It is quite common for lawyers to receive calls about defamation lawsuits from people who are having disputes with neighbors or other members of their community and have become the topic of brutal falsehoods. This type of conduct falls under the area of law called "defamation of character", a lawsuit which is generally defined as either "libel" or "slander."

Because reputation is an important part of the political and business worlds, the law of defamation was developed to protect people's reputations from unfair attack. The idea behind defamation law is to balance the public right to freedom of speech with the private right to protect one's reputation. People who say or publish false and malevolent comments may be sued under defamation law.

Typically, defamation is defined as the issuance of a false statement about an individual which results in that individual to suffer harm.

The two categories of defamation are oral defamation (called slander) and published defamation (called libel).

Besides word, pictures may also be considered as libel. Anything that injures an individual's reputation is considered defamation. Comments that result in a person's ridicule or disgrace are probably going to be considered defamation. Many people make statements that could qualify as defamation almost every day without realizing it. However, rarely does anyone use the law of defamation against this type of statement.

Generally, the components of a defamation lawsuit include:

a false statement concerning another which severely damages the reputation;

the publication of the unprivileged statement to a third party;

if the defamatory issue is a matter of public concern, fault amounting to negligence on the part of the publisher; and,

irreparable defamatory damage to the plaintiff.

A statement is "published" when it is made to the third party in any form, in regards to defamation law. Publication does not necessarily mean that it was put in print. Many jurisdictions also acknowledge "per se" defamation, which is the type of defamation where the accusations are presumed to cause harm to the plaintiff.

Usually, the following issues may establish defamation per se:

assaults on an individual's professional standing;

alleging that an individual is infected with a sexually transmitted disease;

alleging that a single person is immoral; and alleging that the person has committed a crime of moral depravity.

Typically, the threat of a defamation lawsuit precedes its filing. A certified letter may be sent to the faulty party requesting that the statement be retracted instead of being sued. Many threats of defamation lawsuits are made; however, most of them do not lead to a defamation lawsuit. The simple threat is generally enough to keep someone from making further statements or publish a retraction.

A hearing before a judge or jury is required if a defamation lawsuit goes to court. Most defamation lawsuits are settled out of court either by monetary compensation, a published retraction or both. Due to the exorbitant cost of legal advice, most people will not sue for defamation. Battling a wealthy opponent in a courtroom will cause many people to run the other way. This is because defamation lawsuits can go on for years due to appeals which make lawyer fees enormous, leaving only the wealthy to pursue cases to the end.

Therefore, defamation lawsuits are often filed by the wealthy influential to prevent criticisms. Regular people who have been attacked unfairly rarely find defamation law helpful.

Contacting a lawyer experienced in defamation law may be a wise decision if you are wishing to pursue a defamation lawsuit because the defamation attorney can determine if a defamation case is legitimate. Generally, damages awarded are due to the marred reputation of the plaintiff. However, the laws of the jurisdiction may allow damages for mental anguish as well.

Think carefully before filing a Defamation Lawsuit. Although those targeted by falsehoods are angry enough to file a defamation lawsuit, there are many good reasons not to file a defamation lawsuit.

First, a defamation lawsuit results in publicity that may create an even larger audience for the lies against the victim's reputation than before the defamation lawsuit was pursued. In other words, if a newspaper runs a story about the defamation lawsuit, false statements that were before only known to few people can suddenly be known to the whole community, nation or the world. Since the media is more likely to cover the defamation lawsuit rather than its ultimate outcome, it may be that large numbers of people hear the damaging lies, but never find out how whether or not the statements were accurate.

Public Figures Due to the ruling set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in New York Times v Sullivan in 1964 regarding the First Amendment, when a public figure wishes to pursue a defamation lawsuit, the public figure must prove the additional component that the statement was made with "actual malice." This means that the individual making the statement knew the statement to be false and/or published the statement with disregard for its falsehood. A public figure may not be a celebrity or politician. An individual can become an involuntary public figure due to publicity, even if that individual did not invite or want the publicity.

For instance, those accused of high profile crimes may not be able to pursue a defamation lawsuit even if their innocence is established because the publicity of the case and the accusations against them made them into involuntary public figures.