The hardest legal choices usually involve the ones you love
Ok, here’s the situation. You are in a car accident and the person at fault is a good friend or a family member. Do you call the police? Do you notify your car insurance?
What about a Will that leaves something to you that you know another family member. Do you give it to the family member?? What if the item is something you always wanted but your family member has always said they wanted it? If they fight it in court, are you going to fight it in court??
What about a family member that gets arrested and wants to use you as an alibi? Do you cover for them if the alibi is not true??
I wish I could give you the ‘CLEAN LEGAL’ answer for all of the scenarios but unfortunately, I can’t. I can tell you that you may need to investigate the damages for your car and speak to a Personal Injury Attorney. I can tell you that you may need to speak to an Estate Attorney regarding challenges to wills. I can tell you that you need to speak to a Criminal Defense attorney so you can appreciate the ramifications of your actions for covering (i.e. lying for a family).
Those responses are the “Legal” responses. Unfortunately, they are not necessarily the CLEAN responses. The reason I say they are not the CLEAN responses is because any time you are dealing with family members or loved ones and THE LAW, things are never as clean as we would like them to be.
It’s easy to deal with someone who is not a relative or a friend. However, when you find yourself in a situation where you are trying to separate your personal emotions and feelings about a legal situation, it can be come increasingly difficult based on the person you’re dealing.
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. The phrase “The LAW is Blind” is also applicable to family members and friends. When you find yourself in a situation where you are forced to avail yourself of the legal system, you have to keep in mind that your relationship with that person will be affected by the legal process. The impact of that affection depends on you and your loved one.
Anthony Reeves
www.reevesfirm.com
Dedicated to Representing the Disabled and Discriminated
Law 101: The MICHAEL JACKSON case
I know this sounds blasphemous to all of those die hard and loyal MICHAEL JACKSON fans but I truly believe that Michael Jackson will teach us MORE in death than he did in life.
Now, before you start calling me a devil, set my name on fire and condemn me to the dark depths of the abyss, hear me out.
It is fairly well settled that Michael Jackson was a very private person. His affairs were private and there were a multi-tude of things that attributed to this privacy. Now that he has passed, we are getting access into his life in ways we never imagined possible. Before you spend countless hours rummaging through the tabloid for needless info about the King of Pop, stop for a second and look at all of the legal lessons we can learn from the King of Pop:
1) CONFIDENTIALITY agreements - Most people don’t realize that the reason Michael Jackson was able to keep a great deal of his employees from communicating his private exploits were due to confidentiality agreements. These agreements were probably written in the form of basic contract provisions. (i.e. you provide a service, I’ll pay you this amount). However, when you have the ability to have access to icon like MJ, you are going to have access to information the general public would want to know. As such, these ‘confidentiality agreements’ typically allows for legal remedies if they are broken (i.e. if you talk about something, we will sue). DO you think you have enough money to go against the King of Pop for Breach of Contract?
2) FAMILY LAW - Get ready for the RUMP SHAKER of all Family Law cases. You have 3 kids involved. A will that designates a grandmother as primary and a non relative secondary. A mother who’s parental rights have NOT been terminated but may not have had any role in the kids’ lives for more than 10 years. The “BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILDREN” standard typically dictates most jurisdictions but this situation is going to be unique in terms of where these children should be raised.
3) ESTATE LAW - We all know the importance of having a Will. For a brief second, we thought that MJ didn’t have one. What’s wild is that MJ has a complicated estate with his minor children as heirs and various monetary, real, and intellectual property as part of the estate. At some point, somebody is going to contest the validity of the will and so now, you have the mother of all fist fights regarding the assets laying in wait.
4) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY - The trickiest part of the puzzle is MJ’s Intellectual Property. Intellectual Property is that property that was created as a result of your intellect. Intellectual Property consists of property such as Trade Secrets, Trade Marks, Copyrights and Patents. Most people probably think that MJ should have been oozing with money. However, they don’t realize how much of his property actually were intellectual property such as royalties and the Beatles Catalogs of music. As each day passes, you’re going to find out that MJ probably had more intellectual property in hand as opposed to real property. You’re going to, also, find out how much value his albums were worth and how profitable was each album AFTER Thriller!
5) MEDICAL MALPRACTICE - With the death of MJ being ‘allegedly’ attributed to the medication that he was taking, be prepared for some concern about the possibility of medical malpractice. Any time you have a situation where an individual may die while in the care of a health care provider, medical malpractice is something that usually comes into play.
6) BUSINESS LAW - This part of the law is probably the most profound. As you are probably hearing, alot of information is coming to light regarding the advice MJ was receiving from his business confidants. As such, you will start to get a great deal of insight into the decision making and feedback MJ was receiving that may have guided his decisions (especially as it relates to Civil Cases that he may have settled)
7) CRIMINAL LAW - As most of you remember, the MJ trial was extremely high profile. However, a great deal of information about the details of the case was not provided. In light of recent ‘allegations’ that some of the victims may have ‘potentially’ fabricated the charges against MJ, the public will be reintroduced to the details and nuances of the trial in a whole different perspective.
I know this may sound harsh but there are so many people out there who want money, power, fame and everything that comes along with it. Here’s a man who STILL holds the world’s record (25 years later) for the most albums sold and is STILL in the GUINESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS as the world’s greatest entertainer. He has been in the music business as a top selling performer since the age of 5. Now, if he can have all the money problems and asset problems that he had and he was CLEARLY a multi-millionaire entertainer, what makes you so special?? Take a moment to really study the blessings and hardships that this man experienced. Maybe you will learn some valuable lessons from MJ that can benefit you through your career.
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