bar association of lawyers

remember, this is all done just as a filteringprocess so that you don't have to spend hours and hours trying to identify the other issuesthat you need to look at in a medical malpractice case. so now if there's a wrongful death matter,happened in a municipal hospital, you do not get the two year benefit. maximum is stillonly a year and 90 days. let's talk about cases involving babies. in cases involvingimproper delivery that occurs at birth, anybody here know how much time you have in new yorkto file suit for a brain damaged baby? in new york, you have 10 years from the dateof birth in which to file a lawsuit against a private doctor or private hospital. now,what happens again if this incident happened in a municipal hospital? do you get the benefit?well, the short answer is no. you still have

that limited time requirement. but, as always,there are exceptions and i'm not going to delve into the detailed exceptions here. ialso want to bring up two other types of cases that may arise, that you may learn about duringyour discussions with your potential clients. cases involved against the state of new york,as well as cases against the veterans administration. those are two separate entities that havetheir own quirky requirements. both of which require claims to be filed and then, a periodof time later, require you to file a lawsuit but you have to give them a period of timein which to investigate. so again, i just raised that to give you an idea that thoseare separate and have their own complex time frames and i'm not really going to go intothat here, right now. now, let me throw in

a couple of other wrenches because this happensall the time. anybody here familiar with the term 'foreign objects'? i'm not talking aboutaliens. i'm talking about things that are left inside your body during the course ofa procedure or during the course of surgery - things that should not be left there. howmuch time -- anybody here know -- how much time you have in which to file a lawsuit formedical malpractice when there is a foreign object left inside your body? shout it outif you know. anybody? okay. in order to evaluate how much time you have you have to answertwo questions. the first question is was this object left inside of you something that wasintended to remain inside of you? this is a very important question for the purposesof determining whether or not you are timely

in a foreign object case. if the matter wasnot intended to be left inside of you, then the injured victim has one year from the dateof discovering that object in which to bring a lawsuit. and i should add one word to that:they have one year from reasonably discovering that object, when they should have reasonablydiscovered that object within which to bring a lawsuit. so let me put that in context.let's say you have a hernia repair and during the course of closing up the procedure, thedoctor is sewing you up and the tip of the needle breaks off. it can happen. and thedoctor while he's doing it, it just breaks off and he's searching for it in the areawhere you're doing the surgery and for whatever reason he can't find that tip of the needle.he's looking, he's looking; he's spending

time. he gets a magnet. they can't find it;they can't identify it. and finally the doctor says, "you know what? nothing is going tohappen to this patient. i'm not even going to bother to tell her about it. it's goingto be fine." okay. what do you think happens? it's foreshadowing, you know what's goingto happen. three years later, the patient winds up having massive back pain. goes toher doctor, who sends her for x-rays and the doctor tells her "eureka! here's your problem.you've got a needle sticking in your back." she says, "a needle? how do i have a needlein my back? i had surgery three years ago for a hernia. they get the operative reportfrom the original surgery and the doctor clearly put in there "tip of the needle broke off.made efforts to try and find it. couldn't

find it. didn't think it would be a problem."have a nice day. so now she has to have surgery to get this needle removed. and now she comesto you and says, "can i bring a lawsuit. am i timely?" well, let's answer that originalquestion. was this needle tip something that was designed to be left inside of her bodyas part of the hernia repair surgery? the answer is no. okay? it was designed to beused for the surgery but not to be left inside. and as a result of that, she would then onlyhave one year from the date of discovering that within which to bring a lawsuit.

bar association number

>> back with you, joined by the president of the oklahoma bar ssociation yard we have been talking about the nomination of scott pruitt to the head of the epa and they were very happy about his endorsement and said he would do good things for

oklahoma and the countries. i want to start with a viewer question about his selection. why is bringing in someone who respects the epa but will write the regulations that have not shown any real protection a bad thing? he will reign in nepa that has

overstepped the bounds. here the other day, this said under president obama, have been hundreds of regulations on oil and gas in the bush administration, there were just 12. >> i do not want to in any way offend the viewer, but we have

an oklahoma more both -- earthquakes and then any place on the planet. 2007, we had two earthquakes over three and what caused that? it is the water used in fracking. why hasn't the oklahoma attorney general done something about

that? why hasn't the commission done that -- something about that? what is wrong about a government that does not protect people? it is big money and right back to citizens united and allowing unlimited campaign contributions on the political action

committees making the contribution, and they never have to be revealed. ours is no longer a government of the people by the people and for the people. it is a government of the corporations for the bureaucrats for the money.

