The Holidays

The Holidays, year’s end and the new year, a season of joy and celebration, touching here and there, the law in ways small and large is also a time to realize that having a good lawyer is a very good thing.  So here is some seasonal advice from your lawyer to ensure a joyful holiday season and a great new year.  

• If you have a business, an LLC or a corporation, now is the time to plan your year-end and new-year’s necessities.  Do you need to elect directors, appoint officers or approve the actions of officers during 2015?  Ed McGill can prepare your resolutions, review your contracts and help you to plan for a very prosperous and successful 2016.
• Avoid the doldrums of the new-year brought on by overspending in the holiday season.  It can feel good to spend money but January can be a hard month when the bills come due.  We are pounded with messages to remove the restraints of prudence and economy and, in the spirit of the season, let us spend, let us spend, let us spend.   But grave legal consequences can come from taking off all of the reasonable restraints.  Money is the biggest bone of contention in marriages and overspending and debt sometimes drive couples to the divorce lawyers or into bankruptcy.   It’s a hard thing to have a call from a client seeking services for divorce or because the client is in danger of bankruptcy.
• Watch your credit cards.  A greater number of transactions means a greater number of opportunities for the theft of your credit card information.  You might want to consider using services such as Apple Pay and Pay Pal in order to create an additional layer of security for your credit card accounts.  Check your credit card statements right away.  If you see any unrecognized transactions, contest the charges with your credit card provider and report any fraud immediately.  
• Guard your shopping bags, purses and wallets when in crowded places.  Unfortunately, this time of year is boon to purse-snatchers and other thieves.  Recovery from the immediate effects of such thefts is unlikely unless you have insurance that covers the losses.  If your wallet or purse is stolen, you might well need legal help to deal with the complex consequences of identity theft.
• Imbibing in the spirit of the season and holiday partying are time-honored customs. A good practice for job security is to limit yourself at an office party or at parties given by business associates.  Whatever the circumstances, Ed McGill, while prepared to do so, would prefer not to have to provide legal services to defend a client’s drunk driving case.  Accidents and bodily injury can raise the stakes to felony charges and insurance companies may not provide coverage for certain of the claimed money damages when injuries are caused by drunk driving.   Practice moderation and designate a driver.  If you or anyone you know is injured by another as a result of drunk driving or in any other circumstances, let Ed McGill know.  If he takes the case, he will make guilty party or his insurer pay and he will do it without any charge to his client unless and until a recovery is made.

The sun will return soon - days longer and then warmer.  Opportunities - family, friends, business - in a new year, 2016, will be upon us.  If there is anything that Ed McGill can do to help to make the new year better and more successful for you, just call.  

Content prepared by Edmond McGill. © Edmond McGill, 2015

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This message and the information presented here do not create or evidence an attorney-client relationship nor are they intended to convey legal advice or counsel.  You should not act upon this information without seeking advice from a qualified lawyer licensed in your own state or country who actually represents you. In this regard, you may contact The McGill Law Office and then representation and advice may be given if, and only if, attorney Edmond McGill agrees to do so in a written contract signed by him.

El Niño

How may times do you hear people remark on the extraordinary occurrence of weather, the temperature outside, ice, snow, wind and rain just being so different from the expected average.   If the average rainfall for January in San Francisco is 4.5 inches, shouldn’t San Franciscans expect 4.5 inches of rain this year?  Well, really it might be more reasonable to expect rainfall between 24 and 0 inches this year which is the range for January over the last 175 years – a period with extreme annual variability from which the average is drawn.  Averages are not reality.  Nature follows her own rules no matter how humans measure and cipher.

Modern meteorologists do have some predictive abilities, however, and this year 2015 – 2016, January rainfall might well be much higher than the average 4.5 inches.  That’s because, they say, El Niño is coming.   El Niño is a periodic weather pattern that brings raging storms, great winds, huge snow packs in the mountains that will fill water reserves to overflowing in the Spring and lots and lots of cold rain,  - much more rain than in any “average year”.

El Niño may break the terrible drought suffered by Californians these last few years but it will not break it with warm and gentle Mayday showers.   Gales and torrents, raging downpours with flooding waterways are the stuff of El Niño and, as happy as Californians may be with the end of the terrible drought, they are well advised to batten down their hatches and prepare for the hammer blows of a wet and windy winter.

Mudslides, flooding, storm damages and automobile accidents all come with the big storms of an El Niño winter.  The McGill Law Office stands ready to offer its services to you if your house or other property is injured or destroyed as a result of flooding or mudslides.  So often, these damages are the result of the negligence of other property owners in changes that they make to watercourses or because the responsible government improperly constructed or failed to maintain government water drainage systems.  Please see the article previously posted on this subject. 

You may have claims against other property owners, against the government or against your own insurance company for thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars and more.   The McGill Law office stands ready to represent you if you need to make these claims and to file and prosecute lawsuits on your behalf if that is necessary to make sure that you are completely compensated for any losses.  In many cases, compensation to the McGill Law Office can be made on a contingency basis and that means that you will not have to pay any fees up front and none at all unless and until a recovery has been made for you.

