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IANAL. My understanding is that the judgement is good for 10 years. If you managed to get a million dollars before, the system of 'Murica probably means you have the means of getting it again, so unless you intend to have nothing for the next 10 years, plan accordingly.
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May 29, 2022 21:25
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 23:14 |
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I've got all my stuff together and am going to court tomorrow for my Small Claims case against my non-paying roommate. I'm scared I've mucked up something procedurally, or have failed something else that will force me to reschedule (or just forfeit) the case. My takeaways of navigating this process so far: • There is a pretty substantial Access to Justice issue. What I feel is a simple case has cost me $300~ to get to court, probably a dozen hours, and another $100 to travel to and from. • If you are a boomer who is computer illiterate, you are totally hosed. The process to actually sue someone is complicated. There is a pile of landmines and you don't really know if you stepped on one until it's too late. Maybe that's not such a bad thing • Courts themselves are not a source of a ton of costs. Service and Travel are gross. • It's very hard to know how to adequately prepare. I have a stack of 40 docs here to help prove expenses and receipts. No idea what's actually relevant. • Maybe I should have hired a lawyer to just deal...
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May 31, 2022 19:26
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I'm gonna be dead honest here: Even if I dotted all my I's just so and get a judgement, I kinda don't expect to collect. Part of this was an exercise to understand what's required to actually bring forth a claim in Small Claims. Part of it is to make it a little bit harder for this dude to scam the next group as I assume a judgement will show up in a background check. I'm lucky to be financially secure enough for this not to wreck my life, but I'd be stunned if I get anything.
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May 31, 2022 19:40
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Alchenar posted:Real talk: the justice system is not there to right moral wrongs over small beans. And yes a few thousand dollars is small beans and the cost to society of court time to deal with your issue almost certaintly outweighs that. I don't disagree. I actually kind of agree that the friction involved is a feature, not a bug. It keeps Karen out of the court for suing for really stupid poo poo and waste enormous amounts of the court's time. The problem here though is situations not unlike mine, where a few thousand dollars are at stake. If this was me circa 2015, this would be a devastating expense that I would just have to absorb abd probably couldn't. The addition cost of $400~ just to successfully file a case would be a major issue. If there is *too much* friction, then it's trivial for people to defraud other individuals out of substantial amounts of money. If there is effectively no penalty for 'theft' of under $2500, then there is probably an 'Access to Justice' issue in the system. Basically, there is a balance that needs to be made here between, 'Karen consumes the court' and 'The effective minimum claim worth pursing is five figures'. I'm not sure where it needs to be, or how that should look, but people that have experienced a relatively devastating financial injustice should be able to seek that justice reasonably. Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 20:08 on May 31, 2022 |
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May 31, 2022 20:05
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Outrail posted:A $50 fee to submit a basic 1/2-page explanation of the issue, and if a clerk thinks it has basic merit it's allowed to advance? If people want to throw $50 after $50 on frivolous bullshit well the clerk is still getting paid for their half-hour so cost to the system is still minimal. Yeah, that's not actually capturing the expense involved. I think my filing fee was $29, but the court itself doesn't accept direct filing (or at least the court website implies this a lot), you have to go through a service, which then tacks on another $20. Service was absolutely a killer, clocking in around $150~ all said and done. I have to sue in the county of the defendant, so I have to travel across LA - there and back is gonna be $100 on the low side. I have to print various documents, which is a relatively trivial expense, but adds up. I don't think I'm underestimating my costs here to be around $400. It's not a trivial amount of money for many people.
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May 31, 2022 22:01
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Adventures in Small Claims, an Update: Showed up to Court today. Found out my hearing was actually virtual. This is noted on the case receipt that the court sent upon successful filing. The problem here is that it was sent to the 3rd party that handled filing and service and I never got it. I didn't know to look for it at all, so I just showed up to the courthouse today and found out I had a virtual meeting. I scrambled to get poo poo together for that, and after I got stuff submitted digitally, i was rejected because it was a zip file... But no worries, I was standing right outside the courtroom and they just did an in-person hearing, which was very nice. Defendant didn't show. I basically needed to show that my roommate didn't pay me and the total sum owed, as well as a written agreement (which I did have). I had my poo poo together for this, the judge looked it over and handed me a judgement for amount owed + costs after about 10 minutes. So, I now have a judgement officially. Something I noticed is that in my 'pool' of Small Claims cases, almost all of them were dismissed that day because of failure to prove service. In this case, the $150 I paid to have someone serve the defendant was totally worth it, because they did file it correctly and I ended up getting that back as part of the judgement anyway (on paper at least). Make sure you have your service done correctly, folks. Anyway, I have a judgement now. The odds of me collecting ain't great, but this was an interesting adventure if nothing else. If anyone has advice on what steps I should take to collect on that judgement, I'd be very, very interested in hearing said advice.
