You didn't plan to end up in court. You planned to inherit a family business, settle a parent's estate, close on a piece of property, or run a company with the partners you trusted. Then something went sideways—a sibling challenged the will, a co-owner stopped honoring the operating agreement, a real estate deal fell apart, or a trustee made decisions you can't accept.
That's the moment when most clients realize that handling the dispute themselves isn't realistic, but they don't want to hand the matter to a stranger who has never met their family or read a single one of their planning documents. They want a litigator who already understands the situation.
That's the role our Hampton Roads litigation lawyers play.
Who We Help
Our litigation team represents Virginia clients across a focused set of disputes:
- Heirs, beneficiaries, executors, and trustees facing will contests, trust disputes, fiduciary breach claims, or demands for accountings.
- Property owners and commercial parties caught in failed transactions, title defects, easement or boundary disputes, partition actions, or commercial lease disputes.
- Business owners, shareholders, and LLC members in disputes over governance, operating agreements, buy-sell terms, breaches of fiduciary duty, or stalled business successions.
- Existing Alperin Law & Wealth clients whose estate, business, or real estate plan has become the subject of a dispute—and who want the same firm that built the plan to defend it.
If your situation falls into one of these categories, our integrated litigation approach was built with you in mind.
How Alperin Law & Wealth's Litigation Lawyers Approach Virginia Disputes
Most of our litigation clients don't start out as litigation clients. They come to us for estate planning, business succession, or a real estate transaction—and at some point, a dispute lands on their desk that has to be answered in court.
Because Alperin Law & Wealth is structured around integrated planning, our litigation department already has the legal, tax, and financial picture in front of us when the dispute begins. We're not learning your trust from scratch. We're not re-reading a 60-page operating agreement for the first time. That head start matters when the other side has filed a motion and the clock is running.
Our litigation team represents individuals, families, executors, trustees, and business owners across Hampton Roads—Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Suffolk, and the surrounding communities. We focus on disputes that connect to the estate, real estate, and business work the rest of the firm already does.
Estate and Fiduciary Litigation in Hampton Roads
A meaningful share of our litigation work involves estates and trusts. These disputes are personal, they involve money, and they almost always involve family members who used to get along.
Our estate and fiduciary litigation work includes:
- Will contests. When an heir or beneficiary believes a will was the product of undue influence, lack of capacity, or improper execution, we represent the contesting party or, more often, the executor defending the document.
- Trust contests and trustee disputes. Beneficiaries who believe a trustee has breached their duties—self-dealing, failing to account, paying themselves excessive fees, or refusing to distribute assets—can ask the court for an accounting, removal, or surcharge.
- Breach of fiduciary duty claims. Trustees, executors, agents under a power of attorney, and corporate directors all owe fiduciary duties. When those duties are violated, the people relying on them have legal options.
- Estate and trust accountings. Sometimes the right outcome isn't a full lawsuit—it's a properly demanded accounting that forces the fiduciary to show their work.
Because the firm's trust administration team and our fiduciary services group operate inside the same building, we often spot the issue before the family does, and we can move quickly when a trustee or executor needs to be held accountable.
Real Estate Litigation for Virginia Property Owners
Real estate is one of Alperin Law & Wealth's core practice areas, and disputes over real estate are one of our litigation team's busiest categories.
We handle real estate disputes that arise out of failed transactions, contract breaches, title problems, easement and boundary disagreements, partition actions when co-owners can't agree on what to do with a property, and disputes over commercial leases. Because our real estate attorneys handle the underlying transactions every day, our litigation team knows what a clean deal is supposed to look like—and where the soft spots usually are.
We do not ordinarily handle residential landlord-tenant work. Those matters typically demand the high-volume model that doesn't fit our practice, and clients are usually better served by a firm that focuses on that area.
Business and Commercial Disputes Among Owners and Partners
Our business litigation work centers on disputes between people who built something together and now disagree about how it should be run, valued, or wound down.
Cases we regularly handle include shareholder disputes inside closely held corporations, member disputes inside LLCs, breach of operating agreement and partnership agreement claims, breach of fiduciary duty by directors and officers, breach of contract between businesses with an ongoing relationship, and disputes connected to business succession planning when a buy-sell agreement fails or a family transition goes sideways. We also handle appeals of unfavorable trial rulings in our core practice areas.
The cases we typically pass on are general supplier disputes—a contract for goods that arrived late or broken, a billing fight with a vendor, or a one-off transaction between parties with no ongoing relationship. Those are real disputes that deserve real lawyers; they're just not what our team focuses on.
Why Integrated Planning Makes Litigation Different
When a dispute lands on a client's desk, most litigation firms have to start from zero—reading the trust, learning the business, mapping the family. We don't. Because Alperin Law & Wealth is built around integrated planning, our litigation department often has the legal, tax, and financial picture in front of us before the first motion is filed.
When you're already an Alperin Law & Wealth client, the litigation department starts the case with a meaningful head start. We've read the trust. We know the buy-sell agreement. We know the tax basis on the building. We know which beneficiary has been quiet for two years and which one called every week. New clients get the same approach, just with a thorough intake at the front end. Either way, our litigators are working with the firm's estate planning attorneys, tax team, and wealth advisors as the case develops—so the resolution we fight for is one that fits the rest of your financial life, not just the one lawsuit in front of us.
