Chapter D0
Configuring Litigation: Seven Strategy Tools
Let us pause now and quickly recap what we have learnt so far.
Before you pick a fight, you must decide if you are capable of fighting a legal war. In Chapter A1 to A5, you have seen how five rules help you take this decision. Once you have made this assessment, you will perhaps find it possible to decide one way or the other. In taking this decision, you must also determine if you are capable of litigating to win. You have examined this question in Chapter A6.
At the end of this process, let us take it that you have decided you are capable of fighting a winnable war. What do you do next? In Part B of this book, you have seen the planning process unfold. Yet again, there are five rules to this process. When you successfully conclude your planning process, you are hopefully ready to fight a winnable war.
Does this mean that you should now go and pick a fight with your enemy? Good heavens, no! Just because you have made your preparations does not mean that you have finished making your plans. There is still a lot to be done before you start your war. You need a war strategy. What do I mean by strategy? Strategy is your overall plan designed to get you to your objectives. What use is a gun if you don’t know when and how to use it and for what purpose? Its strategy that makes a war machine effective. If you don’t have a strategy, your battle tanks are best used only to make a grand display of pageantry and pomp on republic day type parades! The art of successful litigation is ultimately, the art of developing a successful litigation strategy.
The rules to determine a Litigation Strategy can be summarized into seven basic rules as follows:
(1) Match Magnitude of engagement to resources.
(2) Quick battles.
(3) Optimize logistics.
(4) Avoid costly annihilation.
(5) Priority of targets.
(6) Factor Force levels.
(7) Avoid entanglement.
Let us look at each of them.