lawyer consultants

when we exhibit at legal conferences withcertified legal nurse consultants they usually start out the day terrified of these attorneysthinking "attorneys are so scary." for me, it's very fulfilling to witness thetransformation that happens with the certified legal nurse consultants by the end of theday. but i wanted you to hear from them and so i will be interviewing some of our clncâ®consultants that we're exhibiting with here today at the beginning of the day and at theend of the day to see just how scary attorneys really are. sherrolyn, what's to you about attorneys?the most scary thing about attorneys to me is that the first time that i came in contactwith one i was on the opposite side of the

table and it was kind of like, "well, whatdid you do?" so it was kind of like being sent to the principal's office and nobodywants to be sent to the principal's office. ever! so i think that's the most scary thingfor me. okay, so you associate attorneys as an adversaryand today you're in the exhibit hall and your goal is to turn these attorneys into yourfriend and obviously as a professional friend. so let's see if we can turn that around for you and i'll check in later in the day. so sherrolyn, earlier you said that you thoughattorneys would be like going to the principal's office and i've been watching you and actuallyyou are knocking it out of the park with these attorneys. so they're really not scary arethey?

not as scary as i thought. they're kind oflike talking to the doctors that i work with. sometimes the doctors are a little crankyand you have to break them out of their head space, but once you break them out of theirhead space and you start having conversations with them it gets easier. yes, and you're really a natural and whati liked about you is that you just have a conversation. you don't come across like you'retrying to sell anything.you're just really talking to them from one person to anotherand that makes them comfortable with you. so i'm so glad to see that they're not asscary as you thought they would be. so am i!

thank you! this is vicky. vickie what's scary to youabout attorneys? they're just intimidating because they speakso eloquently and that can be a little intimidating when you're not used to it. they get theirpoint across, they're knowledge is just a different breed and i'm not used to them yet. okay, i know this is your first time exhibitingand i know you're a little frightened of attorneys. i'm going to check back with you at the endof the day to see how you're feeling then. okay, great! vicky, earlier you were telling me that youwere intimidated because attorneys are so

eloquent and then off video, you kind of mentionedthat they pretty much can persuade and get what they want through language, through articulation.they don't have to raise their voice, they don't have to say a single curse word. youcracked me up when you said that! alright, now that you've been here talkingto these attorneys, honestly, are they still intimidating? not near as intimidating. they're more likereal-life people and they're easier to talk to once you have a few key questions, probingquestions for them. it's working out very well. i'm learning a lot and i'm a lot morecomfortable than i was. great, so just practicing and doing it helpsyou doesn't it?

