US

Arguable Legal Points in a Motorcycle Accident

Legal blogger

Many people associate Oakland with some of the most storied ball clubs in the US. The Oakland Raiders in football and the Golden State Warriors in basketball are just two of the most popular franchises that the city has to offer. While sports are a major crowd draw in Oakland, there are also other notable features in the city.

As Oakland’s economy is partly dependent on the marine cargo sector, traffic to the bay area always remains heavy. Major roads can sometimes go get gridlocked during rush hours and the holiday season. Motorcycle riders are especially vulnerable because accidental collisions have a greater chance of seriously injuring them.

If you’re a motorcycle driver who’s recently gotten into an accident, it’s time to consider hiring a lawyer. If you are being falsely accused of causing the incident, a good attorney can help prove your innocence. An Oakland lawyer use the following arguments to help your position.

Right of way

This is a common issue for most motorcycle accidents in the US as other motorists fail to recognize the right of the passing motorcycle. An Oakland motorcycle accident attorney can argue that it was the other driver that was on the wrong side of the road. Arguing right of way is fairly easy especially if witnesses can also corroborate the police report.

Negligence

Sometimes the other driver failed to see you while they’re driving because they were probably distracted with something else. This is another possible argument an Oakland motorcycle accident lawyer can use. If your legal counsel can prove that the other party was using his or her mobile phone while driving, you’ve practically won the case. Driver negligence is one of the major causes of motor vehicle accidents in the US. Texting, eating or talking on the phone are the common culprits.

DUI

An Oakland motorcycle accident attorney can also argue that the other party was driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Breathalyzer test results from the local traffic enforcers who handled the incident are crucial pieces of evidence. Finding empty beer cans or liquor bottles in the other driver’s vehicle are also key item that can prove your innocence.

Legal Remedies For Car Accident Victims

Legal blogger

Since car accidents often involve negligent people, victims can recover damages by filing a lawsuit against the reckless or at-fault drivers.

According to lawyers, victims should be provided with legal remedies to recover these:

* Hospital expenses these include doctors fees, therapy and rehabilitation, medical examination, hospital stay, medications, and future health needs.

* Loss of wages because victims, especially those who sustained serious injuries, are not able to go to work, they should be compensated for the loss of wages.

* Compensation for partial or complete disability because disability will diminish the earning capacity of a victim, the negligent driver should provide compensation for this.

* Pain and suffering just like any traumatic event, car accidents may cause emotional distress and mental anguish.

* Property damages the reckless motorist should pay for the victims car repairs.

* Punitive damages this penalty is given not just to provide compensation to victims, but more importantly, to deter reckless drivers from committing the same act. Punitive damages, which are usually given when the act is proven to be malicious and extremely negligent, are more than the real amount of the injuries sustained by victims.

Meanwhile, reckless drivers are not the only cause of accidents in the road. Several incidents have also been attributed to defective auto parts that resulted to injuries or even death among drivers and passengers.

According to legal experts, victims can also file a lawsuit against automakers, dealers, and suppliers to recover damages if the accident is caused by a defective car or auto part. Usually, the injured party can file product liability claims to these companies who are legally bound to provide safety to consumers.

Here are some of the most common grounds for a lawsuit which involves a defective product:

* Defective seatbelts

One of the most controversial defective seatbelts is Chryslers Gen3 which may accidentally unlatch during high-impact collision. According to reports, this safety harness has killed and injured dozens of people in the US.

* Weak roofs

Because SUVs have been proven to be four times more likely to rollover than low-roofed cars, safety regulators require carmakers to strengthen the roof of these vehicles to prevent serious and fatal accidents. However, some companies were accused of not meeting the safety standard in making roofs.

* Tire tread separation

A defective tire is dangerous especially when a car is traveling at a high speed. According to safety experts, tire tread separation may cause rollovers and high-impact collisionstwo types of car accidents which have been proven to be the most fatal.

* Weak seat back

There are some reported cases of seat backs which collapsed after a high-impact collision. In this kind of defective auto part, victims usually sustain spinal cord injuries which may cause paralysis and disability.

* Defective safety seats for children (also known as child restraints)

Recently, safety regulators announced a massive recall on two child restraints, Como and Signo by Recaro and SitnStroll by Triple Play Products.

According to US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), parents should check their childrens restraints for cracks in the plastic, harness adjuster, and buckles.

