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Everybody loves to fuck with lawyers but I gotta tell you, every time I've needed one, I've hired the best that I couldn't afford and was damned grateful I did.
When I was going through my divorce, I hired a high priced lawyer that cost me $15k while my ex hired a cheap one. She filed a bullshit restraining order against me and by the time Leslie got finished with her in court, the judge laughed her out of the courtroom - literally.
Yeah, I lost half my pension in the divorce but I kept my house and walked away without having to pay alimony which is almost unheard of in California with a 16 year marriage.
An added bonus - my attorney was a hottie.
Three times I've needed lawyers. All three times they've been very successful.
ReplyDeleteFirst was when an evicted tenant sued us for his stuff back. You know, all the things he took with him when he left. Though the ex-renter won, my lawyer made sure we never had to pay anything.
Second time was when my work took me to court to say I attacked in a racist way a fellow employee. My extremely liberal but highly cute and squishy lawyer beat the local prosecutor like a rented mule. I would have enjoyed the victory hug much more if my wife wasn't 3 feet away.
Third time was when the bank offered us a chance to 'fix' our mortgage and then raked us over the coals and sent us to foreclosure. Yeah, lost the house, but the lawyer saved us from immediately having to move and recovered some money from the house.
Don't like them, but they can be useful. Still miss my squishy lawyer lady. Sigh.
Ken, you know there's only two problems with lawyer jokes: Lawyers don't think they're funny, and no one else thinks they're jokes...
ReplyDeleteIf you go to court without an attorney you are a fool. Ya see the judge is usually an attorney and if ya show up without one you have insulted the guild. I went to court many years ago in Va. on a DUI. The judge looked at about six good ol boys standing there without attorney's and said y'all in here for DUI's? They said yup, he said come here and put your drivers licenses on my desk. They did and he said you will get them back in a year or so. I had an attorney and paid a fine and got three marks on my licenses which increased my insurance. Never would I walk in a court room without a mouth piece.
ReplyDeleteWire, that is a great thought to share, and I agree with it. A great lawyer or accountant will pay for themselves many times over. I cringe every time I need to hire one, but I have never regretted paying someone else to deal with complex aggrivation. I'm happy and worry-free.
ReplyDeleteIn the post title .. fewer should replace less. One of my many grammar pet peeves
ReplyDeleteMan, you'd have a field day with me in a regular conversation.
DeleteThis ^.
DeleteMan, I'm glad you decided to dive under the buss before me did!
DeleteBus. ;-)
DeleteGeez ... all this and you STILL haven't fixed it. (/shakes head in disbelief, walks away grumbling)
DeleteDo not overlook the fact of why you need a lawyer. They have ever more put a finer point on arguing the law. You need a lawyer to argue with a lawyer. Consider small claims, no lawyers allowed. Bring your A game, you argue your best case. Too bad for those who didn't do their research. The law should be plain language but guess who made the law what it is today?
ReplyDeleteMethinks the days of small arms lawyers cometh, mostly due to the assholes that wrote, interpret and prosecute said statutes.
DeleteWe had a large tree that was sending roots towards the neighbor's house and he was up in arms we had to fix a whole list of crap because of the tree. I bought an hour of time with a real estate lawyer and got the real facts.
ReplyDeleteA - the neighbors needed a formal report from an arborist that he found roots IN the house,
B - if they tried to sue they'd have to pay up front, this wasn't a contingency case.
C - any payments we would make would be as a friendly gesture. They are assholes, so there is no relationship to maintain..
I spent about $300 to know I could tell my neighbor to stick his $15k repair bill where the sun doesn't shine...
The asshole I've used for our small family partnership for the last 10 years recently billed me $1500 for a simple will. He must not want anymore of my business.
ReplyDeleteMy nephew got hitched up with this blonde chick named Britney. Britney went to law school in Florida. When they moved to Texas after school she passed the Texas State Bar exam like it was nothing. I know there are good and bad in every profession but go try that bar exam sometime. I just never know whether to tell blonde jokes or lawyer jokes.
ReplyDeleteI gotta agree with Wirecutter about lawyers. I, too, hired a good expensive one when I got divorced. Granted, it's not hard to hit a home run when the ex is doing lines of coke & racking up DUIs. I got 5 kids though so a divorce is just the beginning. Total cost since it started in 2016: $81,000 and counting. You keep having to prove that she's passing out while watching the kids & that is NOT easy to doo.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the proof, short of having photographic evidence.
DeleteOK, gotta say it now: The Mrs Alemaster was a killer as a prosecutor. Literally. regards, Alemaster
ReplyDeleteThe kind of prosecutor I used to live in fear of when I was a youngster, huh?
DeleteI remember when back in the bad ol' days one of the guys got busted for a considerable amount of crank and he said he wasn't too worried about it because he had a good lawyer, paid for by his parents. One of my friends asked who was prosecuting the case and when he told us, we all groaned. He ended up getting 20 years and change. The prosecutor ended up being the DA for the county, and she's still putting people away.
Another reason...
Deletehttps://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE
Well, YesSir Wirecutter. She had the best capital offense record in "big county" D.A.'s office at the time. Batting 100% from start to finish of the process. I believe her record stands to this day. Alemaster
DeleteI forgot there was even a drug known as crank.I remember hearing about it. Think it was one drug stacked on another or something. Guess it never took off Thank God. Never got the drug culture other than firing up a doobie. Not really a drug. Not all concocted and make you do bad things and loose your house and shit. Unless you are already a lazy POS dumbass already
DeleteNed, crank was the original methamphetamine. It was made with real ephedrine. It was snorted or injected. The shit they have nowadays is made with pseudo ephedrine and is usually smoked.
DeleteWasn't some of it elephant tranquilizer? Then 'Ludes were a thing back in the day...
DeleteThere was nothing tranquilizing about crank. I'd stay up for 3-4 days at a time on that shit, wired for sound. I think you're thinking of PCP, also known as angel dust, sherm or KJ.
DeleteI have had to use a lawyer on several occasions, and there was only one time when I was not happy. With my divorce, my ex and I had agreed on everything up front, so we used the same lawyer, to save money. A woman.
ReplyDeleteA few years later, I took my divorce papers to an expensive, good lawyer here in my new city. He said two things. " Jesus Christ, you got fucked." And, "There is not a thing I can do to help you."
I had asked my female lawyer if, since I was paying so much in child support, if I could have it stipulated that I claim my kids on my income tax. She told me that it was against the law in Michigan. I found out that was a lie.
On the other hand, my lawyer for my father's estate, was expensive, and a lot of the money for him came out of my own pocket. With 4 siblings who didn't want to be involved. Yet he was worth every single penny, and I would use him again. I also used an attorney to help with my disability case, and that turned out to be the best 6,000$ I ever spent. They did everything, sending me papers to sign, and return, sometimes having them notarized first. To get disability due to chronic daily migraines, plus a bad back from a car accident at age 20, when I broke it, is not easy to do. You have to have everything exactly correct, and this firm did.
Often, money spent on professionals, for something that you are ignorant about, is never wasted, but money well spent, in the long run.
pigpen51
Little brother got arrested on several felonies. Turned out his gun worked and the guys coming after him, didn't work. So cops arrested him.
ReplyDeleteCalled up our cousin who worked in the county jail and asked him for the name of the lawyer who gets everyone off. Guy turned out to be a slick-talking shyster from NYC. He wasn't cheap, but by the time he was done, all charges were dropped against my brother and I picked up his shotgun from the police evidence locker. (Just a side note, cops do not take care of guns in their care. The rust was awful!)