yes. this has been an enormous help. and so often i'll work with somebody and they'revery shy, but i don't think that's you. you're kind of naturally not that shy of a person.but i've even had shy people say "i just had they're real people.absolutely. thank you.michelle, you mentioned to me that you'renot afraid of attorneys.no i'm not.but, that you're a little nervous to get intothis exhibit hall. so tell me what you'renervous about.i'm nervous about next question, what to sayafter the initial greeting.i know you've been practicing right?i have been.the nervousness is not so much about whatdo i do, it's the actual doing it.right.i'm going to check in with you at the endof the day and see if the actual doing isnot so hard after all.earlier michelle, you shared with me thatyou're not afraid of attorneys but that youwere nervous about talking to them. and so,tell me, has that shifted for you here today?it has shifted! i feel a lot more comfortableand a little bit more confident. one thingis susan's been with us, the clncâ® mentor,and she's awesome for those questions thati didn't know how to answer exactly. she'ssteps in and starts to answer them. i havegained some confidence.and i want to say i am very impressed witheverybody because our mentors do demonstrateand i think it's great to see you guys comebehind and actually learn from that demonstration.just so everybody knows, our mentors are notallowed to sell to these attorneys. they cannotgo home with any business from these attorneys.we, at the institute, and our clncâ® mentorsthey're real people.absolutely. thank you.michelle, you mentioned to me that you'renot afraid of attorneys.no i'm not.but, that you're a little nervous to get intothis exhibit hall. so tell me what you'renervous about.i'm nervous about next question, what to sayafter the initial greeting.i know you've been practicing right?i have been.the nervousness is not so much about whatdo i do, it's the actual doing it.right.i'm going to check in with you at the endof the day and see if the actual doing isnot so hard after all.earlier michelle, you shared with me thatyou're not afraid of attorneys but that youwere nervous about talking to them. and so,tell me, has that shifted for you here today?it has shifted! i feel a lot more comfortableand a little bit more confident. one thingis susan's been with us, the clncâ® mentor,and she's awesome for those questions thati didn't know how to answer exactly. she'ssteps in and starts to answer them. i havegained some confidence.and i want to say i am very impressed witheverybody because our mentors do demonstrateand i think it's great to see you guys comebehind and actually learn from that demonstration.just so everybody knows, our mentors are notallowed to sell to these attorneys. they cannotgo home with any business from these attorneys.we, at the institute, and our clncâ® mentorsto get myself out there and do it to find out that these attorneys are not really scary."are really here for you and your business.you said something else to me that i thinkthey're real people.absolutely. thank you.michelle, you mentioned to me that you'renot afraid of attorneys.no i'm not.but, that you're a little nervous to get intothis exhibit hall. so tell me what you'renervous about.i'm nervous about next question, what to sayafter the initial greeting.i know you've been practicing right?i have been.the nervousness is not so much about whatdo i do, it's the actual doing it.right.i'm going to check in with you at the endof the day and see if the actual doing isnot so hard after all.earlier michelle, you shared with me thatyou're not afraid of attorneys but that youwere nervous about talking to them. and so,tell me, has that shifted for you here today?it has shifted! i feel a lot more comfortableand a little bit more confident. one thingis susan's been with us, the clncâ® mentor,and she's awesome for those questions thati didn't know how to answer exactly. she'ssteps in and starts to answer them. i havegained some confidence.and i want to say i am very impressed witheverybody because our mentors do demonstrateand i think it's great to see you guys comebehind and actually learn from that demonstration.just so everybody knows, our mentors are notallowed to sell to these attorneys. they cannotgo home with any business from these attorneys.we, at the institute, and our clncâ® mentorsare really here for you and your business.you said something else to me that i thinkare really here for you and your business.you said something else to me that i think they're real people. absolutely. thank you. michelle, you mentioned to me that you'renot afraid of attorneys. no i'm not. but, that you're a little nervous to get intothis exhibit hall. so tell me what you're

nervous about. i'm nervous about next question, what to sayafter the initial greeting. i know you've been practicing right? i have been. the nervousness is not so much about whatdo i do, it's the actual doing it. right. i'm going to check in with you at the endof the day and see if the actual doing is not so hard after all. earlier michelle, you shared with me thatyou're not afraid of attorneys but that you

were nervous about talking to them. and so,tell me, has that shifted for you here today? it has shifted! i feel a lot more comfortableand a little bit more confident. one thing is susan's been with us, the clncâ® mentor,and she's awesome for those questions that i didn't know how to answer exactly. she'ssteps in and starts to answer them. i have gained some confidence. and i want to say i am very impressed witheverybody because our mentors do demonstrate and i think it's great to see you guys comebehind and actually learn from that demonstration. just so everybody knows, our mentors are notallowed to sell to these attorneys. they cannot go home with any business from these attorneys.we, at the institute, and our clncâ® mentors

are really here for you and your business.you said something else to me that i think is important. you said "i am an expert atwhat i do. and when i'm talking to attorneys at that, that's when i'm most comfortable."did that happen today? yes, as nurses we're comfortable in our specialtyand we are confident in what we do. and so, not being confident with being new to thiswas what was making me nervous. that's what caused me to be really nervous. but as wego on and i start talking about how i answered court claims for the federal government, itbecomes very easy and i feel more at ease about it. absolutely. well, congratulations.

cathy, you're here exhibiting for your firsttime as a clncâ® consultant and you told me that attorneys are not scary. a lot of ithas to do because your first degree was in advertising, so tell me how that helped youto not be afraid of attorneys. well, when you meet with the client, whichis the same as an attorney, they want to know what you're going to do for them and mostof them want just about three points you cover about yourself. and one of the best thingsyou can do is ask them questions so that that tells you what your next question to themwill be. most attorneys won't ask you a question in court that they don't already know theanswer to anyway. so, engage that person. just get a conversationstarted, just pretend like this is somebody

you're meeting casually and don't be so vestedin the outcome and be so serious about the outcome. great advice. cathy, you told me that your first degreewas in advertising and so attorneys are not so scary to you. so tells us a little bitabout what you learned through advertising. the thing about working with people in advertisingis that if you know what you are talking about you can convince them of anything. so, beconfident, give them a few facts, not more than three or four, about yourself and/orthe product or whatever you're selling. and they will remember you just because of yoursmile or something you said to them. create a relationship between you and the attorneyor their group. that helps you when you call