we would endanger right here in this state of seven on the richter scale. bad of the -- said we will have a seven, the predictions of seismologists, that if we do not stop the injection wells come we will have an earthquake that is a seven on the richter's tail.

is that happens, it will be the worst of our mental disaster in the history of the united date. why hasn't our attorney general up to the plate and done thing about that? because his major campaign contributors -- where else in the whole country does oil and

gas come to me send guest letters to the attorney general and say put them on the letterhead and sign them doesn't? it is ridiculous here at >> oklahoma corporation commission has been reducing -- >> up and down and we have still

had earthquakes. >> even if we stopped all, -- >> it will continue because the damage has been done to mother earth. i am sorry. >> we appreciate having you want. is it a conflict of interest to

appoint someone currently suing the you to have agents the, and i wanted to get your take here on this, currently one of the number of attorney general, presumably -- >> the epa is there to protect the public from water pollution, lakes, and all of that.

that is what the agency is all about. it is ridiculous to think that the attorney general who takes an oath to uphold the law, is suing the epa, instead of trying to enforce. the u.s. attorney has a duty to do that.

the lawyers at the epa have a duty to do that. all of us have a duty to promote public confidence in the judicial system, the judicial branch of government. we are officers of the court and we have a duty to stand up to people.

steve: overreach, they are's doing about it -- >> i wonder who is expert witnesses will be. it will he come out of continental, who knows. >> you have made your case forcefully and we appreciate having you want.

bar association lawyers

my name is bob hawley, and i'm with the statebar of california and i'm here to talk to you about trust accounting standards and therules and regulations that governing the govern trust accounting for lawyers, particularlyfor new lawyers. one of the most important things that you'll do as a new lawyer is opena trust account. if you are working for government as a government lawyer or working in-houseas an in-house counsel you might not have trust funds and in which event you wouldn'thave a trust account, but if you're engaged in private practice, particularly if you'rea solo, learning how to handle trust funds correctly is critical. one of the unfortunatelymore common offenses that we see at the state state bar of california from a disciplinary standpoint,is what we call misappropriation. that's not

necessarily the theft of client money, it'swhere money goes missing, maybe it was stolen or maybe it was just mishandled and you don'twant to be in the circumstance. generally speaking, do find that lawyers are reallydishonest thieves? well, a few, but for the most part with misappropriation, it's notdishonesty, it's not theft, it's negligence, it's unattention, and it's not paying attentionthe way that you should. first and foremost, your best resource on this is to look at thestate bar's website, www.calbar.ca.gov and under the ethics page that's on the left handside of the screen, there's a list of ethics and professional responsibility resources;all of them are valuable, but there's a trust accounting handbook that's an inch thick andtells you everything that you need to know

from how to add and subtract which is somethingthat lawyers sometimes can benefit from in the area of money, to the administration ofthe trust account right on through the banking regulations and everything else; everythingyou could possibly need to know is there, so that's available for free, you can downloadit and burn up your printer because it is lengthy, but it's for free that way or youcan purchase it in a nice bound fashion from the state bar of california as well, but doconsider that as a resource. another resource for information about trust accounts in particularwhat we call iolta accounts interest on lawyers trust accounts which i'll talk about is withyour bank. banks love lawyers because lawyers tend to have a fair amount of money flowingthrough a trust account and banks love money,

so talking to a bank about how to setup atrust account and the various kinds of accounts that you do is another valuable resource.the other resource that you need to have is the bookkeeper or accountant. one of yourvery most important first hires should be instead of a new associate or a receptionistor a paralegal, a bookkeeper. the bookkeeper is going to keep you straight and narrow onan area of where you are probably weak and on that is in accounting for money, billing,tracking the financial side of the business. so, you don't have to hire one fulltime, youcan hire one part-time or you can contract with a bookkeeper or accountant, but do keepthat in mind as well. the first rule in terms of authorities that we're going to talk aboutis the generic rule on safe keeping client

property, it's rule 4-100; that's a rule ofprofessional conduct and it says that you have the duty to safekeep and that's a keyword,safekeep property. money is property and as a result you need to put other people's moneythat's not yours in a trust account and that's how you safekeep it. but it also comes, propertycomes in other forms as well. it can be things, everything from a document to a piece of property,it could be a motorcycle, it could be a van gogh painting, it could be anything that endsup in your hands where the client is expecting you to hold it for them and the duty you havefrom a disciplinary standpoint is to safe keep it, so if per chance you do have a client'smotorcycle you might not want to just park it out in the parking lot and leave it thereuntil the client comes to get it, because

if it disappears then that's your responsibility,same with the van gogh, you may not want to just hang it on the wall, you need to havesome place in the firm that is a place of safekeeping, it has to be fire proof, it hasto be strong enough to protect things reasonably, you know, because not only do you have thecivil duty with respect to your traditionary duties, you know in terms of protecting property,but you have this disciplinary duty where you can get into trouble for losing propertyas much as you can for losing money if it goes awry. there's a few other statutes andauthorities to take note of, one is section 6069 of the business and professions codethat authorizes the state bar to audit your trust account without your knowledge, so thereis a need to make sure that you do keep it

accurate because whether we do so we're not,the truth is that when you have become a lawyer and you take your oath and say "i do" youare statutorily authorizing the state bar to check in your trust account without yourknowledge; 6091.1 of the business and profession code mandates that your bank report to thestate bar should your trust account go below zero, if it becomes, if there's any payments,nonpayments for insufficient funds and the bank has a duty to report to the state bar;to report that to the state bar and then the state bar will follow-up you know with youon that. also, business and professions code section 6149 requires that any insurer reportpayments that are made in the settlement of a claim and that will result, you know, ina notice going to the policy holder that payment

was made, so if the payment is made and themoney goes missing the insurer has a duty to tell the parties involved in the processthat the money's out there, so it's just a cross-referencing checks and balances systemthat makes sure that his money's flowing around in a lawsuit that involves an attorney thatthe state bar is aware of and keeps track of the things that are going on. in termsof fdic insurance, that's something to think about. you put your money in a bank as a trustaccount, the trust account must be what's called a iolta account; iolta stands for intereston lawyers trust account, trust accounts must be maintained in iolta format and the interestis earned and the interest is paid to the state bar. so in addition, and the state barthen uses that interest i should say, so that

you don't think that we're taking it and justspending it on ourselves, but we maintain a grant program that funds legal aid throughthat interest, so the interest that is swept from your iolta account is then used throughthe state bar's trust fund program to find legal aid services for representation of indigentfolks, but fdic insurance you know, the insurance that is there if you have your money in thebank and the bank goes under; the federal government insures it. but the federal governmentwill only insure client money up to 250,000 dollars, but the good news is that it's 250,000dollars per client, so you have one trust account, you know, if you have dozens anddozens or hundreds or thousands of clients you don't have dozens and dozens and hundredsand thousands of trust accounts, you have

one trust account generally, you put everybody'smoney in it and then you have a bookkeeping standard that someone administers to keeptrack of it. but the money is insured up to 250,000 dollars per client, so if you havea million dollars in your trust account, but you have you know hundreds and hundreds ofclients in there and each client only has under 250,000 dollars they are all protected,but you want to keep in mind that is not proven to have your money in an institution thatdoes not provide fdic insurance. in terms of other things, can you take credit cards?i'll just run through a list of things that you may be interested in; yes, you can takecredit cards. you can get paid by credit card, but there are issues there. when you signup as a merchant which you are with a credit

card company to accept credit cards you willenter into an agreement and you need to make sure you look at the small print in that agreementbecause the credit card company may want to have the right to go into your account andpull the money back if there's a dispute, you know, with the credit card holder andto allow a third party to invade your trust account is a violation, so you don't wantto agree to that type of thing. there are services out there that understand lawyersand lawyer trust accounts and you may want to deal with them, some of them are endorsedby local bar associations, so you may want to check with your local bar to see if thereis a credit card process that's lawyer friendly. scamming, let me just mention this becausethis will be the final comment, in today's

world people are getting emails from lotsof people from far away saying "i need a lawyer, i need a lawyer" and i got lots of money andlet's just set up this deal and you respond to it and the next thing you know that theyrespond and say, gee thanks, i told the other side that i have a lawyer and that means thatthey just sent me a check so here it is and so you take the check and you put it in yourtrust account and you take your third out of it as you agreed to with the client andyou disperse the other part of it and then the next thing you know the bank reports toyou that the check bounced because there was never any money there to begin with. not agood a situation to be in, so when you get those emails from folks saying "i need a lawyer,i need a lawyer" and it sounds fishy, it probably

is. get a fee agreement with them, go throughall the processes, document everything, and if you have somebody that's still with youafter that you probably have a decent client, otherwise it's a scammer.

bar association lawyer

my name is graham virgo. i’m a member ofthe faculty of law at the university of cambridge, and i want to provide some answers to thequestion as to why you should study law at university if you want to become a practisinglawyer. if you are thinking that you might eventuallywish to pursue a career as a lawyer, whether a solicitor or a barrister, there are twodifferent ways of getting the necessary qualifications. one is to study any subject at universityother than law, then do a one-year law conversion course and finally complete the relevant vocationalcourse to become a solicitor or a barrister. the other route is to study law at university,typically for three years, and then take the relevant vocational course.there are various myths about which route

you should adopt. one myth is that employersprefer applicants who have not studied law at university. that is simply not the case.statistics indicate that half the successful applicants to the legal profession have takenthe conversion course and the other half have studied law at university. studying a subjectother than law and then taking the conversion course is a perfectly legitimate route tobecome a lawyer. but so is studying law at university. if you are unsure which routeto take, then one factor to bear in mind is that if you really enjoy one of the subjectsyou are studying at school and wish to study it at university, then do so. studying thatsubject will not bar your route to becoming a practising lawyer and it is likely to enableyou to develop skills which will be of benefit

to work as a lawyer. but studying law at universitywill also enable you to acquire knowledge and develop skills which will be of real benefitto your future career as a lawyer and indeed many other professions as well. so what arethe advantages of studying law at university generally and studying law at cambridge specifically? i think there are five particular advantages.the first is acquiring breadth and depth of knowledge.at cambridge most law students study 14 papers over three years. seven of these are the foundationpapers which must be taken if you wish to become a practising lawyer. these papers arestudied in a conversion course, but concentrated within the space of one year. at cambridgethe foundation papers are studied in detail

throughout the three year course, but sevenother papers are studied as well. this means that you can choose to study a wide varietyof subjects, ranging from legal history to philosophy, from commercial law to criminology,from family law to international law, and many other subjcts as well. consequently,studying law at university enables you to gain depth and breadth in your understandingof the law, which cannot be acquired during a law conversion coruse, and also enablesyou to see how different legal subjects fit together. the second advantage of studying law at university,is that it enables you to learn to think like a lawyer.being able to study law in three years gives

you the chance to develop your ability tothink and write like a lawyer, to use and understand technical vocabulary, to applythe law to resolve difficult problems and to analyse and engage with a wide varietyof legal arguments. the advantage of the small group teaching system at cambridge means thatyou get a great deal of support from your teachers in being able to think and analysethe law. you also get a great deal of support in developing legal writing skills. thinkingand writing about the law are not skills which necessarily come naturally, but which taketime to develop through practice. being able to study law in three years gives you theopportunity to develop those skills. a third advantage of studying law at universityis that it encourages critical engagement.

