories vary, but the connected method remains the same.
Keep exploring
The method evolves with the evidence.
The phases are connected rather than fixed steps. A new financial record can change the ownership analysis. A shift in control can create an urgent need to protect the asset. The claims and remedies depend on the governing documents, facts, jurisdiction, and applicable law.
The Framework is a methodology, not a guarantee of a claim, remedy, or outcome. Napkin Litigation is not a separate cause of action or a certified practice specialty. This page provides general information and does not provide legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship.