A lawsuit is a single case — one claim brought by one party against another. Litigation is the whole process of resolving disputes through the courts, and can cover many cases, years of procedure, and everything around them. You file a lawsuit; you are engaged in litigation.
The core difference
- lawsuit — a countable thing: she filed a lawsuit, three lawsuits were consolidated
- litigation — the activity, usually uncountable: the company is in litigation, years of litigation
A lawsuit is an event in the process; litigation is the process.
The test
Try putting a number in front of it. "Two lawsuits" is normal; "two litigations" is not — litigation behaves like traffic or research, a mass noun describing an ongoing activity.
The words around them
- claim — the assertion of a right; also the whole case in British usage, where claimant replaced plaintiff
- suit — the older short form of lawsuit, still standard in legal writing
- action — a formal court proceeding; "a civil action" is close to "a lawsuit"
- proceedings — the formal steps of a case, from filing to judgment
The people
In the United States a case runs between a plaintiff and a defendant. In England and Wales the party bringing a civil claim is the claimant, a change made in 1999 to use plainer language; defendant stayed the same. A litigator is a lawyer who conducts cases, as distinct from one who mainly drafts documents or advises.
What litigation includes that a lawsuit does not
Litigation covers the parts that happen before and around any filing: pre-action correspondence, disclosure of documents, negotiation, appeals and enforcement. Most disputes described as "in litigation" settle without ever reaching a trial.
