DLM LAW LLC

What the firm handles

DLM LAW is a business litigation firm in Kansas City, Missouri, and it takes on clients across the country. The work centers on individuals, entrepreneurs and small business owners who have landed in a dispute with money or ownership at stake. The firm handles breach of contract claims and fights over unpaid commissions. It also takes on the disputes that surface when a business changes hands, including arguments about the due diligence that came before a sale closed.

Partnership and shareholder disputes fall within the same practice, and so do legal malpractice claims, where one lawyer's handling of a matter becomes the subject of a later lawsuit. The firm handles patent, copyright and trademark disputes, which places it before federal courts and the technical questions those cases carry. David Marcus, one of the named attorneys, adds consumer fraud, products liability and class action work to the roster. Arbitration runs through much of it, since many business contracts send a fight to a private forum before it ever reaches a courtroom.

The attorneys named on the site

Four lawyers do the firm's named work: David Marcus, Aaron Moore, Matt Bartle and Ben Donovan. A director of operations and a director of client engagement support them. In my opinion a group this size usually means a client speaks with the lawyer actually holding the file, which matters when a dispute drags on for months.

David Marcus has represented inventors, entrepreneurs and business owners for close to three decades. His cases have included breach of an asset purchase agreement, patent and copyright infringement, and legal malpractice. He started at a large law firm, made partner at a boutique litigation firm, then opened his own practice about ten years into his career. He has tried cases to jury verdict in state and federal court, which puts courtroom time behind the practice areas he lists. He earned his JD from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1996 and holds admission in Missouri, Kansas and Arizona.

Matt Bartle has practiced since 1990, with work centered on investment losses and arbitration. Ben Donovan concentrates on commercial litigation, including contract disputes and insurance coverage disputes. Aaron Moore brings close to thirty years of legal experience. Together the four cover the courtroom and the arbitration table, which is the split most of the firm's practice areas call for.

In court and in arbitration

The firm's attorneys try cases to jury verdict in state and federal court. They also handle arbitrations run by the American Arbitration Association, JAMS and FINRA. Those three bodies cover much of the commercial map: FINRA hears disputes between investors and brokers, while the AAA and JAMS administer business arbitrations under their own published rules. Arbitration tends to move faster than a trial and keeps the record private, and its outcomes carry a narrow path for appeal.

When a matter calls for knowledge outside the firm's own bench, it associates with other lawyers, such as members of the patent bar or former prosecutors. As a reviewer, I read that as a firm sizing a case for what it needs and adding hands where the facts require it. The client stays with DLM LAW, and the outside lawyer works alongside its team on the pieces that fit.

Trial experience shapes more than the trials themselves. A firm that has taken cases to a jury tends to carry more weight in settlement talks, since the other side knows the threat of a verdict is real. The same holds in arbitration, where a lawyer comfortable presenting a full case can push a matter toward a full hearing when the numbers on the table fall short.

How business and contract disputes tend to move

A commission dispute usually turns on the contract terms and the records of which sales actually closed, so the paper trail carries the case. A partnership or shareholder fight often reaches questions of valuation and fiduciary duty, and it can pull in an appraiser as well as a judge. A well drafted operating agreement can decide a partnership fight before it starts, since it spells out how disagreements get resolved and how a departing owner gets bought out.

Legal malpractice claims run on a case within a case. To win, a client generally has to show that the earlier matter would have ended better if the lawyer had handled it correctly, which means litigating the old dispute and the malpractice together. Breach of contract sits at the base of most of this work, and it rewards a firm that reads the agreement closely and lines up the timeline of who did what and when. These cases move slowly and lean on documents, and the firm's practice areas track that reality.

The intellectual property and consumer side

Patent and copyright claims sit in federal court by statute, and registration records along with the patent bar's technical reading shape how they proceed. Copyright protection attaches on creation, though registration is generally needed before a suit can be filed. Trademark disputes often begin at the point where two businesses use marks close enough to confuse customers, and they can involve the federal register as well as common law rights. This is the corner of the firm's work where it reaches for outside patent counsel when a case demands it.

The consumer side runs on different rules. Consumer fraud and products liability cases weigh what a company told buyers against what it knew, and a class action adds a certification stage where a court decides whether many claims can travel as one. David Marcus carries this work, and he draws on the same trial and arbitration footing the rest of the firm uses. In my opinion that mix of business and consumer matters is a wider reach than a four lawyer firm usually shows.

How the firm began

DLM LAW was formed in 2005, when two partners left a litigation boutique to start their own practice. The legal entity behind the brand is DLM LAW LLC. Its first case involved an entrepreneur who had sold his small business and then faced claims tied to the due diligence process, which is close to the business sale disputes the firm still takes today.

A dispute over the sale of a business often turns on what each side knew and disclosed before the deal closed. The due diligence file, the purchase agreement, and the representations traded during negotiation tend to decide the outcome. A firm that opened on that exact problem has spent about twenty years with the records such claims run on. Two decades on, the firm still runs as a small partnership handling the disputes it started with.