Category: Law

Personal injury law covers a wide range of disciplines and types of cases more than you might think. This Denver personal injury lawyer article will briefly discuss five of the most common: product liability, wrongful death, car accident, motorcycle, and worker’s comp. Most Denver accident law firms handle all of these types of cases.

Product liability cases deal with suits where a consumer product caused injury or death. Faulty and poorly made products cause a lot of unnecessary deaths and injuries every year. If you’re in the Denver area, a Denver personal injury lawyer will be able to help get you some well deserved compensation for situations like this. Product liability is an area of the law that most personal injury attorneys are very familiar with.

Another area of personal injury law that is commonly encountered is wrongful death. As your Denver accident lawyer will tell you, wrongful death is something that can be claimed when another individual’s malpractice, negligence, recklessness, action, or inaction cause an unwarranted death. If you are the spouse or close family member of the deceased person, you have a case of wrongful death against the party at fault.

A very common personal injury law case is in the event of a car accident. For people under the age of thirty-four, car accidents are the leading cause of death; they are a common cause of injury as well. Consult with a Denver car accident lawyer who is specifically familiar with car accident law if you have been injured in a car accident. You can seek damages for medical treatment, and for loss of property and/or wages. Make sure you speak in depth with a knowledgeable Denver accident lawyer to be fully educated on your rights and how you should handle a car accident case.

Motorcycle injury is another very common area of personal injury law. It is similar to a car accident case. Motorcycle injury cases may allow you to seek compensation for losses and/or pain and suffering. Seek the advice of a Denver car accident lawyer or even simply a Denver personal injury lawyer for information you can rely on.

Worker’s compensation law occupies another huge sector of personal injury law. This law protects and compensates employees of a company who are injured or disabled while on the job a fixed settlement amount without the need to go through the litigation process. There are also situations where worker’s comp benefits can be paid to dependents of the employee in the event of a work-related death from an accident or illness. Schedule a consultation with a Denver personal injury lawyer to discuss the specifics of worker’s compensation and how it may benefit you.

Law firm billing and accounting requirements are inherently different from other service businesses. Even among legal practices, billing requirements can vary greatly from one area of practice to another.
Because time spent on billing and accounting is administrative and not billable, a law firm’s profitability depends on capturing all billable time and expenses, generating invoices in a timely manner and managing collection efforts proactively. Another highly important aspect that sets law firm billing apart from that of other businesses is that law firm billing and trust bookkeeping come under the purview of state ethics guidelines.
Law firms today cannot function without a legal billing software that fulfills the firm’s practice-specific billing needs and helps them avoid common billing pitfalls. The top ten most prevalent mistakes law firms make, when it comes to billing and accounting are:
Pitfall #10 Not Using Matter-Based Recordkeeping
Many service businesses perform multiple types of jobs for a customer and generate one invoice that covers everything. The same billing process does not work for law firms.
Matter based recordkeeping is unique to law firms. All transaction details must be kept at a matter level rather than client level. Law firms are usually required to keep each task (called “matter”) completely separate from other matters for the same client or other clients. For law firms, matter-based recordkeeping is critical because it allows them to produce proper records with ease for client billing inquires, billing disputes or state audits.
Pitfall #9 Not Accounting for Varied Types of Legal Matters
Accounting for retainers, time and expenses, etc. will vary depending upon the nature of the matter in question. Most law firms handle a variety of cases and use an assortment of client billing arrangements , such as hourly, retainer based hourly, fixed and contingency. A firm’s billing system must be able to handle all types of billing arrangements and the intricacies of each case.
Pitfall #8 Missing Flexibility in Setting Billing Rates
Professionals (or Timekeepers) at law firms are likely to have standard hourly rates for different tasks. An attorney billing software must be able to set Timekeeper rates accordingly, support discounted rates or a previous year’s rates for old matters, without much manual intervention.
Pitfall #7 Failure to Track and Allocate Disbursements
While law firms focus on capturing all billable hours, they often neglect to properly track and allocate expenses for billable matters. Expense tracking is just as important as time tracking. If you do not allocate expenses to a matter as expenses are incurred, you might never collect them. Matter expenses you forget to allocate are lost profits.
Expenses are typically paid in variety of ways (checks, credit cards and cash), adding another layer of difficulty. A trust account disbursement, however, is not an issue because the expense will come out of client funds.
Pitfall #6 Not Preparing Customized Professional Quality Bills & Reminders
The billing process is a direct reflection of your firm and is a vital part of your client communication. While law firms are conscious of providing top quality legal services, their high standards often fall short when it comes to client communications such as invoice and payment reminders. Not only is it important to generate invoices on a fixed billing cycle, but it also equally important to prepare professional quality invoices. Cluttered and hard to understand invoices are a recipe for late payments and client questions and are aspects of legal billing that become even more important when payments are in arrears.
Pitfall # 5 Not Utilizing Built-in Software Collection Support
Many law firms let unpaid bills pile up and end up with a collection problem. Take a proactive approach to debt collection rather than grappling with the issue after the fact. An efficient law office billing software will provide built-in collection support. Don’t wait for a billing cycle, if a matter’s unbilled balance has reached a low threshold point. Remember, bill collection is an on-going and vital practice management process.
Pitfall # 4 Not Checking for Client Conflict of Interest
For most law firms, conflict checking is a must. Your firm’s roster of clients is already available in your billing system. Instead of duplicating work, make every attempt to use the same system as a conflict checker. While developing a bulletproof conflict of interest system is challenging, development in today’s computer software makes it easy to build an integrated database that quickly identifies conflicts of interest.
Pitfall #3 Not Handling Client Advances Properly
Pitfall # 3 involves a host of potential problem areas. A law firm’s cash flow and profitability depend upon client advances (or retainers). However, from an accounting/bookkeeping perspective, client advances (retainers) need special treatment and must be handled carefully. The varied nature of client advances, an initial deposit to a trust and/or operating account, and reducing balances, as fees are earned, can significantly complicate your back office operation, if your billing system is not capable of processing retainer transactions systematically.
And, apart from itemizing legal fees and expenses, a legal time & billing software must always display remaining retainer balances on your client invoices.
Pitfall # 2 Loosing Track of Trust Funds
Every law firm endeavors to keep trust books clean and accurate, but most either fail or spend significant time and resources trying to do so. Ninety percent of the trust fund tracking battle is won, if your system provides integrated billing and trust bookkeeping . The trust bookkeeping portion of the system must prevent common trust errors (e.g. ledger card overdraft), provide a bank reconciliation tool and three-way reconciliation reports.
Pitfall # 1 Choosing Complex Software and Failure to Protect Data Integrity and Security
The most common and the most dangerous of all legal billing pitfalls include trying to cope with complex software, failure to protect data integrity and implement secure measures. Technological tools are more hindrance than help, if the tools are too complex to use. Software that isn’t user friendly and requires external consultants or trainers consumes valuable time and eats profits.
Data integrity and security are a matter of taking precautions to protect data from unauthorized access and use. You can minimize threats and easily avoid Pitfall #1, if your billing system has built-in features for controlling access to data, has checks in place for error detection and a regular data back-up function.
Reap the Benefits of Legal Billing Software Development
Computers and software have changed how companies everywhere do business. Technology today allows law firms and other businesses to compete with their larger counterparts on many levels.
Choose software with care and reap the benefits of technological developments in legal billing systems. Before you purchase legal billing software, analyze program features to ensure that the software’s design can help you avoid the ten common legal billing pitfalls. The right software will not only enhance your firm’s in-house capabilities and productivity, but will also help you comply with state ethics guidelines and increase profitability.

