Litigation Lawyers in Thailand.

Contract and commercial. Breach of contract, debt recovery, and shareholder fights are the bulk of the work; see contract disputes.

Property and construction. Boundary, title, lease, and building-defect claims run as property disputes.

Employment. Dismissal and severance claims go to the Labour Court; see employment and labour.

Debt and insolvency. Recovery, restructuring, and bankruptcy and insolvency run through the Bankruptcy Court.

Tax and IP. Tax disputes and intellectual property claims go to their specialised courts.

Injury and family. Personal injury and accident claims, and contested divorce and other family matters, round out the mix.

Court litigation is public, follows the Civil Procedure Code, and can run through three levels of court. Arbitration is private, often faster for commercial matters, and binding. Where a contract contains an arbitration clause, the dispute usually has to go to arbitration rather than to court, so the clause is one of the first things a lawyer checks.

Thailand has two main arbitration bodies: the Thai Arbitration Institute, which sits under the Office of the Judiciary, and the Thailand Arbitration Center. Both run e-arbitration systems, and arbitration is governed by the Arbitration Act B.E. 2545 (2002). A litigation lawyer represents a client in arbitration or mediation as well as in court.

Most disputes do not reach a full trial. Court-annexed mediation, and private settlement, resolve a large share once the documents and the amount in dispute are clear. When a case does run its course, a contested matter at the Court of First Instance often takes 12 to 24 months, and an appeal adds more.

Court filing fees are charged as a percentage of the amount claimed, up to a statutory cap, and are paid when the claim is filed. Timing also matters in another way: limitation periods under the Civil and Commercial Code can bar a claim that is left too late. The general period is ten years, with shorter periods for certain claims, so a delayed dispute is worth checking early.

Winning is not the end; collecting is a separate step. A Thai court judgment is enforced through the Legal Execution Department, which can seize and auction a debtor's assets to satisfy the judgment.

For foreign parties, the key rule is the difference between a judgment and an award. A foreign court judgment is not directly enforceable in Thailand: to rely on it, a party has to bring a fresh suit in a Thai court and prove the claim again, with the foreign judgment as evidence only. A foreign arbitral award is different. Thailand is a party to the New York Convention, so foreign awards are recognised and enforced under the Arbitration Act B.E. 2545 (2002), and a Thai court can refuse only on narrow grounds.

That gap is why international contracts with a Thai party so often choose arbitration: the result is far easier to enforce here.