Does your family know where your will is?

Dave Ramsey promotes having a "love drawer," which is his term for a designated home for your important estate planning and legal documents.

I cannot tell you what a relief it is for a grieving family to find Mom's will and other documents all in place at her death.  In this way, there is no scrambling to find documents amidst tears and a billion other little undesirable tasks. And, it is never too early to assemble these documents in a fireproof box in your home.

What are the basic documents that you should assemble?  If you have young children, at a minimum, I recommend having a will with a guardianship provision or a testamentary trust.  In the best case scenario, young families should have a living trust that provides for their children's education and living expenses.  These expenses can be funded with an appropriate insurance policy. 

You should also have a power of attorney.  There are several types of powers of attorney--the general durable, in which you appoint your spouse, sibling or friend to take care of your business and personal matters in the event of your disability.  There is also a springing power of attorney that should be prepared before leaving on vacation (if you are leaving your kids behind with grandma and grandpa!!)  I always prepare one of these before I leave.  It gives my parents the authority to seek both regular and emergency medical care for my kids in our absence.

Some other important documents you should keep:  a medical directive, which lets the hospital know the level of life support you would like, if you cannot communicate this for yourself.  It is more authoratative than your spouse's word.

Other important items to include: the keys and location of your safety deposit box, the location of your pre-purchased cemetery plot, directions for your burial or funeral service, the deed to your home, bank account information, car titles, and any last notes that you want to leave to your loved ones.

Of course, there are many other things that could be included as well, such as stocks and bonds, property rental agreements, business documents, and other documents that reflect the financial status of your life.

Rather than avoid the inevitable, I urge all of you to consider assembling these important documents and finding a special home for them in your home. Your family will be very thankful that you did.

http://www.aggressivemichiganlegal.com/

Collaborative Divorce-a kinder, gentler divorce

If you have not heard of collaborative divorce yet, I have a feeling you soon will. It is a concept that is grabbing hold as more couples see the value in shaping the terms of their divorce their way. There is no court intervention and no judge to decide the terms of the divorce. Rather, the husband and wife, each assisted by their own collaborative attorney and chosen team members, work through their legal issues to craft a mutually-acceptable divorce settlement. Because the husband and wife are central to the decision-making process, the ultimate result is a more permanent and workable solution. Once the settlement is drafted, the parties file for a divorce and schedule a pro/con hearing to finalize the divorce in court.

The beauty of collaborative practice, is that the parties are committed to reaching their goals together and in finding the best solution for their family. Collaborative divorce is a very private process. It is useful in all divorce scenarios, but especially when there are small children. This holistic approach focuses on the children's needs as much as their parents. In fact, in many cases, the parties choose to hire a child specialist to communicate with their children. These child specialists then bring the children's voices to the discussions.

Collaborative practice really causes a paradigm shift in everyone's thinking. If you would, consider the typical divorce... the wife hires her attorney and the husband hires his. Wife and husband become opposing parties battling to win their rights in the court's arena. The lawyers negotiate on behalf of their clients and if there is a break-down in those discussions, the parties land in court, time and time again.  Court is a scary place for most people that are not lawyers. In fact, for some people the "c" word is "court" not "cancer." At the end of the day, neither party wins and the process can be very expensive.  Moreover, a judge decides your life, without really having the time to understand your unique family issues.  More times than not, neither side is satisfied with the judge's decision.

Collaborative divorce challenges the old ways of divorce practice.  It encourages the parties to truly find peace in their ultimate family restructuring.

Collaborative divorce practice celebrates its 20th year anniversary this year. It is the brainchild of Attorney Stu Webb, who developed the practice after experiencing the ravaging effects of divorce on his own family. Collaborative attorneys, like myself, are certified in the practice of collaborative divorce.  To find out more information about this style of divorce, please see http://www.collaborativepracticemi.org/ or http://www.collaborativepractice.com/.
http://www.aggressivemichiganlegal.com/

Police Draw Blood at Drunk Driving Stops

Arizona allows it. Idaho and Texas may be next. Officers from these two states are currently undergoing training, in a test project, to draw blood from drivers suspected of drunk driving... at the scene of the stop.

The officers are being trained in a highly compressed phlebotomy course to draw blood from the hand or elbow crease.

The procedure is designed to curtail the rate of breath test refusals. The nationwide refusal rate is 22%, which has been reduced to 8-9% in Arizona since the program began in 1995. Another goal of the program is to ultimately reduce the number of drunk driving trials.

Moreover, in 1966 our supreme court upheld that the police could have blood tests forcibly done on a drunk driving suspect without a warrant, so long as the draw was based on a reasonable suspicion that the driver was intoxicated, that it was done after an arrest, and carried out in a medically-approved manner.