Lotteries and the Law of Attraction

Lottery players select their numbers using a wide variety of methods. Some methods are based on logic and mathematical formulas and algorithms. Others are based on new age or occult ‘sciences.’ Some methods can border on wacky but the fact remains that if there were really a sure fire way to pick winning lottery numbers the world would be filled with lottery millionaires. One of the stranger methods touted as a sure fire way to win the lottery is the so called ‘law of attraction.’

The law of attraction has been around for about a century and a half. It first appeared in the US in 1879. The law of attraction says that thoughts can influence events and chance. Throughout the years various hucksters have convinced many otherwise logical people that the law of attraction is real. Insomniacs who are prone to watching late night TV have probably seen infomercial huckster Kevin Trudeau hawking his own take on the law of attraction called ‘your wish is you command.’ Is the law of attraction real? Scientists say no but many new agers believe that you can achieve great wealth by wishing it. The 2006 film called ‘The Secret’ prompted renewed interest in the law of attraction.

A recent blog post claims that lottery players can win those big jackpots by sheer belief and that winning the lottery is not a matter of luck but of will and belief. The author claims that by eliminating doubts and negative thoughts lottery players can improve their chances of winning a large jackpot. Once again, if that were so we would have thousands, if not millions, of big lottery winners. Television host Larry King has discussed the law of attraction on his show and remains critical. King stated, “If the Universe manifests abundance at a mere thought, why is there so much poverty, starvation, and death?” ‘Evidence’ supporting the law of attraction is anecdotal at best and belief in the law of attraction seems to be confined to the gullible and the hucksters that take advantage of them.

Lotteries are games of pure chance and no amount of belief will change the outcome of a drawing. It has been shown time and time again that most winners of mega jackpot lotteries such as Powerball, Mega Millions, EuroMillions and other lotteries have used the ‘quick pick’ option where the random number generator at the lottery terminal selects the numbers. Since lotteries are games of chance everyone has pretty much an equal chance of winning and no amount of belief will change that fact.

Today, I’m going to discuss three tactics that you can start using today to invoke the Law of Attraction in your life. These three things are easy to do and won’t cost you a dime.

Positive Attitude

This one is pretty simple. Proponents of the Law of Attraction maintain that living in a perpetually positive state of mind will attract positive influences (some like to call them “vibrations”) in the world that will fuel positive changes in their lives. Whether these changes come in the form of circumstances that put you in a better, more successful place or opportunities that will bring success later in life, maintaining a positive attitude is going to help bring them about.