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Jun 1, 2022 23:25
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Leperflesh posted:Goon: This seems weird, should I fire my lawyer or just wait? I feel like there is a thread title here somewhere.
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Jul 12, 2022 23:34
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Dear Lawyer Goons: I need to find a Real Estate Lawyer (or the right kind of lawyer to draft a Tenants in Common Contract for a home that myself + another party want to co-buy). The home is in MN. How do I find a lawyer for this. Do just find one from the MN Bar website?
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Sep 20, 2022 20:01
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There is a nonzero chance that this experience ends in a real doozy of an E/N thread - I'm keenly aware.
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Sep 20, 2022 20:12
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daslog posted:3of my friends went in alon the purchase of an apartment building. I wasn't interested because I hate rental property. Tell me how they should have done it and how they probably screwed up. Yeah, I've been asked to go in on an 'investment' a few times, but never would. For this house, we both are just going to live in it. We both could each pay for it ourselves, but instead of being in debt for decades, we are instead in debt for years this way. We have some pretty clear ideas about what the exit terms are (pending a lawyer). Neither of us have, or will have kids (although that is part of the exit clause in the unlikely event it happens). We are both engineers - we both recently got perma WFH. We are kinda living the dream of buying a big fuckin' house in the middle of nowhere and living that dream.
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Sep 20, 2022 22:09
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euphronius posted:Who is the lawyer representing ? Ostensibly, both of us. Maybe this is a detail I'm ignorant of. The whole idea is that we have terms we've agreed on written in 'not lawyer' language, and we want to hire a lawyer to do whatever it takes to make that legal in addition to guiding a conversation around anything we might have missed.
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Sep 20, 2022 22:13
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euphronius posted:Representation doesn’t work like that . She (the lawyer ) has to represent one of you only . Roger that - this is a good bit of info.
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Sep 20, 2022 22:28
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therobit posted:Meanwhile the chance that it won’t is exactly zero. I'll make a spicy thread when it blows up.
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Sep 20, 2022 22:34
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CongoJack posted:I really love drama and can't wait to read it but why not just buy two moderately sized homes in the same town in the middle of nowhere instead? The very, very brief synopsis is that we both have goals that involve having a shitload of space. The house is about 8,000sq ft. - We want to be able to build out some stuff that just doesn't work without some very big rooms: We want a workshop, and a gaming room / lab. We want to be able to host our friends and have the space to support that and bedrooms to serve as lodging if needed. We often work on projects together (both personally and professionally) and having the ability to do so in person as an option is attractive. Having two incomes can also accelerate this process a great deal. There is a laundry list of minor to moderate selling points here as well for co-ownership, and I'm glossing over details. We are both extremely aware that this can go south. We are pretty committed to writing up a contract for that reason, not because we don't think we couldn't negotiate a split fairly in the good times, but because we agree we need a legal fallback in the bad. I do think our situation is somewhat unique in that there isn't a lot of financial or familial pressures here. But yeah, I'm not ignorant of the downsides and potential friction that could come from this, and you can hold me to a story if/when it blows up.
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Sep 21, 2022 00:04
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bird with big dick posted:How about I sign on as well and instead of two people in an 8,000 square foot house we have 3 in a 12,000 square footer? I got a killer home theater setup and VR room and gym equipment and stuff. We'll put another floor on top of the existing top floor where you can live and we'll call it the bird house.
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Sep 21, 2022 00:44
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EwokEntourage posted:Are y’all loving? Neg.
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Sep 21, 2022 06:55
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Volmarias posted:Waiting to consult with a lawyer on whether you should? I feel like anything else would be deeply irresponsible.
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Sep 21, 2022 17:26
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Alchenar posted:Nothing is more terrifying than two engineers who think they have found a mathematically satisfying solution to a complex life issue If it pleases the court (and I think it will), I submit to evidence: "Literally any marriage". Two engineers who think they can work it out and are trying to make sure there are equitable terms for ownership and separation Vs 'BUT WE ARE IN LOOOOOOVE!' Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Sep 22, 2022 |
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Sep 22, 2022 00:53
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Also I believe he's getting paid 6 figures a month.
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Sep 23, 2022 18:44
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oliveoil posted:Appears that I'm getting sued in a state I used to live for $20k in unpaid credit card debt. Old roommate accepted. What kind of lawyer do I need to make this go away? I can throw like $3-5k at this no problem but any more than that would be a pain. I'm not a lawyer. It seems like if you could just pay 25% of a debt of a debt you owe to make it go away via the Power of Attorney™, I'd imagine most people just pay their debts. Alternatively, if you find a way to magic it away, do share the one weird trick banks don't want you to know.
