Ask a Lawyer

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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby DamianaRaven » Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:20 am

Give the man some more details, Shuai! I'm no legal expert, but as a fairly regular breaker of the law, tell your student to tell her friend not to be bringing her drugs to summer camp. If you're young enough to be going to summer camp, you ain't old enough to be getting high! If you think you are, at least leave your shit at home. If you can't do that, you've got a problem and should seek help before school authorities catch you with drugs. Meanwhile, flushie flushie!
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby ShuaiGuy » Fri Jul 24, 2015 1:42 pm

<Redacted>
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby Beernpotatoes » Mon Jul 27, 2015 4:41 pm

I'd have to know who owned the dorms the kids were staying in, what the terms of the agreement were for the kids to stay in the dorms, etc. I'd have to know the specifics of the searches, what the stated basis was, etc. Whenever you have non-police persons conducting police actions under color of law, the specific details become very important.
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby ShuaiGuy » Tue Jul 28, 2015 4:35 am

<Redacted>
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby PSTN » Wed Jul 29, 2015 8:26 am

You said that layers have to pass a state bar exam. What does this mean for federal court? Like, is there a separate license, or do all state bars by necessity include federal laws as well?

Also, is it true that if I manage to take the judges gavel, I become the judge, and now he's on trial?
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby Matthew Notch » Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:28 pm

I have need of a lawyer... maybe.

Spoiler: show
The way it is: I'm unemployed right now. I was working as a delivery person for a third party logistics provider, installing appliances for a big box electronics store. From the start this store, or specifically the general manager of the particular store I was serving, had a hostile relationship toward my company. And to be fair, they brought in people who were not particularly well-trained, didn't equip them with the tools they needed to do their jobs very well (my trainer finally bought us some tools about the second week, and then we got more tools when an auditor from the company came and bought us some much later on), and didn't even supply me with more than one uniform shirt until after my first helper got himself fired.

In the incident in which my first helper got fired, he backed into a power pole on the customer's private property against the orders of his trainer. This was only the latest in a series of customer complaints against him, but in this case we were advised by my company not to let the general manager know what had happened--she "didn't need to know". Perhaps it was a failing on my part, but that rubbed me the wrong way, and anyway I worried that she would catch wind of the incident from some other channel, and we'd all be in worse trouble, so I filled her in, and that directly led to my associate's termination.

In the just over three months I worked there we had an auditor from the company to monitor our performance, not once, not twice, but three times, all at the general manager's request. And every time we were told that we were doing a fine job and that the GM was just being too picky. By the time the third auditor had come and gone, I was on my third helper; my second got himself fired for making racist remarks in the GM's earshot. About a week after the third auditor left, we were assigned to deliver a full kitchen and laundry room's worth of appliances, and we were set behind an unreasonable quoted delivery time, which had been changed three times between the store and the customer without our knowledge. Essentially, the customer was already angry enough before I called her to tell her we were unfortunately running behind her quoted time. Although she warmed up to us greatly when she saw just how much work we had to do delivering and installing her appliances, I'm not sure her husband had the best impression of us either. That may or may not be why, the following Monday, I received a call from the regional manager of my company informing me that our contract with the store had been terminated without notice by the GM.

All that is maybe neither here nor there. The bottom line is, I have since applied for unemployment insurance, but I am still owed a check for a final couple days' salary and reimbursements for supplies, fuel, and tools I bought on my own dime to do my job. It has now been over a month and I have not seen that check. My regional manager told me it should be coming to me in paper form, but that I am definitely owed the check. It's in my text messages. The last time I tried to reach out to him, I received no response.

I don't know if this adds anything to a potential case, but I was also told, within the first couple weeks of working that job, that I was promised a different job on a different contract with the same company if I could just hang in there until the contract was finalized. See, I had put in my two weeks' early on because... well, the reasons I already mentioned above. I just had a bad feeling about the company, but after I was made that offer, I decided to stick around. Now I wish I hadn't, because that Monday, the day I was told we were out of work, I asked about the other contract, and apparently the owner of the company had had second thoughts about that without my knowledge, claiming that he worried I was a flight risk because I had put in my notice so early. I don't know how else I could have proven my loyalty than by working 70 hour work weeks of backbreaking labor for a store whose general manager reeeeeally wanted to see me fired in spite of that, and all for $500 a week. I was paid on salary, so in the end I made less than minimum wage per hour. Also, my income was taxed, so I suspect that I should have been paid overtime by DOL laws. But I don't know for sure.

I don't know anything for sure, really. This is why I am asking whether I should consult or hire a lawyer.
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby sunglasses » Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:31 pm

I am not a lawyer, as you well know Notch. But I think you need to contact a lawyer. And maybe report the company. It sounds like they violated some laws.
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby Matthew Notch » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:35 pm

Okay, now here's another, probably stupid question... how do I contact a lawyer? I mean do I just look one up in the Yellow Pages? Is there some sort of legal resource that could PUT me in contact with a lawyer suited to my needs? I have never used a lawyer and I'm not sure I could hire one because, once again, poor as hell.
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby ghijkmnop » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:52 pm

Redacted
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby Beernpotatoes » Fri Aug 21, 2015 12:33 am

Notch:

One good method is to contact your state's bar association. Most state bar associations have a referral service that will help you find an attorney in your area that practices the specific type of law that you need.
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Can't a guy screw someone out of an honest buck without getting a big hassle?
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby DoglovingJim » Thu Sep 10, 2015 11:59 am

How much do you know about Australian law? How different is it from American law?

