Your Guide to Understanding Legal Issues

Decoding Legal Aid Resources for DeKalb County

Diving Into Determining Legal Aid Eligibility

The criteria for qualifying for legal aid services in DeKalb County may be more lenient than you anticipated. While there are many factors to consider, there are two primary standards that are set to determine eligibility: asset limits and income limits. The asset limit refers to the maximum amount of resources a person can own while still qualifying for legal aid. Oftentimes, houses and cars do not count towards this limit—but it all depends on the legal aid provider you contact. The standard for income eligibility varies depending on the type of case you have. For instance, a low-income family facing foreclosure is likely to qualify , while those involved in a divorce or family law case may or may not qualify according to income limits.
At the outset of your case, an attorney will examine your finances closely to determine whether you qualify for free legal aid services—and they are not alone. Legal services at the Georgia Bar Association will evaluate financial need and verify the need for representation on a case-by-case basis. It is important to store financial documents in a safe and organized place so that your attorney can easily access them. Since such documents are often required at the start of a case and throughout the process, being organized can help your legal aid provider serve you efficiently and effectively.

The Alabama Rules of Juvenile Procedure

An Introduction to the Court System for Children and Families in Alabama

The Alabama court system for juveniles is intensely focused on rehabilitation.
The juveniles are considered to under the legal age of 18 and the court actually has jurisdiction over teenagers until they become of legal age. In some cases, the court has the authority over people until their 21st birthday. In Alabama, juvenile court is not just for children; the juvenile court also deals with certain matters involving young adults. The juvenile judges are generally required to be lawyers who have practiced law prior to their appointments.
Alabama Juvenile Courts deal primarily with three types of cases: delinquency cases, dependency cases, and domestic relations cases. Delinquency cases involve adjudications of the involvement of a "youthful" person in activity that would be criminal if an adult. Dependency cases involve child custody and child abuse. Domestic relations cases include family matters that, for example, involve visitation and support.
Traditionally , juvenile courts are engaged in a mission to rehabilitate "youthful" offenders, which often means that the court’s goal is to prevent recurrences of criminal behavior rather than extend the criminality. This mission sometimes means that the juvenile will participate in various forms of rehabilitation programs that court may require.
The structure of juvenile courts varies somewhat from state to state. Alabama juvenile courts have juvenile referees and probation officers. The referees make decisions on issues that do not require a hearing and have considerable authority to handle adjudications. The juvenile referees also hold preliminary hearings on cases assigned to the juvenile court judges. Referees’ decisions are subject to appeal to the juvenile judge.
Juvenile courts are courts of equity, which means that the judge will consider equitable principles beyond purely legal issues. For example, a juvenile court judge may take into account circumstances that go beyond the law to enter an order that he or she believes is fair.