Unfortunately, with big storms, come more automobile accidents with damaged cars and injured people.  Take a look at the McGill Law office articles on the subject of automobile accidents and, if you or anyone you know is injured in an automobile accident, call Ed McGill.  

If you property has been damaged or you or anyone whom you know has been injured in an automobile accident, call Ed McGill.  I will be glad to speak to you free of charge to see if your case is a good fit for us to work together.

Content prepared by Edmond McGill. © Edmond McGill, 2015

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This message and the information presented here do not create or evidence an attorney-client relationship nor are they intended to convey legal advice or counsel.  You should not act upon this information without seeking advice from a qualified lawyer licensed in your own state or country who actually represents you. In this regard, you may contact The McGill Law Office and then representation and advice may be given if, and only if, attorney Edmond McGill agrees to do so in a written contract signed by him.

Jingle Bells

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle … “oh, wait that’s not the radio.  It’s the phone.  Who would be calling this time of night?  And on this of all nights – It’s the night before Christmas” “I don’t know George.  What time is it?”  “It’s 3:00 a.m.  Well, Dorothy, Merry Christmas.”  “Put it on the speaker George.  I want to know who is waking us up at 3:00 a.m. on Christmas morning.”

You are receiving a call from the county jail booking desk.  This is a collect call.  The caller is a person who has been arrested and booked into the jail.  You may accept the charges by pressing ‘one’ after the inmate identifies himself or herself.  The inmate calling is …”Georgina Crolla”. … If you do not wish to accept the charges for this call, hang up now or press ‘one’ now to accept the charges.

“Oh, no, George …”   “Mom, Dad …”

While the holidays can really be a wonderful time of year for families and friends, sharing good food, exchanging gifts and enjoying fellowship, ironically and tragically, it is also a time of year filled with social and legal problems.  People drink too much.  Sometimes they are arrested. Sometimes they cause accidents.  Some are the victims of accidents caused by drunk drivers.  Some are victims of the increased violence that occurs in holiday season.  Some are the victims of thefts, petty and large.   

We don’t know what charges Georgina is facing.  Perhaps she was at a Christmas Eve party and made the mistake of driving home after having a bit too much to drink.  Serious as this is, a misdemeanor drunk driving charge will have far less impact on Georgina’s life than a felony drunk driving if someone was hurt in an accident caused by Georgina’s impaired driving.  The McGill Law Office can help but Christmas dinner might still be stiff and uncomfortable for Georgina.

Georgina’s case is just one of the types of events that are seasonally increased during the holidays.  Stay tuned to read about other seasonal problems with which the McGill Law Office may be able to help you.

Enjoy the holidays. Be alert.  Stay safe and be happy.

Content prepared by Edmond McGill. © Edmond McGill, 2015

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This message and the information presented here do not create or evidence an attorney-client relationship nor are they intended to convey legal advice or counsel.  You should not act upon this information without seeking advice from a qualified lawyer licensed in your own state or country who actually represents you. In this regard, you may contact The McGill Law Office and then representation and advice may be given if, and only if, attorney Edmond McGill agrees to do so in a written contract signed by him.

JUDGEMENT DAY

Perhaps someone caused you to lose money by using sharp practices in a business deal.  Perhaps a former friend borrowed money from you and then did not pay you back.  Or maybe your car was damaged in an accident.  Maybe you were injured in that accident and you could not work for months.  You had to have surgery and you have still not fully recovered.  So you sued and you won.  Yippee!  You won. You have the judgment of the court, The Judgment of The Court, THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT.  Well, not so fast.  A judgment isn’t a check.  A judgment isn’t money.  You can’t deposit a judgment in the bank.  You can’t spend a judgment.

In Richard Parry’s blog posts to follow perhaps the most important thing that you will learn is that it is not enough to win a judgment in court against someone who owes you money.   You must execute the judgment.  You must convert the judgment into money.  

In times gone by you would have had some pretty powerful tools to make your debtor pay.  There used to be debtors’ prison.  Just prove that that dead beat did not pay a legitimate debt and have the sheriff throw him into jail until he or his friends or family pays up.   And then there was a time when that debtor would sell himself into bondage or slavery in order to pay the debt to you.  Marcus Monius Needius even became a gladiator in order to pay his debts.  Wow, just wave that judgment in the air, click your heals and say, “off to debtors’ prison for you” and see how fast you convert that court judgment into real money.

Even today your debtor may still be arrested and thrown into jail if he doesn’t show up in court or you might obtain a scary body attachment in the unhappy circumstances that the debtor avoids the processes that require the disclosure information about the debtor’s money and other assets.  But a debtor in jail is not a bank deposit either, so let me recommend that you read on and see what lawyer Richard Parry will tell you about how to transform your judgment into real money.

Content prepared by Edmond McGill. © Edmond McGill, 2015

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This message and the information presented here do not create or evidence an attorney-client relationship nor are they intended to convey legal advice or counsel.  You should not act upon this information without seeking advice from a qualified lawyer licensed in your own state or country who actually represents you. In this regard, you may contact The McGill Law Office and then representation and advice may be given if, and only if, attorney Edmond McGill agrees to do so in a written contract signed by him.