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Current matter: subcontractors unpaid on stalled build-outs. See the fixed fee for a lien claim
Current matter: subcontractors unpaid on stalled build-outs. See the fixed fee for a lien claim
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Ravenel Fairclough
Send the papers
Send the papers
Ottoline Ravenel, in glasses and a grey suit, against a black backdrop

Ottoline Ravenel

Founding partner

Leads the firm's contract cases and tries most of the cases that reach a courtroom.

Ottoline started the firm after years of commercial litigation billed by the hour, where clients learned what a case cost only after it was over. She built the stage-by-stage fee schedule the firm still uses. She takes contract cases for both sides and leads most of the firm's trials, where she is known for short openings and long preparation.

Cases

  • Breach of contract
  • Unpaid invoices and accounts
  • Non-competes and trade secrets
  • Jury and bench trials
Write to OttolineRead the fee schedule

Ottoline's bar admissions, courts and schooling

  • Bar admissions

    • North Carolina

      2008

    • South Carolina

      2011

  • Courts

    • U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina

    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

  • Education

    • J.D., Wake Forest University School of Law

    • B.A., Davidson College

  • Languages

    • English

    • French

  • Memberships

    • Mecklenburg County Bar, Litigation Section

How Ottoline runs a case

She reads the contract before she reads anyone's account of it, and asks clients to do the same. Most of her cases are decided by two or three sentences in the agreement, and the first call is spent finding them.

She prepares every case for trial from the start and says so to the other side. In her experience that is what brings a fair offer to the mediation table.