Understanding hold harmless agreements associated with real estate

What a hold harmless agreement is

A Hold Harmless Agreement is a common real estate contract provision that basically excuses one party from some of the liabilities or obligations that they may have under the contract itself and possibly under some applicable laws from having to make the other party whole for those liabilities or obligations.
More simply put, a hold harmless provision in a real estate contract or lease means that for some specified liabilities the parties agree that a party who is liable for those liabilities will not seek to make the other party whole from that liability.
For example, in a residential lease, a tenant might agree to be responsible for all injuries to such tenant or any of his guests or invitees that occur in or about the premises, but with the understanding that any such liability will be capped at the limit of the tenant’s insurance policy covering the incident. So in this example, the tenant is saying that he or she will hold the landlord harmless from all injuries to the tenant and his or her guests or invitees occurring on the rental premises.
This liability is capped at the cost to post a bond for payment of any potential judgment arising from the injured party’s claim and for the cost of an insurance policy (e.g. liability policy or renter’s insurance policy) for any of the injuries.
The hold harmless agreement to a certain extent is a contract term that requires a party agreeing to the clause to indemnify (i.e. to protect) another party to the contract or a third party not otherwise involved in the contract , by requiring the indemnifying party to compensate the other party for a loss or expense suffered as a result of liability incurred by that party.
It is important to understand that a hold harmless agreement with respect to a real estate contract does not necessarily require legal advice be offered to a party prior to entering into the agreement as a warranty by the drafter or offeror of the clause to the other party.
Most of the time, a hold harmless agreement or clause will be limited in nature and while it may govern liability with respect to certain obligations in the contract (e.g. obligation to pay damages for injury to a party’s property or injury caused by that party to other’s property, or bodily injury to a person involved in a contractual business or service), and so it may not cover all liabilities or it may exclude certain specified liabilities in that contract.
The application of a hold harmless clause may be that although the clause will not completely indemnify a party for all liability or all claims made against that party, it may require contribution to the indemnified party’s loss or cost in a way that could limit or reduce the liability that ultimately may exist (i.e. a waiver of any liability above the coverage amount to avoid a potential loss to that party).
The example with the residential lease does not completely indemnify the landlord for any injury to a tenant’s guests or invitees, it only requires the tenant to hold the landlord harmless from any injuries up to the amount of the tenant’s liability coverage. However, it does limit the landlord’s liability to the amount of insurance the tenant has, which in many cases may not be sufficient to cover all potential losses or claims made against the landlord.

Police Legal Sciences: Login Guide & Useful Information

Police Legal Sciences Introduction

The goal of Police Legal Sciences is two-fold: 1) to provide access and tools to help strengthen the law enforcement professional’s legal "tool box," and 2) to strengthen the "teeth" in your legal "muscle." This should be done in a dynamic and "live" way, rather than as a traditional comment, footnote or book of police law that languishes on your shelf and within a dusty file drawer. This is a live resource that we all can contribute to. You, the reader, are simply a click away from enhancing our collective understanding and interpretation of the law as applied to you, your brothers and sisters, and your community.
Much of what we know about the limitations of the law enforcement professional’s constitutional authority is because of the hard work and bright minds of attorneys, professors, criminologists, police chiefs, captains, lieutenant’s, sergeants, officers, and assistant district attorneys through out American history . Whether writing the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, forming our laws as a nation, or just enforcing that law on a day-to-day basis, all of these people have studied, taught, and communicated the evolution of the law, the cases, the deference and response of judicial branches to the enforcement of that law by the smallest to the largest entities in human history. The purpose of the Police Legal Sciences is to serve as a vessel for all of these great minds. Thus, its collective strength will be drawn from the authority of the collective, rather than the authority of the individual. That is why, like many of the leading science journals, Police Legal Sciences will rely heavily on reference materials: court decisions, ordinances, statutes, law review articles, scholarly journals, and translated foreign authorities; and it will also rely heavily on references to law enforcement authorities and agencies, police trainers and training materials, and criminal prosecution.

Basics of a Residential Snow Removal Contract

What is a Residential Snow Removal Contract?

Residential snow removal agreements are written contracts that outline the terms and conditions under which snow and ice from a residential structure’s driveway and walkways will be removed. These agreements are commonly signed by homeowners and service providers as early as late summer, and often no later than November 1st. Here in Wisconsin, "snow season" typically runs from November through April. Having an agreement in place ensures that the service provider has a commitment for X number of snowfall events and that it can invest money into equipment and staff as needed to handle its future obligations under the agreement.
These agreements are generally enforceable as long as they are supported by consideration and do not otherwise violate any statutory or common law prohibition. This means that each party is expected to uphold the deal’s terms by either providing the agreed-upon services or making agreed-upon payments. A homeowner who fails to pay for services may face the same types of lawsuits as if he or she failed to pay for any other type of goods or services. In addition, a service provider who fails to provide the agreed-upon services may be liable for breach of contract and may also be investigated for insurance fraud if the provider submits an insurance claim to a homeowner’s insurance company for snowfall or icy conditions even though they do not exist or were not caused by an agreement violation .
So why is a residential snow removal agreement important? An agreement can protect the consumer by setting forth the terms of the deal and reciting any relevant limitations on the service provider’s liability. It can give the service provider the assurance of a steady stream of income so it can acquire the equipment and personnel needed to timely handle the especially heavy snowfalls that can occasionally occur. And, it can make clear to all concerned that there are limits on the extent to which a service provider is required by law to go when removing snow from a residence. It also gives the homeowner notice of his or her obligations and limitations when requesting snow removal or, for that matter, seeking to contract with a service provider in the first place.
A residential snow removal agreement can also protect service providers by setting forth the terms of the deal, including how payments will be made and the extent to which the service provider can expect to be compensated for hazards beyond its control. For example, what happens if the service provider’s work must be redone because a tree fell on the driveway after the service provider completed its work? What happens if the homeowner’s car was stuck outside after the snowfall and the service provider inadvertently damaged a tire in the process of pushing the car out? The agreement can address these contingencies and set compensation terms, if any, for each circumstance.

