Legalese

There are a lot of milestone birthdays in your child’s life.  Turning 10 feels like a big deal when you turn 10 because now you are ‘double digits.’  13 makes you a teenager.  15 marks […]

One of the consequences of getting divorced is splitting up assets.  Other than a house or real estate, one of the biggest assets that people tend to have is a retirement account or pension.  Those […]

Marriage.  Sometimes it can seem like an outdated concept.  “It’s just a piece of paper,” I hear people say.  “I don’t need the state or the church telling me we’re committed to each other.” It […]

Statutes of limitation are generally understood as something that limits you in the amount of time you have to bring a lawsuit or a charge against someone.  But what do they mean exactly?  A lot […]

The phrase, “Let Your Freak Flag Fly” has been tumbling around my head for a while.  It pops in, unbidden, shouting, commanding, drowning out other, more hesitant phrases.  I have decided to make it the […]

As I celebrated New Year’s Day with my family and friends, I got to thinking that this random date in the middle of winter seemed an odd time to celebrate the new year.  It is […]

There was a headline recently that indicated that it was not ok to shoot someone who was stealing packages off your front porch.  This headline provoked a lively debate on social media about self-defense, defense […]

Reverse mortgages are things that have come up a lot lately, and there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what they are and how they are used, so I thought I’d explain the […]

In my last column, I wrote about how recently it was that women had to get a man’s approval before getting something as basic as a credit card.  That article got a lot of responses […]

There are a lot of rights that have been around long enough that we take them for granted.  But truly, they haven’t been around all that long.  Any right that only came into being during […]

“Emolument” is another one of those words that has been popping up a lot on the news and in social media that has a very specific legal definition, so I thought I’d talk about it […]

Impeachment is another one of those words that you hear a lot on the news and on social media a lot lately, and with varying degrees of accuracy.  I thought I would take the time […]

If someone writes you a bad check, can you have them sent to jail?  If you accidentally bounce a check, can you be arrested for it? Well, not exactly, or, rather, not immediately.  The criminal […]

If you have been paying attention to local news lately, you will have noticed that some large jurisdictions like Gwinnett and Cobb have elected to stop prosecuting misdemeanor marijuana cases as a result of the […]

Many times people come to me wanting to give authority to someone else to do something.  It might be a financial power of attorney, it might be a medical power of attorney, it might be […]

For many years in my law practice, I have had to disappoint a lot of wonderful people.  These people are step-parents, same-sex partners, and friends and relatives who have stepped in to take over when […]

One of the basic, fundamental rights that we have in America is the right to a jury trial.  This right is extended to anyone who faces a criminal trial in our courts, whether they be […]