UkConstitution

The Supreme Court recently ruled that it is legal for contracted attorneys in special cases to use Attorney General’s letterhead. You may be scratching your head and asking yourself: Why did this case make it all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States? Don’t the Justices have bigger things to worry about?

Believe it or not, as an Attorney who sues debt collectors for a living, this is a very important case. Suing debt collectors and debt collection law firms can be very tricky. We use a ‘least sophisticated’ consumer standard in most of these cases. So, when evaluating any debt collection activities, we must put ourselves and our clients in the shoes of the least sophisticated consumer.

The case brought to the Supreme Court questioned whether or not it was legal for contract attorneys (hired to collect state debts) to use Attorney General’s letterhead when sending out debt collection letters.

The Issue
The reason why this case was brought up with the Supreme Court is that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) states that third-party debt collectors cannot mislead or deceive consumers when collecting consumer debt. Some people believed that using letterhead not belonging to the lawyers responsible for collection state debt was deceitful to the least sophisticated consumer.

However, the Supreme Court has found that this practice is not deceitful, since these lawyers do represent the state. The court noted and found the following to be true in this case:

“Special counsel create no false impression in doing just what they have been instructed to do… use of the Attorney General’s letterhead conveys on whose authority special counsel writes to the debtor.”

What the Law Does Protect Against
It is still unlawful for any third party debt collector to try and collect a debt using measures of deceit. The case above demonstrated that the debt collectors did not violate any laws, but any debt collector masquerading as someone else or something else is illegal. Even though I really don’t like to see a consumer lose a case to a debt collector, I believe that the Supreme Court made the proper ruling.

This case is an important one, since it does draw a line in the sand between what is legal when it comes to the Fair Debt Collection Act and what is clearly misleading and illegal. If you believe that someone is trying to collect a debt by violating the Fair Debt Collection Act, be sure to contact a reputable, trusted attorney.

If you believe that someone is trying to collect a debt by violating the Fair Debt Collection Act, make sure to call us today. We can help! 239-939-0900 or http://www.DellutriLawGroup.com.

Civil law is one of those subjects many people don’t know much about (no, watching those court TV shows is no substitute for actually learning what civil law is), and yet it affects them every day. If you’re ever involved in litigation, you may need to hire a civil lawyer.

What Is Civil Law Anyway?

Civil law deals with dispute resolution. This covers a broad range of specific areas, and civil lawyers (a.k.a. litigants) generally specialize in one or two practices. A civil defense attorney can be found in the courtroom representing a defendant in a medical malpractice suit and the next day they might deal with a dispute concerning environmental law.

Think of it this way: Many centuries ago, you might have witnessed two champions, each selected by someone involved in a dispute, fighting each other. The champion who won the fight essentially won the dispute for the person who hired them. These champions, assuming they survived, might have gone on to work for another person who had an entirely different dispute to settle.

Today’s litigants act in a very similar capacity, but without the literal bloodshed and the clanging of weapons on shields. Note that civil law concerns matters which do not include criminal charges like murder, armed theft, arson, and so on. That’s the realm of the criminal lawyer.

Under What Circumstances Should I Hire A Civil Defense Lawyer?

Before you start calling and sending out emails, it is best to try and understand exactly what a civil law attorney does in their job.

Civil lawyers represent clients in lawsuits as opposed to criminal trials. In general, one lawyer won’t practice both civil and criminal law. A victim has to hire their own civil lawyer, which means you’re not entitled to a lawyer provided by the court in a civil case.

If litigation concerns money at stake, you want a civil lawyer. You won’t go to jail if you lose a civil suit, so stick with a litigant. (Talking of which, a civil lawyer can represent either defendants or plaintiffs.)

You may have heard the term “insurance defense lawyer.” This refers to an attorney who specializes in representing defendants in civil cases regarding insurance claims. They are often hired by insurance companies to represent a business or individual who has been sued on a claim covered by an insurance policy.

If you are looking to fight an injunction – a court order that prevents a defendant from engaging in a certain activity – you will want to get a civil law attorney.