The Key Of Counter Offers in the Law of Contracts

Definition of a Counter Offer

A counter offer in the context of contract law refers to a part or whole rejection of an existing offer, with the purpose of proposing new or amended terms to form the basis of a contract. In such a context, the original offer is effectively rendered void, as the counter proposition can be seen as an offer in and of itself to rectify the agreement to which the original offeror responded. In order to achieve a meeting of the minds, both parties must envisage the same contractual terms for an agreement to materialize, which is precisely where counter offers come into play.
Counter offers are an essential tool in negotiations, as they provide a way of moving deal talks forward by replacing what was considered to constitute a viable contract offer and replace it with a new proposition. For instance, a counter offer would become relevant in the event that a seller looking to offload their property into the market had a buyer who was interested in purchasing the property. However , the buyer enters a counter offer proposition towards the seller that lowers the purchase price of the property, thus rendering any original offer to be overridden. What this does is reject the initial terms of the offer, by replacing such terms with the amended terms of the counter offer.
However, a buyer can continue to place counter offer propositions as many times as they feel necessary until they reach a desirable situation in which a deal can either be shut down, or the terms negotiated to a point of fulfillment. Once the grounds of the offer have been overturned and replaced with a set of conditions that is agreeable to both parties, a deal can be made, and the contract formed on the basis of the latest terms that have been offered and accepted. In theory, such an agreement should be legally enforceable, granted that the terms be legal and that the parties involved be above the age of 18 and of sound mind such that their ability to enter into agreement can never be called into question.

Can You Sue an Employee Individually? Legal Considerations and Insights

The Legal Framework

When a customer seeks to hold an employee individually liable, it is usually under a theory that the employee acted outside the course and scope of their employment, or that the employee acted with an independent intent to harm the plaintiff separately from the employer. This presents a different scenario than holding the employer company liable in the first instance. The legal principles that surround when the plaintiff can and cannot sue the individual employee rather than or in addition to the company all have to do with concepts of vicarious liability and respondeat superior.
Under the doctrine of vicarious liability, an employer can be held responsible for harm caused by the wrongful acts of its employees. The wrongful actions of the employee are imputed to the employer. A key legal concept underlying vicarious liability is that although the employer did nothing inherently "wrong," it is responsible to its customers for the manner in which it conducted its business . An employer may be relieved of vicarious liability to the extent that its employee acts outside the course and scope of employment, which means in effect that the employer was not in charge of what its employee was doing. There is no liability for the employer where the employee is completely on a frolic and detour unrelated to his or her job duties. An essential element of vicarious liability is the employee’s relationship to the employer. Factors to consider include: Respondeat superior is simply a legal term referring to the employer’s responsibility for injuries and damages that its employee wrongfully causes. The policy and logic behind vicarious liability is that the employer is in a more effective position to protect customers and third parties from the misconduct of its employees. In most cases, vicarious liability does not extend to agents and independent contractors who are not employees of the company.