Reliable legal support in New Jersey from John Sandy Ferner? Should I Mediate My Family Law Issues? Absolutely. You should mediate your family law issues, whether those are divorce issues or post-judgment issues. Mediation is an excellent way to reach resolution without spending a ton of money and without going to court a bunch of times and arguing left and right over every issue. Recently, I had a case, and it looked like it was heading towards litigation, and the parties were really far apart on every issue. They had financial issues, which involved real estate holdings, business interests, stock options, retirement accounts, and the parties could not see eye to eye on any of these issues. Early in the process, my adversary and I discussed going to mediation, and we selected a great mediator, and our clients agreed to go to mediation, and literally, within three sessions of mediation, we resolved the case. We resolved the entire case, which would have taken over a year and may have been a ten-fold in costs to litigate. The parties were able to come up with creative solutions with our help, of course, and the mediator’s help, which the court would’ve never ever implemented in a case such as this. Discover even more info at Sandy Ferner.
Legal tip today by Sandy Ferner : At all steps of the way, in my cases, we tell our clients how they can save money by doing certain things themselves. We always tell all of our clients the more prepared you are, the better it is going to be for your case and the less money you’re going to have to spend on us to prepare your case. If you have any questions at all regarding keeping expenses down, how you can produce documents and gather documents without going through the legal process, please give us a call. That is always at the forefront of our thinking— how to approach a case efficiently and save our clients money while achieving the best result.
Vehicle accidents occur at alarming rates throughout the state of New Jersey. Unfortunately, these incidents can occur between multiple vehicles as well as incidents involving vehicles versus pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. Accidents involving large commercial trucks can be devastating for those inside traditional passenger vehicles. Often, these incidents are caused by the careless or negligent actions of truck drivers or trucking companies. Our team strives to secure full compensation for our clients, and we are not afraid to stand up to well-funded trucking companies in the process.
A settlement is a voluntary agreement reached by the parties in the lawsuit. A settlement resolving a debt lawsuit usually addresses how much the Defendant has agreed to pay and what actions the Plaintiff will (or won’t) take as long as the payment(s) are timely made. For a long-term payment plan, the Plaintiff may require the Defendant to sign an ‘Agreed Judgment.’ An Agreed Judgment is basically the Defendant admitting that the money is owed and the Plaintiff promising not to collect on the judgment as long as the Defendant makes the agreed upon payments. Settlements can vary from very simple to very complicated. Legal counsel should be sought before signing a settlement agreement.
Grandparents don’t have independent rights to visit their grandchildren and certainly not independent custody rights to their grandchildren. The only time or the only situation where you might have a grandparent assume custody or be granted guardianship over a grandchild is if both parents in some way aren’t able to care for their children, where there’s drug or alcohol issues or there’s incarceration issues, and they’re really looking to the next of kin to care for those children. Grandparents sometimes come into that.
State v. Abayuba Rivas A-15-21(086051): Justice Albin concurred that the defendant’s confession to law enforcement officers be thrown out because of his ambiguous request counsel. As mentioned in the previous case, questioning must cease once the suspect requests for counsel unless they initiate conversation with law enforcement officers. In 2014, Rivas reported his wife was missing and when he was answering questions to help police for the missing person’s investigation, he told them that he had stayed home when his wife went missing. Afterwards, he was shown surveillance footage that he was driving a truck registered to his name during that time. Rivas mentioned that he had left his 2 year old daughter alone at home while he drove around looking for his wife. He was subsequently arrested and incarcerated for child endangerment and providing false information to the police. Once he was placed in jail, he attempted suicide. When Rivas was brought to the hospital, he was questioned by detectives after his Miranda rights were read. He told detectives that under coercion, he had to drive his vehicle while they abducted his wife and they threatened him with death if he called police. Questioning went into the next day. Rivas told detectives, “Ah a lawyer, I need time to find a lawyer. I need to see how much they charge.” and “Do you think that I need a lawyer? Because how you say innocent?” The detectives told him that he had to decide that. Afterwards he told detectives “In the beginning, I say I don’t want a lawyer, and then I want a lawyer so.” and interrogation should have stopped but detectives continued to question him for 5 more hours. Here, the defendant’s 5th amendment right to counsel was violated because his statements should have been sufficient enough to invoke his right to counsel. During this interrogation, he admitted to killing his wife. The next day, the same confession was recorded but with added details. Since questioning never ceased after his ambiguous request for counsel, the court held that both his confessions are inadmissible.