back, because you always follow up and say"i saw you two days ago and i'm just following up to say hi and ask if you got home safelyand how are you doing?" so great advice for any beginner. attorneysdon't have to be quite so scary if you think about them as more of a friend and as somebodythat you're trying to develop a relationship with. i agree. thank you so much. teena, the question i have is "are attorneysscary to you?" yes, very scary. they're a group of peoplethat i've never had to talk to before. i talk

to ceos, i talk to department heads and italk to doctors and they don't scare me. but i've been doing it for a long time. so yes,i'm a little nervous that i'll seem out of place. okay, i want you to remember what you justtold me -- that you talk to some pretty high level people every day, ceos, doctors andwhen you're in that exhibit hall you remember that when you're talking to these attorneys.i'm going to check in later to see if they're still so scary. okay, i hope they're not! teena, this morning you said "okay, i can talkto ceos, i can talk to hospital administrators,

but these attorneys they're scary." now we'reapproaching the end of the day, are they really to talk about what they need to talk abouttoo. i find that it really is true when you say "they know law, i know medicine." andfor me that made a big difference today. very good. i really enjoyed observing youactually talking about your core expertise as a nurse. i think that was brilliant andyou did it in such a great way. thank you. as you can see, these are real certified legalnurse consultants. they started out this day as you can see, these are real certified legalnurse consultants. they started out this dayas you can see, these are real certified legalnurse consultants. they started out this dayas you can see, these are real certified legalnurse consultants. they started out this dayas you can see, these are real certified legalnurse consultants. they started out this day with most of them saying "i am afraid of attorneys.they are scary." by the end of the day not

a single clnc consultant believes that attorneysare scary. you heard everything from "all i have to do is talk to them like they'rea real person because they are a real person" to "all i have to do is get out there andput myself out there." so go ahead, talk to attorneys. they reallyare not that scary.

lawyer company

how do i protect my company's trade secrets?i'm steve kramer. i'm a florida intellectual property attorney and today we're going totalk about what is a trade secret and how do you protect it. a trade secret is a specificformula, a process, a design, a pattern -- it's something that most people don't know about.the general public doesn't know about it and you do so therefore it gives you a competitiveadvantage in the market. and by protecting it, you protect your company's advantage inthe market. now there's a lot of a ways to protect a trade secret. one of the ways youcan do that is you can enter into what's called 'non-disclosure agreements' right? and thatmeans that you sign it with somebody else, maybe one of your employees or the peopleyou work with and it, and it prevents them

from disclosing it to other people. anotherway you can deal with it is you can do non-compete agreements. not quite the same level of secrecybut it can useful in the pantheon of tools you might use. the third way you can protectyour trade secret is putting safeguards into place by limiting how many people have accessto it, for example. so what comes to mind there is coca-cola's recipe. very few peopleknow about that. it's one of the most heavily guarded trade secrets in the world, in history.or the eleven herbs and spices, you know, from the colonel's eleven herbs and spicesfrom kentucky fried chicken, another trade secret. regardless whether you keep them secret,whether you limit exposure, whether you enter into non-disclosure agreements, whatever toolsyou use it's important to have a carefully

guided strategy to protect your trade secrets.and if you have any questions how to implement that, how to do that, how to protect yourself,call me. i'm glad to help you with this or any other legal issues you've got -- that'swhy we're one firm for life. we're here to help the life cycle of your business and thelife cycle of your personal life. pick up the phone. i'm steve kramer, thanks for watching.

lawyer com referral

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lawyer cases

stephen janis: hello. my name is stephen janisand i'm an investigative reporter for the real news network in baltimore. thank youfor joining us in our continuing conversation with a. dwight pettit, a noted civil rightslawyer who has sued the police department in multiple cases of police brutality. weare discussing today the case in charleston, south carolina, where an officer shot a maneight times in the back as he was running away. mr. pettit, thank you for joining us. a. dwight pettit: thanks for having me, stephen. janis: one of the things that you note, andwe discuss quite often, is policing is a big

business in this town. for a lawyer like youto go against this huge organization, what are the challenges you face when you havea case where someone's shot in the back, trying to make your case in court? pettit: well, we have a very, very, very conservativecity solicitor's office, in this case. and you know, we've had a very conservative state'sattorney's office, and the elections may have just changed that. and so we don't have muchcooperation because we don't, we can't expect that there's going to be a criminal prosecution.in most cases, more cases than not, there's not going to be a criminal prosecution. and so that would usually lend itself to usgetting some investigatory help from the state,

