Archive for July, 2007

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LEGAL “COACHING” BEFORE SIGNING CAN SAVE MONEY

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

When planning a large, complex gardening project, many people would want a professional landscaper to design and carry out the project. On the other hand, if just looking to dress up a perennial bed or put in a few shrubs, a visit to the local garden shop for a question-and-answer session with the staff would likely yield all the guidance needed.

Similarly, when it comes to taking care of legal business, for major, complicated matters that could entail a fight and where the stakes are high, a professional legal advocate is a must, but there are also instances when all that may be required is a little legal coaching. This might apply when purchasing a piece of real estate, entering into an independent contract for some home remodeling, or writing a simple will when there are no minor children or large estates involved. It might be you’re trying to fill out immigration paperwork for a change in residency status or to request a visa extension, or you’re preparing a small-claims court matter, or a straightforward no-fault insurance claim for an auto accident injury. In short, any situation in which you’re going to sign your name to obligate yourself could be one where a legal coach could benefit you substantially by spotting possible pitfalls.

Consulting an attorney may seem daunting and like a big financial undertaking, but it doesn’t always need to be. For people whose legal goals are simple, straightforward, and limited, or who’d just like help pinpointing exactly what their legal goals are, Sterling Law Office offers such legal coaching.

In our Empire Village office, clients can make a one-time appointment to meet in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere with very knowledgeable and experienced attorneys. Sterling Law Office staff can evaluate and explain legal questions, contracts, applications, and other matters on a simple, hourly fee basis. At such initial consultations, clients receive a professional assessment of whether more legal assistance is in order, and if so, an estimate of the cost of proceeding, as well as a breakdown of the risks/gains of different courses of action. When clients meet with us, they leave with information and the reassurance that legal paperwork or actions they’re undertaking will be done right. We respect our clients’ budgets, and we always pursue the course that will bring the best outcome with the least amount of contention and cost.

Once a client has got that foot in the door at our office, they have an on-call advocate and legal adviser for whenever and whatever legal hurdles they find further down the road. Because we have expertise in family law, divorce, adoptions, parent and grandparent rights, personal injury and construction accidents, wills/estates and probate, small business and real estate contracts, immigration law, and Social Security Disability, Sterling Law Office can give legal coaching in a wide array of civil law matters. If legal conundrums are causing you worry or uncertainty, give us a call. We can help.
Posted by Mary Wreford; Approved by Lea Ann Sterling, July 24, 2007

The information presented in this article is for general information only and should not be construed to be legal advice.

IMMIGRATION CONSEQUENCES OF CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS– A MESSAGE TO CRIMINAL LAW ATTORNEYS

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

I have never practiced criminal law, but one aspect of my civil practice touches on criminal practice in a way that is crucial for criminal law attorneys to understand. I handle immigration cases. In cases where immigration law and criminal law intersect, knowledge of current immigration law is essential.

Many more residents of the Grand Traverse area are non-citizens than anyone would imagine. For the same reason our area attracts immigrants from Ohio and Illinois, it also attracts them from Mexico, Jamaica, and Turkey (to name the native countries of a few of my clients). The immigration consequences of a criminal conviction for a legal alien are monumental, and I think we are not doing our job if we fail to understand this and make our clients aware. A client may face deportation after a conviction for even misdemeanors, pursuant to 1996 changes to the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

Not that the Michigan Supreme Court would find fault with an attorney for failing to address this issue. In fact, Michigan stands alone, holding in People v. Davidovich, 463 Mich 446 (2000), that defense counsel’s failure to inform aliens that they may be deported upon a criminal conviction is not grounds to withdraw a guilty plea. While the Michigan Supremes find immigration consequences a collateral matter, more than ten other states have actually mandated that courts verify the defendant’s understanding of this potential risk.

Aside from Davidovich, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Article 36, 1 (b) requires the United States, as a signatory to this international treaty, to inform arrested non-citizens of their right to contact their national consulates. Presumably, even if state law doesn’t require the criminal non-citizen defendant to understand the immigration consequences of a conviction, the national consulate will.

When the Hon. James R. McCormick visited Nogales, Mexico in 2002, he brought home a Mexican government “Guide on Human Rights” informing English-speaking non-citizen arrestees of their right to “establish contact with your Consulate.” The United States, including our own local law enforcement officials, routinely ignores this obligation.