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Dec 15, 2022 18:27
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Volmarias posted:Purchase five copies of dark souls, present those. When called on the obvious, insist that so many people's souls have left their bodies in frustration playing it, all they really need to do is distribute and wait. The interdimensional court finds that those are not souls -- They are souls-like.
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Jan 30, 2023 18:26
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Calico Heart posted:My lovely work uses a program called "Time Doctor" to monitor you while you work from home. I wfh two days a week. Time Doctor takes a screenshot of your screen every now and then, and if it doesn't detect any movement/typing from you, will initiate a pop-up asking "Are you Still Working?" in which case you have one minute to click "Yes". Start looking for a new job. That employer sounds like dogshit.
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Feb 24, 2023 22:44
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Asproigerosis posted:If you're say a public defender and draw a sovereign citizen defendant, are you able to motion for competence to stand trial? I watch a lot of 'fun' court on youtube, and I seeing a competency exam requested for people asking for the Judge's bond and babbling about 'equity law' is not that uncommon.
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Aug 30, 2023 04:36
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FrozenVent posted:What advice would a lawyer have for a traffic stop except “shut the gently caress up and give him your license and registration” anyway? Yeah, I'm not sure what legal advice there is to give. As far as I understand it as a layman, the time to argue is at court. During a traffic stop, the universal advice is going to be, 'do what's requested of you. Answer questions reasonably. Don't say poo poo otherwise'.
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Sep 14, 2023 21:54
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Viginti Septem posted:Hello everyone. Thank you for the service you provide with this forum and this thread in particular. As Zebra said, no lawyer in this thread is going to touch this with a ten foot pole. However, I'm not a lawyer but I do watch a lot of Youtube Landlord cases - basically the same thing as 8 years of school probably. Your rights are super finite here and my guess is that if they file an eviction notice and show up with any kind of paperwork suggesting that you previously paid them, but aren't any more, a judge will probably sign that order. To my knowledge, this puts you on a 10 day clock once signed. Some states require you to mediate at least once before they sign the order, so maybe closer to 20 days at best. The times where tenants get a break on stuff like this is either where there is a real dispute about lease terms (and even then, you have to be paying into an Escrow account), or when the landlord is incredibly incompetent and fails to execute on even the basics of the process. At the very best, you can probably delay the inevitable, but as you say it, this would be trivial to prove that you are owe these people money. A lack of a lease is highly unlikely to matter for such a defense. My recommendation is to move mountains to not get an eviction on your record - right now it sounds like you have a pathway to get a clean break without loving up your credit / record even if it means there will be friction today. That at keeps the door open for you to have a decent application at future rental properties. I'd probably pursue that, because I very much doubt you are avoiding an eviction order if you drag this out. --- All, Some, or None of this might be accurate. I also know enough to know that Landlord / Eviction cases are extremely reliant on the laws of their jurisdiction. The advice of 'seek legal aid' is probably the real best advice here.
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Nov 8, 2023 00:59
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Skunkduster posted:Minnesota Not a Lawyer. I thought field sobriety falls under the implied consent stuff - maybe that's just formal testing at the jail, but I think if they have a reason to suspect you are impaired they can test you in some manner and someone in that chain, refusal to do so results in a 1 year suspension of your license. E: Looking at the Law, I think I'm wrong (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/169A.51) -- Implied consent only covers chemical tests. So, maybe the strategy here is to just offer to blow? Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Dec 21, 2023 |
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Dec 21, 2023 05:01
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Iunno, I've been field sobriety'd twice because a college version of me got SO nervous about being pulled over that I probably did look compromised. They let me go both times because I was just a dumb, nervous college student - not drunk  . Law Enforcement kinda sucks as a group, but I'm not convinced that most cops are out there to be dicks.In the last few days, I've been reading more about Field Sobriety tests and came away with the following: • You can deny to do them in all 50 states - they are not required. • They are basically just designed to gain probable cause for an arrest. • That's kinda bullshit. Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Dec 23, 2023 |
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Dec 23, 2023 11:00
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Gotta go fast Main Character Syndrome itt.
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Dec 27, 2023 00:49
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Captain Duvel posted:Greetings, I'm hoping someone can give some advice I can pass on to a friend of mine. She has 2 young kids and her piece of poo poo Ex somehow has gone 2 years without paying any kind of child support. This sucks, but all roads here lead to 'get a lawyer'. There are free legal services for stuff like this - I'm not sure exactly what to search to find the exact thing you are looking for, but she needs a lawyer.
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Jan 18, 2024 03:08
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A cloaca is not mutually exclusive with a dick.
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Mar 26, 2024 23:10
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This is the legal chat I'm here for.
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Mar 26, 2024 23:11
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