by getting their files, if there is a criminalprosecution. and we have a very conservative city solicitor's office, which just aboutdenies everything in conjunction with the fop, the fraternal order of the police, andputs everything right at the step of the courtroom. so in most cases, we don't have any type ofinvestigatory help in terms of city agencies or state agencies. and so it becomes quite difficult, in termsof getting the evidence through discovery when we bring the suit -- because we're notgoing to get anything until we bring it. we bring the action, we get discovery, and soforth. we get the autopsy, and those type of things. we have a case now that we're workingon, a young man was beaten to death. tyrone

west. we've been fighting for the full autopsyfor a year, now. janis: and you still don't have the autopsy? pettit: we still, we don't have all of thethings that were made up, that went into the autopsy, in terms of their decisions thathe was the subject of a heart attack, or some pre-existing condition. and why that's keptso secret, that's what we think is possibly part of what will go to the jury when thetrial goes forward. but these things, we have to bring in expertsto in fact go against the police experts, who always conclude the same thing: that theshooting, or the killing, was reasonable. so we have a hard ladder to go up, and it'sno question about it.

janis: and just so people know, tyrone westdied in police custody, and -- pettit: yeah. in northeast baltimore. beatto death by something like ten to eleven officers. stomped, tasered, beat with batons, sticks.beat with fists. who basically, they admit that the beating took place. but the city-- janis: and they even said they took a breakduring it, right? pettit: yes, because he had, he had run afew distance, he was -- when he was running up the hill, he was thrown down on his face.according to witnesses he was, you know, ?you've got me, please stop beating me.? and theybeat him until, in fact, he was rendered unconscious. janis: and the officers were not charged inthat case.

pettit: no. nobody was charged. janis: nobody was charged. pettit: just like you probably remember, theanderson case. was a young man -- janis: anthony anderson, yeah. pettit: that was picked up and body slammed.and an interesting thing about it, some of these officers are the same officers in thevarious cases. they're repeats, because they've never been ? they've never been brought tojustice, steve, because there's no price to pay. there's no penalty to pay. in many cases i found, believe it or not,that in many cases these officers are promoted.

it's almost like a blue badge of courage thatyou killed somebody. and so they're not going to be prosecuted. they are limited in thedamages by the cap. and if you get a sizable judgment that some kind of way exceeds thecap, or close to the cap, the city's going to pick up -- according to the fop agreement-- is going to pick up the liability. so what sanction do you have that you shoulddo the right thing? none. janis: well, i'm going to ask you a question.how much does this have to do with race? i mean, if the victim, or the person who diesin police custody is african-american, how much harder is it, or is this part of theproblem, that this is, you know, sort of a product of racism?

pettit: well, it's a product of racism butit's so systemic that it seems to be something that has spread throughout the police departments,both african-americans as well as white police officers, that -- to use the clichã©, thatblack life does not matter. that this is acceptable conduct. that this is something that you willnot be prosecuted, nor will you be persecuted. and so therefore it sort of transcends, beginsto transcend individual officers in terms of their race, and becomes more or less apolicy and procedure, which gives us federal jurisdiction in many cases, of people actingunder color of law pursuant to what is legal and authorized and accepted in the policedepartment. and so the culture has to be changed at thetop, from the mayor's office to the city solicitor's

office to the police commissioner's office.there's got to be change mentally, and across this nation, that this conduct is not acceptable,and you will, in fact, be disciplined. and that has not been instilled at this pointin time. we have a mayor that went down to annapolis,as we've discussed, and tried to get certain legislation passed. but we found that thelegislative body in terms of maryland basically repudiated and rejected everything that wassuggested from both the mayor as well as certain elements in the community, in terms of theracial aspect of it and in terms of the non-racial aspect of it. but everything was rejected as non-acceptable,and that goes back to the state of mind that

the public is saying that this conduct isacceptable in tradeoff for the necessary policing that we want in our community. to protectus we'll give up certain civil rights. janis: and how do you explain that in theafrican-american community? because most of these victims, almost all of them, are african-american.why are they accepting of this type of police misconduct that negatively affects the communityhere? pettit: because the african-american communityis so, you might say ? upset about the ? rightfully so -- the issue of crime. for example, yousee that a lot of folks are saying, well, what about black-on-black crime? that's aseparate issue. because black-on-black crime, you're still subject to the penal system,you're subject to prosecution. what we're

saying, in terms of the police departments,that their crimes are not, in fact, answerable. that they have a pass and have a license tothe fact to inflict these criminal acts on the community, and not be subject to any penalty.that's the main distinction. but the black community is allowed to, ordoes in fact sometime blur this because of the apprehension and the fear of such rampantcrime in the urban community, that they're willing to trade off their rights and bringingattention to what racism might be involved in return for what they believe to be adequatepolicing and protection. now, you see a break in that now in terms of citizens coming forwardin terms of cooperating with the police. because you can't cooperate with the police if you'rescared to call the police.