Are you in need of a skilled civil lawyer? Call The Law Office Of Philip Averbuck. Their Office has the experience and skills you need for a successful defense. Also Check out our new page on Civil Law.

Even the most diligent employers occasionally require the services of a lawyer to help navigate tough employment law issues. These issues can crop up at any time, so companies should be prepared to face them with the legal assistance of an employer defense attorney.

Employee Classifications

Employers who incorrectly classify their employees may face legal action or hefty fines. For example, classifying staff members as individual independent contractors instead of employees could cause an employer to be sued by employees who feel that they are not correctly classified. The guidance of a lawyer during the classification process can help in avoiding such incidents.

Representation in Court

Employment lawsuits are complex and can take months or longer to resolve, especially if the involved parties are not cooperative. An employer defense attorney can save time by attending required court hearing sessions so the client can continue to run his or her business. The lawyer will also take care of collecting and preserving evidence for the case.

Reviewing of Agreements and Contracts

Clauses in contracts and agreements can be used as the basis for filing a court case. A lawyer can review the contract to make sure that all the necessary legal terms are correctly applied and are enforceable in court. In addition, the lawyer can give you insights on when to use the contracts to safeguard your company from legal problems. For example, issuing an employment contract to every new employee before a suitability evaluation is done could spell trouble for the business.

Review Handbooks and Policies

A lawyer can check the employee handbook and company policies in-depth to ensure that none of the statements or policies violate state or federal law or create unintended obligations. After thoroughly reviewing the documents, the lawyer may recommend implementation of additional policies to safeguard the business from legal issues.

An employer defense attorney can also review employment decisions-especially those that affect a significant number of the staff members-before they are implemented. Examples of decisions that require the intervention of a lawyer include a change of pension plan, discontinuing an employee benefit, and laying off some of the employees.

First Line of Defense

Finally, an attorney can deal with some of the often overlooked facts of day-to-day business – such as reviewing licenses, intellectual property violations, and potential tax liabilities – and act as a company’s first line of defense against malicious lawsuits. The legal advice and recommendations provided by attorneys will help avoid lurking legal cases and streamline the operations of the company.

To learn more about their options for an employer defense attorney, Ohio residents should visit http://bricker.com/industries-practices/employment-labor.

If you have a problem with the buzz-word “Equality” you are not alone. It’s being bantered so often now, it’s hard to tell if the definition of the word actually means anything. It’s even hard to say if it is good or not. Let me explain if you will.

People will say they want equality and then name some minority group that appears to have been given unfair treatment, and yet, when we look into it, we find the people screaming Equality the loudest are suggesting that the specific minority group get some sort of advantage over others in other categories – which by definition is the opposite of equality. See the problem. The same thing happens when people scream racism towards whites and then seek to punish them because they are white – which is also racism.

Then there is the funny phenomena about free speech and diversity which goes something like this; “Shut up, you can’t say that, it’s mean towards [fill in the blank here] minority group!” No matter if you yourself are in a minority group of another kind, suddenly you are denied your free-speech. At some point Americans need to throw away their hypocrisy – and I have a suggestion – something you might wish to think about:

“We should always endeavor to celebrate our diversity, but never go so far as to force it” – Lance 2015

Regarding “Legal Equality” yes, I agree, everyone must operate under the same set of laws. That includes everyone, no advantages for anyone merely because they are in a minority group, or are playing victim.

Sometimes we have too many laws designed to protect stupid people from themselves, and if we continue to make more and more laws like this, eventually only a stupid person will want to live in this society.

Further, it does appear to me anyway, that since some people are better at some things and some better at others – due to genetics, fast-twitch muscle fiber, different brain structure, etc. – that we need to be careful with calling for a definition of “Equality” to ensure equal outcome, because then all you have is a communist state – more like the Borg. Some people are just better at some things.

Regarding “Human+” some humans are just better at most everything, math, athletics, healthiness, symmetrical facial features, spatial reasoning, language, uptake of new concepts, etc. These humans we could drop into a remote village in China at age 5, by age 15 they’d be running the place.