I like to think of this as mental preparation. Keeping up a positive attitude mentally prepares you to better handle things in life, as well as helping to align you for success.

Think about it: if you only focus on the negative, you’re never in the appropriate mindset necessary to appreciate the things you DO have in life – and you can’t use those things to move forward. For example, say you’re driving a junky car. You hate this car. Every time you hop into it in the morning to drive to work, you glare at it. It’s not pretty, it causes you problems, maybe it smells funny – whatever. You hate this car. But it’s the only care you have, and you can’t quite afford to get the better car you wish you had. During your morning commute, as you drive along the highway, you always notice all the nicer vehicles on the road. You see the guy in the tricked-out SUV, and you wish that was yours. By the time you get to work, you’re already in a foul mood and it shows.

So you have a crappy car.

So what?

Utilizing a positive attitude – your mental preparation – is useful in this instance. Rather than concentrating on how much you hate your ugly car, remind yourself that even if it’s ugly, it still gets you to work. In fact, you’re LUCKY to have a car at all. You don’t have to stand out in the rain, waiting for the bus. You don’t have to walk to work in the freezing cold of winter or the blazing heat of summer. Even if the car is a mess, at least it’s got climate control inside.

By appreciating your junk-mobile, even just a little, you are creating a more positive environment in your life – and maybe that positive environment will allow you to be in just a little better mood when you get to work in the morning, which will, in turn, allow you to perform better, which will eventually lead you to the raise that will allow you to buy your tricked-out SUV.

Or maybe not, but at least you’re not hating life at 7:30 AM every morning because your car smells funny. And that’s a positive in and of itself.

Visualization

Proponents of the Secret/Law of Attraction are big on visualization. By visualizing yourself where you want to be in life, you will attract those “vibrations” necessary to get yourself to that place. Some Secret teachers even say to go one step further and utilize “holographic visualization,” which basically means that, along with mentally seeing yourself in a certain situation in life, you need to also emotionally put yourself there. You need to see these visions so clearly in your mind that it almost seems as if you are actually there.

Talk about ‘property’ and the first connection you are likely to make is ‘real estate,’ such as a house, a farmland, or a commercial building, that you can actually touch, feel, and live in. An intellectual property (IP) refers to something entirely different. Any idea that takes on a form and later finds expressions as a film, a book, a TV show, a game, or anything else that people play, watch, read, and recognize can be classified as IP. Trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, patents, literature, music, and art are all intellectual properties. To put it simply, IP is a creation of imagination over which a corporation or an individual enjoys legal monopoly.

Incidentally, the term ‘intellectual property’ is also used to refer to those laws protecting such monopolies. These laws have been designed to uphold the rights of the owner of an IP. Cases related to violation of these laws can be quite complicated. For this reason, it is important to hire an experienced legal professional. This article reviews attorney Gary P. Price, who serves in the Lewis & Kappes law firm as a director in the intellectual property team and specializes in civil litigation, intellectual property, appeals, and mediation. A registered mediator, Mr. Price has vast experience in handling cases ranging from commercial litigation, personal injury, and premises liability to civil rights claims, anti-trust, and copyright infringement.

Education And Professional Experience

After completing his graduation and post-graduation from the University of Wisconsin, Gary P. Price followed up with a degree in law from the Indiana University. According to www.lewis-kappes.com, he has worked as law clerk in the Supreme Court of Indiana in addition to serving as an adjunct faculty in Indiana Central University, Butler University, and Indianapolis Law School. HIS wide experience has made him exceptionally proficient in the methodology of trial practice.

Gary P. Price has represented clients in the Federal District Court in the southern and northern districts of Indiana and the U.S. Court of Appeals (Seventh Circuit, Federal Circuit and Eleventh Circuit). He is currently affiliated with

* Indianapolis Bar Association * Indiana State Bar Association * Indiana Trial Lawyers Association * The Association of Trial Lawyers of America

Gary P. Price was honored as the Indiana Super Lawyer (general litigation) from 2004 to 2009 consecutively. He has also received the Appellate Advocacy Award (1977) and Woodward Fellowship (1978). Mr. Price has authored ‘Administrative Law’ and co-authored ‘Workmen’s Compensation.’

Notable Cases

The team of intellectual property lawyers at Lewis & Kappes, including Gary P. Price, has successfully handled several cases related to violation of intellectual property rights, misappropriation, and copyright infringement. The following are some of of the types of cases handled by this powerful legal team:

* They have negotiated licensing rights of copyrighted material and handled software licensing claims * They have defended clients in trade secret claims and secured damages for trade secret misappropriation * This team, including Gary P. Price, has successfully defended trademark infringement claims and secured registered trademarks * They have taken up patent infringement cases and resolved those by negotiation

The skilled team of intellectual property attorneys in Lewis & Kappes, including Gary P. Price, is empowered with extensive legal experience that makes them highly efficient in handling all kinds of cases related to intellectual property.