Our government, however, would have a fit if a U.S. citizen arrested in Mexico or Turkey was not informed of their right and allowed to contact the U.S. embassy. Mexico is taking the arrogant U.S. government to the World Court in The Hague for continued violations of this treaty. If the United Nations International Court of Justice issues an injunction, the United States must choose whether to respect or defy its judgment.

How is every little northern Michigan district court and law enforcement unit supposed to know about the Vienna Convention’s requirements? We will all learn together in the same way we learned about Miranda rights–by education. Reading this article is one step.

Identify the citizenship status of each of your criminal defendant clients. A conviction for a non-citizen may earn him or her an unwanted ticket back to the country of origin. Even if the client has a U.S. citizen spouse and children depending upon the defendant and his or her income. Even if the client has spent his or her entire life in the United States with no connection to the country of birth. The consequences of that conviction are more than a fine and jail time to the non-citizen client — they can lose the most fundamental elements of the client’s life — home and family.
Posted by Lea Ann Sterling, Esq., July 17, 2007

The information presented in this article is for general information only and should not be construed to be legal advice.

BOOKS & ARTICLES FOR MORE ON STERLING LAW

Monday, July 9th, 2007

Northern Michigan has long been a seasonal home for migrant workers who shore up the agriculture and tourism work forces. Sterling Law assists many non-citizens in their quest for permanent residency and citizenship. An overview of the situation with immigrants who arrive in the area without visas and lacking legal status was given to the Glen Arbor Sun by Lea Ann Sterling. This story covers many immigration law issues that are so much in the news of late and are of such importance to us all. It may be viewed at www.glenarborsun.com/archives, for the 2006 year. In a related vein, read about how Lea Ann defended the cause of an immigrant to Traverse City who was facing deportation and the loss of his marriage, two young children, and job, a case which Lea Ann won for her client before the Immigration Court in Detroit, at www.record-eagle.com/2002/dec/21deport.htm

Lea Ann’s interest in immigrants and the hope for a better life extends to those first Europeans who settled in this land. Her scholarship in this area led to the historical consultation she gave for a wonderful PBS documentary about the first legal settlement of the Northwest Territory. See this piece of our national immigrant past at www.openingthedoorwest.com.

Yet further journalistic documentation of how Sterling Law champions the cause of its clients, in this case a personal injury auto accident case, will be found at
www.record-eagle.com/2005/aug/18derror.htm
This was a truly horrific auto accident in which an SUV pulling a trailer on snowy roads ran into our client’s spouse’s car and badly injured the client’s four young children. Securing justice in this personal injury case to ensure medical care and to help protect the future for these children was a source of very great satisfaction to Sterling Law.

The Glen Arbor Sun, also featured a very nice story about us when Lea Ann first opened her practice in Empire. That article links Lea Ann’s law practice and her historical research. It appears in the 2002 archives of the www.glenarborsun.com website.

Lea Ann pursued truth and justice, which is after all the genuine, constitutional American way, in a successful Freedom of Information Act suit against the Traverse City Police department. This case, filed on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, brought information and monetary compensation for our clients and is summarized in the news story at www.record-eagle.com/2004/nov/17aclu.htm

For a critique and profile of Lea Ann Sterling’s book, Historic Cottages of Mackinac Island, visit the big city downstate via www.detroit.about.com and their Michigan books section. They were kind enough to call Lea Ann’s full-color photography tome “an excellent book which historians and tourists alike will love and enjoy.” The book also has the honor of appearing as a recommended title on the official State of Michigan website at www.mich.gov in the History, Arts and Libraries section called Read Michigan. You might also like to see photos of the book and be apprised of other northern Michigan writers’ works, at the website of the book’s publisher, www.arbutuspress.com.

Before turning her attention to the beautiful, storied dwellings on Mackinac, Lea Ann photographed and recounted the narratives for Historic Homes of Olde Towne, Columbus Ohio, a pictorial guidebook available from Sterling Law Office. That volume won the Ohio Historical Society Education and Awareness Award and enjoys the distinction of being listed on the Society’s site at www.ohiohistory.org.
Posted by Mary Wreford; Approved by Lea Ann Sterling, July 9, 2007

The information presented in this article is for general information only and should not be construed to be legal advice.