Some people, humans, are really good at so very little, and regardless of reason; genetics, nurture, indoctrination, media, education, diet, lifestyle, neighborhood, choices, belief systems, there is little use to help them “wake up” to become great at whatever it is they are doing. Although you can help them become as good as they are possibly able through de-programming and re-programming – how you go about this is also problematic, as you are determining their outcome by your standards – military boot camp for instance, or religious brainwashing, etc.

If you want true equality under the law, let everyone compete, let the best person get the job or into a specific college program and let life’s circumstances and realities rule the day. Thanks for listening to this short dialogue.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on the Future of Education. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net.

Law implies order and restraint and can act to deter war, whereas war means the absence of both. Efforts to regulate war are as old as war itself. Nations have always strived to limit the conduct of war with legal codes right from the ancient times. Proponents of such efforts assume that bringing war within the bounds of rational rules may somehow “humanize” war and control its brutalities. History reveals us that the development of a more elaborate legal regime has preceded apace with the increasing savagery and destructiveness of modern war. It also supports the view that ancient wars were lawless and had legal codes with humanitarian provisions similar to the modern laws of war. Nevertheless, the two World Wars lacked features of humanitarian law. They saw the law subverted to the dictates of battle, reduced to a propaganda battlefield where belligerents organized attacks and counter-attacks. Ultimately, the law failed to protect civilians from horrifying new weapons and tactics. Both the World Wars exhibited the inadequacy of the existing laws of war to prevent the frequent commission of wartime atrocities.

Today, International humanitarian law (IHL) provides a distinction between laws governing the resort to force (jus ad bellum) and laws regulating wartime conduct (jus in bello). Jus in bello is further divided into ‘the humanitarian laws’ (the Geneva laws), which protect specific classes of war victims such as prisoners of war and ‘the laws of war’ (the Hague laws), which regulate the overall means and methods of war. It is noteworthy, that the Geneva laws served the interests of the more powerful nations.

The ‘humanitarian laws’ and the ‘laws of war’ displays the interests of those nations that dominated the international conferences where these laws were drafted. The Humanitarian laws are characterized by strict prohibitions, whereas the Hague laws are vaguely worded and permissive with less regard for humanitarian consequences. It is important to understand that with the development of these legal principles, war has long been limited largely by factors independent of the law. For complex military, political, and economic reasons, belligerents tend to use the minimal force necessary to achieve their political objectives.

A detailed understanding pertaining to that requires an in-depth knowledge of the role of law in deterring wartime atrocities. By sanctioning military necessity, the laws of war ask that only belligerents act in accord with military self-interests. Belligerents who meet this requirement receive in return a powerful platform to convince and to protect their controversial conduce from humanitarian challenges. Moreover, the capacity of the laws of war to subvert their own humane rhetoric carries an implicit warning for future attempts to control wars, the promotion of supposedly humane laws may serve the purposes of under strained violence.

Rousseau rightly quotes: “the aim of war is to subdue a hostile state, a combatant has the right to kill the defenders to that state while they are armed; but as soon as they lay down their arms and surrender, they cease to be either enemies or instruments of the enemy; they become simply men once more, and no one has any longer the right to take their lives. War gives no right to inflict any more destruction than is necessary for victory.” In this way, Rousseau turned to reason as the basis for the law of war. The modern laws of war however claim precedent in the chivalric practices of medieval era. A more in-depth view of this era, however, finds the same coexistence of law and atrocities.

It is very crucial that the laws of war should be revised and re-codified from time to time taking into consideration the provisions under the Charter of the settlement of international disputes, which prohibits use of force. War not only affects the combatants but also the civilians and in most of the cases, the nature of the war is such that observance of the rules of war becomes impossible. Hence, there is a need for enforcement of human rights during war more specifically for protecting the civilian population. Where power prevails over law, it is the fundamental function of law to help in asserting the authority of power. In a varied and distinct ways, International humanitarian law aptly serves that purpose.

Author is a doctoral scholar at the Faculty of Law, University of Münster, Germany