There’s a common misconception out there in America that I find myself discussing with clients on an almost daily basis. I thought it might be a good idea to write an article for anyone who might also be suffering from the same lack of information that many of my clients were suffering from before they came to Cowden Law.
Almost everyone has been wronged by another person at some point in their lives. And as a result of this wrong, they’ve either been injured or lost money or both. The law provides remedies to those who have been wronged in most cases. The question faced by anyone who finds himself in the position of having been hurt or taken advantage of is whether he should sue the responsible party or not. The purpose of this article is to give some basic guidelines to help the reader determine whether he or she should use the courts and/or an attorney to help right a wrong.
Law firms come in many sizes, from a solo attorney working alone to a worldwide firm with hundreds or maybe even thousands of lawyers with many more support staff and administrative personnel. Some firms have offices only in a certain region (the Southeast, for example) of the country and some have offices in every state. Some small firms have small satellite offices in other cities of the same state but only staff one office full time. If you have a legal issue and you need an attorney, which size firm is best for you? This article will help point you in the right direction.
I have read many times that the number one complaint filed with the Florida Bar concerns attorneys not returning the phone calls of their clients. I assume if this is the number one complaint filed with the Bar, it means that it happens a lot and it happens with lawyers in all kinds of firms, large and small. Being an attorney myself, I felt I might be in a position to take a close look at this phenomenon and offer some advice to clients who find themselves in the frustrating position of needing to speak with their attorney and not being able to contact them for whatever reason. To do this properly, I must first differentiate the attorney who is busy and cannot return phone calls, from the attorney who is negligent and doesn’t return phone calls but could.
Depending on the type of legal case you have or the circumstances of your case, you might have to make a decision about whether to settle your case or not at some point along the way. This point can come right at the beginning of the case, the middle of the case, or even during trial. It can come up more than once during the process. When it does come up, every attorney hears the same question from her or his client: “Should I settle?”
The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth - Otherwise Known As: Tell Your Lawyer Everything
Dr. Gregory House of the popular television show House says, “Everyone lies.” In his show, he’s always right, the patients always withhold some key piece of information that keeps the doctors from properly diagnosing them, and it always results in them being brought to death’s doorstep until the mystery of the lie is uncovered. Some lawyers would agree with Dr. House about the clients they see in their practices. It seems as though no matter how many times they tell their clients to give them all the information, there’s always some important fact that gets left out of their stories that threatens to change the way a case will go, sometimes significantly.
When the market in Florida was going gangbusters, a lot of people decided to invest in real estate and signed contracts for condos or homes in subdivisions that weren’t going to be completed for two years or in some cases longer. Now that the market has had a steep decline, there are many buyers seeking to get out of their contracts and get their deposits back. Do they have any luck? You betcha they do. And here are some of the reasons why…
Most attorney/client relationships begin with an interview or consultation that can last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour on average. Of course there are many that are shorter and longer, but the attorneys I know offer either a half hour or hour for the initial meeting. Read More
I have seen it happen a lot. A client comes to me and says they have a legal issue that has come up in another state, often connected to a will or probate situation or a property issue, and they need a lawyer’s help. What many clients don’t realize is that the laws of other States can be completely, 180 degrees different than they are here in Florida. They also don’t realize that an attorney must be licensed in a particular state to practice law there, and it is considered practicing the law of a state to give advice on that state’s laws, regardless of where you are physically when you do it. So what’s a person to do in this situation? Well, there are two good avenues to follow.
You may have heard the term “retainer” used different ways. That’s because it can mean different things. Actually, it typically means one of two things. I’ll call these two things or types of retainers the retainer in trust and the true retainer (otherwise known as the “classic retainer”). Read More