INCREASE IN IMMIGRATION FEES

Friday, July 6th, 2007

On May 29, 2007, United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced a new fee schedule for immigration benefits and petitions. The new fees will be effective July 30, 2007. Applications or petitions postmarked or filed on or after that date will require new fees. For many applications and petitions, the filing fees have increased substantially. Thus, if you desire or need to file for an immigration benefit, it would be beneficial to try and do so before the increase in fees.

For more information on these fee increases, you can refer to the following press release issued by USCIS:
www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/FinalFeeRuleQsAs052907.pdf

For a detailed chart that identifies the new fees:
www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/FinalUSCISFeeSchedule052907.pdf
Posted by Wendy K. Bailey, Esq., July 6, 2007

The information presented in this article is for general information only and should not be construed to be legal advice.

CONSTRUCTION WORKER CLIENT WINS $317,500 FOR WORK ACCIDENT INJURY

Friday, July 6th, 2007

In a victory for workers who incur personal injury in construction site accidents, Lea Ann Sterling, with co-counsels Wendy Bailey and Dean Robb, recently secured settlements totaling $317,500 for a worksite-injured carpenter.

On February 1, 2005, Joseph LaPan, a framing carpenter, was helping to construct the BayView Condominiums in Suttons Bay. He walked across a section of the building site and stepped on a two-inch piece of styrofoam that had been left on top of and concealing an opening for a future stairwell. He immediately broke through the soft foam and fell 17 feet onto a water-covered concrete floor.

In the workplace accident, Mr. LaPan sustained severe, permanent injuries which, at age 51, put an end to his life-long career as a carpenter. It started a disability journey that has led him through nine surgeries for spinal, disk, arm and wrist trauma, hundreds of doctor and physical therapy visits, and thousands of hours of medical treatment.

On the day before the accident, cement contractor Americrete poured an upper level cement floor cap. Due to cold weather, the lower level needed to be heated for the cement to set. To keep the lower level heated, the openings for the stairwells had to be covered. Americrete covered the stairwell holes with the two-inch pieces of Styrofoam, which they found laying unused at the site. The stairwell openings were thus hidden, unsealed, and left without barriers or warning signs.

Ms. Sterling persuasively argued to a case-evaluation panel that the defendants in the case, including the general building contractor for BayView Condominiums, the development company, the framing subcontractor, and Americrete, the cement subcontractor, failed and were negligent in their duties to ensure a safe workplace. The panel’s case evaluation against the four defendants was for a total of $600,000. The building and development companies each accepted their shares of the evaluation award, in the sum of $300,000. The framing contractor initially rejected the case evaluation, then agreed to settle for $17,500.

The case went to trial against the remaining defendant, the concrete subcontractor, who declined to accept the mediator evaluation. At trial, the Leelanau County jury found “no cause of action” against Americrete, on the basis that leaving an unsecured, unmarked hidden trap at the construction site was within the scope of duties they were hired to perform. Somewhat astonishingly, the jury affirmed the concept that Americrete was doing the job they were hired to do, and hence no “separate and distinct duty” was created. The jury reached this verdict even though there was no written contract between Americrete and the construction contractors, but only a purchase order that broadly called for Americrete to pour the cap and “provide all material and labor and remove all trash/debris” for concrete work at the site.

The trial portion of this case demonstrates some of the significant legal hurdles injured construction workers face if they seek compensation. Recent appellate court rulings in construction and personal injury law in Michigan, driven by conservative courts which favor business owners and insurance companies over workers and victims, have made it much more difficult for valid personal injury claims to achieve their just reward.

The ominous implications of the “no cause of action” jury finding are that subcontractors working on a jobsite bear no responsibility to co-subcontractors also working on the site to adhere to industry safety standards, nor indeed to take any measures whatsoever to maintain a safe, hazard-free workplace. If their actions lead to injuries of construction workers on the site, they bear no liability. A general contractor will be liable only if the four requirements of the common work area doctrine are met, including that a “significant” number of workers, being more than four workers, were exposed to the hazard.

A news story from the Leelanau Enterprise with additional information about this case can be found at www.leelanaunews.com in the May 2007 Archives section.
Posted by Mary Wreford; Approved by Lea Ann Sterling, Esq., July 6, 2007

The information presented in this article is for general information only and should not be construed to be legal advice.

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