So imagine you are driving down the highway. You detect a patrolman's lights and sirens behind you. You are pulled over and asked a series of questions to determine whether you are intoxicated. The police flash a light in your eyes. They smell your breath, observe your car for evidence, ask for your registration and insurance and ask you to step out of your car. You are asked to blow into a Datamaster breathalyzer unit. You refuse. Field sobriety tests are administered, which you fail. So, you are arrested, taken to the police station, where a warrant is obtained and a blood test is conducted.

But, now imagine this scene in Arizona. The order of events is slightly different--expedited if you will. You refuse the preliminary breath test, PBT. You fail field sobriety tests and the officer pulls a syringe out of his medipac and draws your blood on the hood of your car.

Problematic? You bet. This practice, which was first implemented in Arizona in 1995, has raised concerns about safety and the credibility of the evidence. It has the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' DUI Committee talking. While most legal experts agree that blood tests are a better measure of blood alcohol level than breath tests, these tests can have problems, too. The vials can be mixed up or the preservative level in the tubes can be off, or blood can be stored improperly allowing it to ferment and boost alcohol content.

From an evidence standpoint, admitting a tested blood sample into evidence requires that the party who drew the blood confirm that:

• the blood sample was taken in a timely manner;
• the sample was from a particular person;
• the sample was taken by an authorized licensed physician, a medical technologist, or a registered nurse designated by a licensed physician;
  sterilized instruments were used;
• the sample was properly preserved and labeled;
• proper methods of transportation were used;
• procedures used in the test sample withdrawal were proper; and
• the identity of the supervising person, under whose care the sample was withdrawn, was established.

Gard v Michigan Produce Haulers, 20 Mich App 402, 407–408, 174 NW2d 73 (1969); see also People v Cords, 75 Mich App 415, 427, 254 NW2d 911 (1977); Clark v Flint, 60 Mich App 364, 367, 230 NW2d 435 (1975); Rose v Paper Mills Trucking Co, 47 Mich App 1, 4, 209 NW2d 305 (1973).

As I see it, the the integrity of the samples, the methods used to obtain them and even the preservation techniques will certainly become a new arena of litigation. Moreover, on a personal note....I do not like giving the police the extra authority to draw blood at the scene, no matter how skilled they are. Arrests are heated affairs. It seems to me that police blood draws are dangerous and unpredictable, and cannot be controlled to my satisfaction.

http://www.aggressivemichiganlegal.com

What To Do If a Creditor Tries to Collect a Discharged Debt

For many people, bankruptcy spells relief. Those sleepless nights spent calculating your budget, wondering how to pay the mounting bills with your shrinking pay are gone. Your head feels clear because bankruptcy gave you the chance to forget your old debt and start again.

But, what if an old creditor does not want to forget your old debt? What if they are still trying to collect a debt that you discharged in bankruptcy?

A typical reason for this happening is that the creditor or party in interest simply does not know that you filed bankruptcy. They may even have purchased your debt from the original creditor and not received notice of your bankruptcy. In either case, your first step is to let them know about your bankruptcy. Give the creditor a call or send them a letter.

In most cases, the creditors will drop the action. To do otherwise, is a violation of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA). If a phone call or a letter does not work, do not hesitate to contact me for assistance.

http://www.aggressivemichiganlegal.com

Suspicious package

We've received lots of weird correspondence at our firm through the years--emergency faxes pleading for help in prosecuting the FBI/CIA, inmate letters, cool marketing materials, emails from fictitious foreign clients seeking to hire us, if we will only provide them with our bank account number, routing number, etc... But, yesterday's mail was a first.

At the mid-day mail run, the postman handed my assistant a large white envelope rejected by the county jail and returned to sender, us. The packaging label was handwritten in a femine script. The sender claimed to be from our firm, though the name was slightly off. Inside was a manila envelope that had a typed label with our correct firm name and address. Someone had taken some time to really make this look like it came from a law firm... And directed to a recently booked convict. A quick internet search revealed him as a white male, in his 30s, convicted of armed robbery, home invasion and attempted murder.

Inside were some strange contents- a thick set of pages printed off the internet, taped together with clear packaging tape. The pages dealt with special U.S. armed forces. Then, there were two separate pages of bible verses, advising our inmate to seek not earthly goods but heavenly gain. Pretty spooky... and one of those pages was taped to a ziploc bag that contained 4 individual bags of a brown, powdery substance.

Well, we are fortunate to work across the street from the police department. So, we threw this suspicious package into a garbage bag and high-tailed it to the police. The first police officer took a quick peek at the substance and guessed that it was a package of brown heroine. Hmmmm... that was a lot of brown heroine. Then, they called a special narcotics agent in to test the substance, which an hour later was declared coffee.

Yes, we were relieved, but also confused. Who would spend $15.00 to mail this package to an inmate, using a fictitious name? Were they trying to see if they could sneak contraband to the inmate by pretending it came from a law firm? Were we really the intended recipients? We don't know.

But, at the end of the day, I am left with a feeling that there are crazier people living among us than those behind bars...

http://www.aggressivemichiganlegal.com