And consecutive sentencing??? I mean what's the deal with sentencing people to 300+ years in prison when they are obviously not going to live that long? Wouldn't it be simpler to just say "you're going to remain in jail until you die"?

Unless... The Time Lords from Gallifrey are truly among us...
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby jbobsully11 » Thu Aug 25, 2016 1:15 am

I wasn't sure if I should post this here or in your car thread, but I guess it doesn't matter. I alluded to these events before, but I don't think I've ever told the whole story on here. This happened over five years ago, but I'm just wondering...

If you get your car fixed (for the second time in a few weeks after nothing changed the first time), and on a highway a few hours after getting it back, it fails catastrophically (meaning it stalls out, catches on fire, and rolls backwards downhill on an interstate and also the brakes stop working), and someone rear-ends you as you try to guide the car to the shoulder and hopefully hit the curb and not die, whose fault is it?

The first cop that showed up on the scene said that aside from not putting on my hazards when things started to go downhill to hell, there really wasn't anything else I could've done (EDIT: And the only reason I didn't turn them on was because I couldn't find the stupid button in the two seconds from the time I tried stepping on the gas pedal a little harder and the time I felt the car start rolling backwards). Unfortunately, he had to call a state trooper. That guy didn't even get out of his car, and the police report seemed like it was all wrong (including the picture). I added a statement to it from my perspective, but when I brought it back, I was told it made no legal difference to what was written down.

And does it change things if the other driver lies through his teeth and tells his insurance company you were driving backwards and they believe him? (That's a whole other story, if you want me to tell you more about it.)

Background information spoilered below:
Spoiler: show
Late that spring, sometimes (with no discernible pattern), when someone would start my sister's car, the engine would turn over and then immediately stall out. This happened in fair weather, on flat ground, at any time of the day, with no other obvious issues. If we tried to start it again, the same thing would happen until we gave up. Maybe a few hours later, someone would try it again, and the car would work fine. Other days, the car would start up on the first try and run with no issues.

When we had our landlord/mechanic (a terrible combination, btw) tow it to his garage, he said there was something in the gas tank that shouldn't have been there, and also the transmission fluid (I think) was low fuel pump was broken. A few hundred dollars later, my sister had her car back. It worked fine for maybe a week, and then the same problem started up. We took it back to his place, and he had it for close to a month. On the morning in question, he called us and said that the car was ready. It worked fine going from his garage to my house.
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby DoglovingJim » Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:19 pm

Do you prefer the adversary system or the inquisitive system, feel free to evaluate all of the strength and weaknesses associated with both systems and summarise which not only is the one you prefer but is the most effective. Naturally I expect a minimum of around 1500 words?

And also I'd like several paragraphs (short response form) on top of the 1500 word evaluation, I'd like these paragraphs to be on the subject of how these systems were formed. Being a bit of a history fiend this kind of thing fascinates me (I have suspicions that the inquisitive system as it is used by the French originated from the Jacobin party during the terror, and also that the adversary system may have came from the Saxons).



(There we go, I asked the lawyer. If your answers are satisfactory I will print them out and add them to my journal of random facts that I collected from people.)
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Re: Ask a Lawyer

Postby Beernpotatoes » Tue Jan 30, 2018 1:49 am

Doglovingjim:

Competition usually produces the most thorough results. In an inquisitive system, there is, in my mind, too much pressure for the party advocates to reach consensus even at the expense of the client and, possibly, the truth. I know that the argument against the adversarial system is that it rewards the parties for hiding facts from the other side and for defensively blocking the truth. In practice, however, I have simply not seen that to be the case. Attorneys in our adversarial system are not obligated to help the other side, but any blocking or hiding of facts or evidence will lead to a swift loss of one's license to practice.

I have, however, seen what a bureaucratic machine can do once it get's rolling. In many criminal matters, for example, those involved often want a neat solution where the guilty party accepts responsibility and appropriate justice is meted out. That's often true where the guilty party isn't guilty at all. Pleading NOT GUILTY and demanding a trial are often looked upon as gumming up the works and clogging up the system. Too often a party is punished with harsher penalties if they refuse to admit to guilt and that is dangerous in a world where police and prosecutors take the shortcut of relying almost entirely on confessions and self-accusation to prove guilt. The statistics back that up - most prosecutors enjoy a conviction rate of about 90-95%. But if you remove cases with guilty pleas and confessions, that drops to almost 50%. Holy shit. Now imagine that there is no defense attorney stepping in to make sure that the conviction machine is actually convicting the right people and the only people involved are all vested in reaching a nice, satisfactory consensus.

Fear the machine.
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Can't a guy screw someone out of an honest buck without getting a big hassle?
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