studying law at university means that youare studying law as an academic subject. it follows that you are encouraged to reflecton the law, to think critically about the law, to consider whether the law is satisfactory,to identify the policies which underpin particular rules and to suggest alternatives. this oftenrequires you to engage with other academic disciplines, such as economics, social policy,history and philosophy. there are also opportunities to study law in another european country andso gain the benefit of developing language skills and to see how law is applied and developedin a different legal system. having studied a law degree might also enable you to pursuepostgraduate legal studies either in cambridge, at another uk university or at a universityabroad, such as a us law school like harvard,

which is generally not possib le without alaw degree. fourthly, studying law at university enablesyou to develop other legal skills. it enables you to develop other skills and gain otherexperiences which will be of real benefit to a future career as a lawyer. for example,it is possible to participate in mooting competitions and so gain experience of presenting a legalargument in front of a judge, or to participate in pro bono work and provide legal supportto real people facing real problems. a fifth advantage of studying law at universityconcerns cost. by studying law at cambridge in three years and then proceeding to obtainprofessional qualification means that you can become a practising lawyer without needingto do the conversion course, because you will

already have studied the seven foundationsubjects as part of your law course. this means that you do not need to pay for an additionalyear of study. a significant number of people who study lawat cambridge do not become practising lawyers, and even some who do then move on to othercareers, including business, politics, the civil service, banking, journalism, in internationalorganisations or the voluntary sector and academia. also, if you are interested in studyinga subject other than law at cambridge, you can often change to law at the end of yourfirst or second year and study law at cambridge for two years, during which you study 10 papers,seven of which are the foundation subjects. but most people who study law at cambridgetake the three year course and then proceed

to become a practising lawyer. they find thatthe knowledge and skills they have acquired during their university legal studies areof real benefit to their future career. genuinely, studying law at cambridge enablesyou to think like a lawyer, and there’s a lot more information about studying lawat cambridge on the faculty of law website.

bar association lawyer referral

if you've been in an accident you probablyhave a lot of question such as: how am i going to pay my medical bills, or how do i makeup for time out of work, or how do i get my car replaced? well, we have years of experience helpingpeople like you receive the compensation that they deserve, even if no police report wasfiled, or the other driver had no insurance, even if the insurance company is avoidingyour claims. we can help! don't face the insurance company alone. we offer free consultation so give us a calltoday!

bar association lawyer referral service

whataretheconsequencesofaduiconviction?youmaybesentencedtojailtimeorcommunityservice andprobationaryperiod,ataminimum.iftheduiissevere,youmayhaveaprisonsentenceandyouwill paycourtcostsandfines.yourdriver'slicensewillbesuspended,aswellaspossibledrugoralcohol treatmentrequirements.mostofourclientsarehardworking,regularpeople.wedon'tjudgepeople, wedefendthem.whenyoucan'taffordaguilty,callus................................

bar association for lawyers

service of process in this video, you will learn how to servethe person you are suing with the complaint or petition. when you start a lawsuit, you must tell theperson you're suing about it. this is known as serving the other party, or "serviceof process." without proper service of process, the judge will not decide your case. service happens when the person you are suingreceives a copy of your complaint or petition, along with a "summons" form. a summonstells the person about the lawsuit and when and how to appear in court.

after you complete the summons, make at leasttwo copies. bring the summons and copies to the circuit clerk when you file your complaintor petition. the circuit clerk will stamp the summons and copies and give them backto you. service can be done in 1 of 4 ways: - by the sheriff;- by a detective or special process server; - by certified mail, and, in some types ofcases; - by publishing notice of the lawsuit in thelocal newspaper you can have the sheriff deliver the courtpapers to the person you are suing. take or mail the stamped summons and copies to thesheriff's office where the defendant lives.

there is a fee for this service. if you mailthe papers to the sheriff, be sure to include an addressed, stamped, return envelope withthe papers. a licensed private detective or "specialprocess server" can also serve the person with the court papers. in most cases, youfirst must ask the judge's permission to do this by filing a "motion for appointmentof special process server." once the person is served with notice of thelawsuit, the sheriff, detective or process server fills out a sworn statement on theback of the summons copy and mails it back to you or returns it to the circuit clerk. the returned summons shows the judge thatthe person knew about the case.

in some cases, you may be able to serve someoneby certified mail or by publication. these options require special steps. finally, if the party you are suing is a business,more rules apply. for more information on service of process,talk with a lawyer, ask your local circuit clerk's office, or visit "illinois-legal-aid-dot-org." -2-