Increased Regulatory Scrutiny Contributes To Legal Outsourcing Boom

Legal blogger

Following the global financial crisis, businesses are facing increased regulatory compliance pressures. To tighten regulatory oversight in the UK, the UK government restructured financial regulation and divided the Financial Services Authority (FSA) into two regulatory bodies — the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority. Across the pond, the US enacted the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which changed the American financial regulatory environment and almost every part of the nation’s financial services industry. In the wake of these sweeping regulatory reforms, companies in regulated industries, such as finance and healthcare, must be hyper-diligent with their compliance programs.

Today, industry regulators in the UK and US are aggressively investigating any allegations of corruption and bribery, particularly related to foreign jurisdictions. Subsequently, the number of investigations and litigations has increased significantly, and companies face heavy fines for noncompliance and even risk criminal prosecution.

When an investigation occurs, corporate legal departments often need to provide huge amounts of information to satisfy regulator requests. The traditional ways of gathering and collating this information and reviewing it for relevance are no longer feasible. Legal departments need to have the ability to review information quickly and cost effectively, so they can respond efficiently to regulatory notices.

Law firms may not be the ideal choice to manage large volumes of information and data in a timely and cost-effective manner. Collecting and ESI processing, forensic analysis, storage, database management, hosting, and software configuration and maintenance are non-legal services that can be provided by non-legal specialists. Legal outsourcing providers (Legal Process Outsourcing) are better positioned to handle these tasks because they typically offer advanced technology and more focus on these skill sets, which are now essential for both litigation and regulatory investigations. Seasoned LPOs are geared up to provide exactly this type of predictability of costs and time lines for disclosure and can work to a fixed budget. This provides more certainty and allows clients to control costs particularly in complex investigations or litigation cases.

At the same time, the courts are mandating a wider and deeper review of electronic documents in legal proceedings as well as an explanation of what steps parties have taken to recover potentially relevant e-documents. Again, LPOs are well-equipped to provide end-to-end data management, allowing clients to confidently outsource document management and review work in regulatory matters. Some clients are even setting up panels of LPOs and requiring their external law firms to work collaboratively with these LPOs to ensure that the potential cost savings are properly and appropriately realized.

The global financial crisis has forced corporations to develop new strategies to cost-effectively and efficiently handle investigations and litigation. As more companies look to manage the associated costs and risks resulting from regulatory scrutiny, document review and e-discovery are likely to be growth areas for LPOs.

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Outsourcing Legal Research

Legal blogger

Large law firms and in house legal departments of large enterprises have enjoyed the benefits of outsourcing (quicker turnaround and lower costs) with success for quite some time in the United States.

On the other hand, small and midsize enterprises and law firms have just begun to outsource legal work to enjoy these benefits. This has become possible with a wider availability of technology at a lower cost, in addition to the arrival of a new breed of vendors who are addressing the unique requirements of small and midsized enterprises and law firms.

These vendors are providing services with better quality, by leveraging on technology and through deployment of experts in the work which is outsourced. Lawyers from India are increasingly familiar with US law and have several years of experience in doing legal work for US law firms and in house legal departments of large corporations. It has become possible to deploy experts these days due to aggregation of work from various clients, and the cascading higher volume of work.

The law firms and in house legal departments have enjoyed the benefits of a quicker turnaround time. The work left with the Indian entity at the end of their day is completed and available when they arrive at work the next day. These have become as important as the other core reason for outsourcing, namely saving of costs of law firms and enterprises have been able to save between 50 -60% of their cost by outsourcing legal services.

What work can be outsourced?

Any work that can be done without requiring fact to face interaction with clients or physical presence in a court of law can be outsourced. Some of the typical examples of work outsourced are in:

a)Contracts: Drafting, Review and management
b)Litigation Support : Discovery management, review, analysis and coding and Presentation
c)IP Rights: Search, Application for patents and defence
d)Legal and Business research

a)Contracts of Drafting, Review and Management

We prepare first-cut drafts of contracts that are fit for purpose and conform to your house style. You need to provide:
.Standard templates that conform to your house style and
.Unique variables relating to each contract

Your lawyers would still be in control over the quality of the draft and enforceability in courts of law without having to log expensive time in preparing the first cut draft.

