Lawyers for both civil and criminal litigation and appeals are available in Boerne. A civil litigation is a dispute between two parties in which one demands money from the other in damages, rather than a punishment for a crime. A criminal litigation is exactly the opposite, and is for punishing wrongdoing with a jail term or something similar. The trials also happen in different courts, with the civil cases being tried in a civil court and a criminal case in the criminal court. Most lawyers specialize in a certain branch of the law, and you can pick the lawyer depending on your needs. Criminal litigation is brought by a state against an individual, and only an authorized government official, namely the prosecutor can initial criminal proceedings against someone. A civil case, on the other hand, can be between two parties who employ two different lawyers. The typical life cycle of a civil litigation is investigation, pleadings, discovery, pre-trial, trial, settlement and appeal. Out-of-court settlements for this are fairly common.