so we see that that is now the embryonic stageof apprehension in the black community with the police department. where before would,officer friendly, that may not have been the case. people would come forward, cooperate,give names, what they saw and what have you. nowadays, nobody wants to do that becausethey don't know how that involves them and how that will be interpreted, or how thatmixed relationship with the police department will come back to haunt them. janis: in the case of michael johnson, who's15 years old, he was taken or kidnapped -- was alleged to have been kidnapped from west baltimore.taken and dropped off in howard county without his shoes. you sued, and successfully won.but then there was another -- there was another

twist to that case in terms of collectingthe money that sort of speaks to this problem of police accountability. could you explainwhat happened in that case? pettit: well, in that particular case, theirony and the horror of that case, is not only a young man was taken out to howard county,he was taken, shoes were taken, cell phone was broken. he was thrown out in the rain,about 15 miles outside of baltimore city. he was, he called the howard county police.it was the howard county police department that brought him back, took a statement andverified everything that took place. but the horror of the case is that we settledthe case with the police department for $150,000. then the mayor and the board of estimatesreneged, even after there was a recommendation

from the city solicitor's office to settleit. we went to trial. we got a $500,000 verdict from a jury. the case went up on appeal, whichwas denied. and now the city is asking the highest court in the state, the court of appeals,to review the case on the issue of whether or not the cap, the court of special appeals,rule that the cap was not applicable to individual police officers if in fact the jury foundmalice. and in this particular case the jury did find malice. but that case, it goes, it's the prime exampleof the establishment falling in line with this blue badge of, this circle of blue badgein terms of deny everything, concede nothing, and everybody ? lie. cover up. hide. insteadof, when certain things take place, instead

of the administration, the police department,the police commissioner, and the mayor's office saying okay, this was a bad shooting. or it'swrong, let's prosecute the police department, let's compensate the families for the damagedone to them, we don't have that mental attitude. not in this state, and obviously we don'thave it in most of the nation. janis: so, and we talked about this before.you know, you've been doing this for almost 42 years. what keeps you going as an attorneyfighting these cases, sometimes an uphill battle? pettit: well, i didn't -- steve, it wasn'tmy purpose to get -- i was into civil rights in terms of title vii and equal opportunityand what have you. this is something, as i

say in my book under color of law, this issomething that sort of developed in my practice over the years. and in fact i say in the bookthat this is the new civil rights issue of the 21st century. so it's not something thati looked at and intently went into, it was something that just developed. and in itsdeveloping, it was something that i couldn't shy away from. because i did always feel comingup, howard university law school, that i have a commitment to the community. and i saw thatwas based in civil rights. and so when this new monster began to surfaceits ugly head, it was like i was compelled to continue in this area of litigation andtry to undo some of the wrongs that have been done and bring some justice to the community,even though the powers that be stand strongly

in opposition to that. janis: well, i read your book. i highly recommendit. and listen, mr. pettit, i really appreciate you talking with us about this. thank youfor coming. pettit: thanks for having me, steve. goodto see you. janis: my name is stephen janis, i'm an investigativereporter for the real news network, reporting from baltimore. thank you for joining us.

lawyer bar

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.

lawyer bar association

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.

lawyer attorney

as an estate planning attorney, i think whatis most important is that the attorney understand the client's wishes: what does the clientwant, to whom does the client wish to leave their estate? joe tock's office was very thorough.they gave us a list of everything that we needed to give them and they were very patientwith us getting the information together. your will is a very important document, butif there's a small business involved, you really have to integrate all of the documentsso that you have a game plan, so that our clients know that they have the confidencewhen something happens that their affairs are in order. we were involved in anotherestate account which they also helped us with to make sure that that got pushed throughquicker and that things moved along. his thoroughness

in everything that he did was, to me theydid a very good job and were very quick with it. let more than 30 years of trial experiencework for you. law offices of joseph j. tock, your estate planning attorney, serving yorktown,new york.