We can handle a wide variety of contracts including contracts for:
.Sale of securities and derivatives
.Sale of goods or services
.Sale or mortgage of property
.Lease of property
.Lease of equipments
.Employment etc

We manage your contracts by maintaining a comprehensive database of all your contracts that provide:
.Contract information (Purpose, Period, Entities, Addresses, Counsel, Validity, Termination rights, Applicable law, Jurisdiction etc
.Summary of terms
.History of notices

We maintain a summary of all obligations and covenants (to facilitate compliance) and all rights (to enforce compliance)

b)Litigation Support

Our litigation support services include:
.Discovery management,
.Review
.Analysis and coding and
.Presentation

To help your lawyers focus on successfully winning or defending cases.

We help your lawyers to stay focused on winning the case by providing discovery management support.
Our services include:
.Understanding case issues and priorities
.Determination of collecting strategy
.Determination of work processes to speed up and yet not miss out on collecting documents
.Quick focus on most useful documents by continuous elimination of irrelevant items
.Quick analysis of documents for materiality, relevance, confidentiality and privilege; rapid automated
codification and validation
.Quick production of documents to facilitate rapid internalization and access

We can work with your proprietary document discovery management system or any standard off-the-shelf solution including ConcordanceFYI and CaseLogistix.

In spite of increasing popularity of e-discovery, physical paperwork has continued to stay. We help your lawyers by reviewing physical paper documents and codifying them for rapid prioritization and access.

We measure our success by reducing your attorneys document review time and cost. Not just by being more competitive than other providers in discovery process.

c)IP Rights

Our lawyers (supported by domain professionals) can support you in
.Prior Art Search,
.Assessment of patentability,
.Patent proofing,
.Invention disclosure evaluation and
.Drafting the application for patents.

We offer support in IP Asset management with review of potential or existing infringements and in litigations to protect against such infringements.

d)Legal and Business Research

We conduct research on industry standard private databases as well as public domain databases to provide research support to your team of lawyers to win/defend litigation or to provide counsel to clients on complex issues.
Our research support includes:
.Reviewing legislation
.Reviewing case law precedence
.Reviewing journals
.Reviewing contracts and
.Preparing summaries and abstracts.

Where to outsource?
Law firms and in house legal departments typically outsource legal work to someone who is willing to understand their requirements, and give quality service that they require.

TaurusQuest is one such company, which has acquired expertise in serving small and midsize enterprises better, and has been recognized for its operational excellence and delighting service. We were awarded 4th worldwide by the US based Black Book of Outsourcing for one of our services in 2007. We have a number of legal professionals who have experience in providing the services mentioned above to US and International law firms and to business enterprises. The senior executives of the company have lived and worked in the US.TaurusQuest has two delivery centers in Chennai, India with 300 seats.

Is It Legal To Carry Bowie Knives In Public

Legal blogger

Considering the leniency of America’s weapons laws, it might seem like a no-brainer that you can carry that new Bowie knife out in public. However, before you head out the door, you should stop and check your state’s laws governing knife carrying in public. While Bowie knives might not be mentioned specifically, you’ll find that there are rules governing blade length and method of carry for all knives and some knives are excluded almost universally. You’ll find that quite a few states take a dim view of butterfly knives (balisongs), as well as switchblades and other automatic knives. Bowie knives are no exception to this rule.

As an example of the laws governing knife carry in the US, let’s look at the state of Colorado. This state allows pocketknives to be carried both openly and concealed, so long as they have a blade shorter than 3 and 1/2 inches in length. They also allow fixed blade knifes and dirks/daggers, so long as the blade is shorter than 3 and 1/2 inches. Of course, your Bowie knife is likely a bit longer than this, as the blade should be at least 6 inches long to qualify as a Bowie. Therefore, you cannot carry your Bowie knife in public within Colorado, whether concealed or in the open.

Another example of the great disparity between state laws concerning knives is Arizona, in this state, you can carry any type of knife openly, including Bowie knives and even automatic knives. However, they have to be worn outside of your clothing and sheathed, unless it is a small pocketknife.

As you can see, the laws governing Bowie knives in the public view vary considerably throughout the US. Your state’s website can be the most valuable resource to which you have access. You should also consider contacting your local police department or sheriff’s department, as they can provide you with information.

As you can see, determining whether or not you can take that Bowie knife with you out of the house can be a bit confusing. Speak with your local police station, or consult your state’s specific website to find out what laws govern your ability to carry a knife in public, whether concealed or out in the open.