Bloodworth Law Services

Orlando, Florida, attorney L. Reed Bloodworth is the Founder and CEO of Bloodworth Law, PLLC. Reed celebrates 2022 as one of Florida’s top business and commercial litigation, and trust and probate attorneys having been recognized as a:

2019-24 U.S. News & World Report Best Lawyer® in Commercial Litigation
A 2024 U.S. News & World Report Best Lawyer in Trusts & Estates Litigation
A 2024 U.S. News & World Report Best Lawyer in Real Estate Litigation
A 2019-24 Super Lawyer for his work in Civil and Commercial Litigation
A 2017-2024, 2021 Florida Trend’s Florida Legal Elite Attorney in Commercial Litigation
2019-24 Orlando Magazine Best Lawyers in Commercial Litigation.
Martindale-Hubbell AV-Rated Pre-Eminent Attorney since 2014
AVVO Superb Rated 10.0 Lawyer since 2014

Reed handles Trust Litigation, Probate and Estate Litigation, Business and Commercial Litigation, Probate, Estate Planning, Guardianship, and Mediation for Florida clients.

Reed focuses on the resolution of legal disputes for plaintiffs and defendants. Business owners, partners, and shareholders. Trustees, personal representatives, beneficiaries, trust companies, and non-parties.

Bloodworth Law, PLLC, is a 2020-22 U.S. News & World Report “Best Law Firm” and is committed to handling the most interesting cases across Florida. This is the reason that Bloodworth Law works with clients in courts, cities, and counties throughout Florida.

Bloodworth Law, PLLC, was founded by Reed to help businesses, families, and individuals resolve legal issues.

Trust litigation

Trustee Defense: Defense of trustees accused of wrongdoing while performing trust orders, duties or responsibilities.
Breach of Fiduciary Duty: Defense of trustees facing claims against them, or pursuit of beneficiaries’ claims against a trustee, that improper or ineffective trust management occurred.
Undue Influence: Exerting improper influence over a person with the intention of getting them to change a trust in favor of another person’s or organization’s benefit.
Lack of Capacity: The absence of mental capacity when a trust was executed.
Accounting Actions: Defense of trustees accused of wrongdoing, or assisting beneficiaries petitioning the court for trust assets accounting.
Tortious Interference with a Testamentary Expectancy: Questionable, detrimental interference with a trust.

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Probate & Estate Litigation:

Defense of Personal Representatives: Defense of personal representatives accused of improprieties in managing estates, wills and assets.
Breach of Fiduciary Duty: Beneficiaries wishing to remove a personal representative or a trustee accused of wrongdoing. Bloodworth Law defends trustees and personal representatives facing removal actions.
Undue Influence: Improper influence over a person to change a will.
Lack of Capacity: Absence of mental capacity at time a will was executed.
Accounting Actions: Defense of personal representative accused of wrongdoing, or assist beneficiaries petitioning the court for estate or probate accounting.
Tortious Interference with a Testamentary Expectancy: Questionable, detrimental interference with a will.

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Business or Commercial Litigation

Breach of Contract: A valid contract is broken, a loss has occurred, a legal remedy is needed.
Business Torts: Describes the many causes of civil action within business litigation.
Shareholder & Partnerships: A shareholder pertains to partners or owners of a corporation. A partnership is a subset of business litigation involving company owners.
Breach of Fiduciary Duty: One party’s position breaches duty of trust to others in a contract.
Real Estate Litigation: Actions to resolve property or contract disputes.
Fraudulent Misrepresentation: One party lies to get another party into a contract with the other.
Negligent Misrepresentation: One party makes false statements to close a deal

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Probate And Trust Administration

Probate Administration: Probate administration in Florida can vary depending on several factors. In some cases, an expedited summary administration may be possible.
Formal Administration: Formal administration requires the appointment of a personal representative, and it is required that the personal representative have an attorney.
Summary Administration: A Summary Administration is a shortened form of Florida probate. It requires that the value of an estate, less the value of exempt property from creditors, is not more than $75,000.
Trust Administration: When a family member passes away, their estate and assets must be divided up between family members and beneficiaries.

Estate Planning

Probate: When your estate goes through probate you’ll need our help to resolve and move your case forward.
Summary Probate: Abbreviated Florida probate that doesn’t require personal representative where total value of assets minus creditor claims and exemptions doesn’t exceed $75,000.
Formal Probate: When an estate must be opened by filing a petition for a hearing in probate court which may need involvement of the court. Necessary when an original will can’t be found.
Guardianship: Guardianship cases handled are for relatives who have dementia or have been physically incapacitated due to an accident or an illness.
Estate Planning Documents: Preparation of all estate planning documents which includes:
- Wills
- Trusts
- Living Wills
- Living Trust
- Powers of Attorney
- Asset Protection
- Advance Health Care Directives
Business Succession: Who and what will come with the next generation of your business and how will you turn it over without disruption?
Business Sales: Prepare the sale of your business with a legal team to support plans for profitability and ownership transition

Mediation

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Additional Legal Services

Appeals
Arbitration
Business Organization Disputes (Between LLCs, Shareholders, Partnerships)
Breach of Contract
Commercial Litigation
Commercial Landlord/Tenant Disputes
Contract Disputes
Corporate Law
Defamation
Estate Planning
Employment-related disputes

Employment Law – Employee or Management
Fraud
Guardianship
Investor or Start-up Disputes (between investors in start-up ventures, partnerships, corporations, limited liability companies)
Litigation – Banking & Finance
Litigation – Environmental Litigation – Labor & Employment
Litigation – Land Use & Zoning
Litigation – Real Estate

Trust Administration
Trust Litigation
Estate and Probate Litigation
Probate
Probate Administration
Mediation
Non-Compete and Non-Solicitation Agreements
Real Estate Partnership Disputes
Tortious or Intentional Interference with Contractual or Advantageous Relations
Litigation – Mergers & Acquisitions

Cases From Plaintiffs and Defendants

Reed Bloodworth accepts cases from plaintiffs and from defendants. Plaintiff clients are offered several payment methods to begin cases including: hourly fees, project fee, contingency or a hybrid fee structure.
Defendant clients are offered hourly fees or project fees to begin a case.

Reed feels it’s important clients understand the various outcomes when litigation on an issue begins. While a client often wants to sue an opposing party–which can become expensive and lengthy–there may be alternatives better suited to reach client goals. Reed forms a team with clients to pursue the desired outcome on a case.

When a business dispute incites legal action, or a problem or action arises involving a trust or an estate, learn your options. Reed invites you to ask questions and provides answers you’ll understand.

Talk about your legal problems in a formal consultation by calling Reed at 407-777-8541 or send questions to attorney Reed Bloodworth at Reed@LawyerFightsForYou.com Work with a skilled attorney who you’re confident can and will help you in the area of law in which you’re having problems.

Business Litigation

Business litigation is a very common term which means civil litigation pertaining to a business. Very typical business litigation scenarios include:
A breach of contract
A shareholder or partnership dispute
Various business torts
Fraudulent misrepresentation
Negligent misrepresentation
Violation of trade secrets

Trust and Estate

I handle trust and estate litigation which means that I represent people who are beneficiaries or who should be beneficiaries in the realm of trusts and in wills, or in probate litigation. Typical causes of action include:
Undue Influence
Lack of Capacity
Tortious Interference with a Testamentary Expectancy

What are the 3 Stages of a Lawsuit?

Many people ask how a lawsuit “works” or progresses. I tell clients that the case varies and that no case can be compared to yours. Facts in every case vary so I thought I would answer the question: what are the 3 stages of a lawsuit?

First, when the lawsuit is filed, the lawsuit proceeds in three stages:
Pleadings Stage
Discovery Stage
Trial Stage

Pleadings Stage

The Complaint is Filed: You have your pleadings stage which is where we file a complaint stating what the other party did wrong.
We’re saying that someone did something wrong and that it caused physical harm or injury due the action taken by the other party. We file a complaint on behalf of you, the plaintiff, or defendant, in a formal complaint against the other party.
It may be against a business, an individual, a corporation, or even a government entity, but we’re stating that their actions or inactions caused injury to you through their negligence.
Defendant Response: The defendant will then have to file an answer in affirmative defenses.
Now, sometimes, defendants file a Motion to Dismiss, in which case we have to go to a Hearing. Occasionally we have to file an Amended Complaint. If that occurs we will attempt to prevail on our motion to dismiss and the defendant will have to file an answer in affirmative defenses. When that is filed that is the end of stage one of a case and the end of the Pleadings Stage.

Discovery Stage

The second stage is Discovery. The Discovery Stage is made up of:
Paper Discovery
Evidence
Questions

Paper discovery, meaning we go and attempt to gather up all the available information pertaining to your case.
Evidence and a lot of that evidence comes from a range of official sources, police records, contracts, paperwork signed by parties involved. Information provided in statements by witnesses, parties involved and we build a case.

The other thing we do is we’ll serve written questions to the defendant. Those are known as interrogatories and we make them answer those questions. Those are usually more basic questions such as who was involved.

What Happens in a Deposition?

The other standard discovery tool is a Deposition which I’m sure you’ve seen many times on TV. But what happens in a deposition? In a deposition, the attorney sits down with someone in the case, a witness in the case or a party in the case and asks a number of questions to lock in their testimony and get questions about the case answered.

The deposition involves the plaintiff, or the defendant, and their legal representation. Both parties may be represented, but you are not necessarily going to be seeing the defendant or the plaintiff. You are more likely to see the opposition’s attorney. The opposing counsel is allowed to ask you questions about what happened in the incident.
I will be at the deposition with you and I will prepare you for the deposition so that you understand what will happen. You will be asked questions and I will be there to raise objections should the opposing attorney become aggressive or ask questions that are not allowed.

The reason we do this is we want to know exactly what they’re going to say if and when we go to trial. If they attempt to say something different in trial we can then cross them with their previous testimony.

This is known as discovery. The opposing counsel has the right to find out what you will say in a court of law should the case go to trial. Stories must be exact and should not change.

Settlement

Sometimes a case will be settled out of court and resolved in an early Settlement. There is no way to know whether this will happen or what the amount will be.
A settlement involves negotiation between the two parties outside a courtroom and is usually involving attorneys: a plaintiff’s attorney vs. the defendant’s attorney who is often representing a business, an individual or a corporation or insurance company.
Sometimes when there is a disputed issue, mediation may be involved where both sides resolve differences by giving and taking to come to an agreed action or amount of money to right the wrong. But the goal is to resolve differences and settle on an amount that will be paid to the plaintiff for the wrong that occurred. When a settlement is not possible, the case goes to trial

Trial Stage

Summary Judgment
The Third Stage is the Trial Stage. In any case, if you don’t win a Summary Judgment the case will have to go to trial.
What is a Summary Judgment?
A Summary Judgment is when all of the facts in a case are agreed to by both sides and the only issue left to decide is one of pure law. A summary judgment ends the case.