Legal Survival Kit D.Brown

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Beat Lawyers At Their Own Game
Deaver Brown,
Author
Brown co-founded the Umbroller stroller company, American Power
(APCC), and Simply Media. He published
The Entrepreneurs Guide
with Macmillan in hardcover and Ballantine in mass market paperback.
He published a business series of CD-ROM’s with Macmillan and
another series with Simply Media. Brown graduated from Harvard
College and Harvard Business School. He has published numerous
articles in trade journals and business magazines.
Copyright 2001
Simply Media, Inc.
Lincoln, MA 01773-0481
www.simplymedia.com
About the SURVIVAL KIT Series
Our Survival Kits are designed to be quick, concise, and much
easier to read than most reference books. As in true wilderness
survival kits, the key to success is limiting your materials to the
least amount of weight necessary. This provides users with fast,
light, yet complete packs, and ensures easy travel without excess
baggage.
At Simply Media our hardest task is eliminating materials that
are not absolutely necessary for traversing the subject’s territory.
We take the time to make each of our Survival Kits as short and
concise as possible so you can learn the most important facts
with a fast cover-to-cover read.
About the LEGAL SURVIVAL KIT
The
Legal Survival Kit
pares down the huge amount of legal
information available, and provides you with the essentials for
your legal protection and planning.
In the spirit of “less is more,” the contents are concise and divid-
ed into small individual categories for faster reading and better
comprehension.
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Legal Survival Kit
BACKGROUND
How We Got to Where We Are
These two rules have led to an explosion in
American litigation. Well-financed lawyers can
fund clients to prosecute. If the funded client
loses, there is no financial consequence for the
plaintiff in all but the rarest of cases.
Is it any wonder, then, with these rules, that
we have so much litigation in the US and other
industrial countries so little? Other countries
have these guys under control.
American lawyers used to belong to an elite
club that “did the right thing,” or so we
thought. There have always been bad lawyers,
ambulance chasers, and the like. Even
Shakespeare said, “First, kill all the lawyers.”
These are the facts of life in the American
legal world. The American Trial Lawyers
Association is alive, well, and vigorously pro-
tects its privileges. It is the largest political
PAC, with all the implications of that powerful
position, protecting the interests of litigators
and defenders. Remember that for every liti-
gator there must be at least one legal defend-
er, usually another lawyer.
Your Role in the Legal World:
Winner or Loser
Of the major industrial countries, only the
United States permits:
In the current legal environment, you will
either be the winner or loser in your legal
affairs. As with most of us, you will sometimes
win and other times lose. The objective of this
CD-ROM is to keep you out of litigation and
help improve the odds you will win if you
become engaged in what has become a wide-
spread American activity.
(1) Contingency law suits. That is, the
plaintiffs do not have to bear any costs other
than a potential percentage award to the
lawyer.
(2) The loser does not have to pay the legal
costs of the winner.
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Legal Survival Kit
You cannot opt out since anyone can sue you
for anything, and these days, they often do. At
work or at play, at home or on the road, you are
always vulnerable to legal attack. Our efforts
are devoted to provide you the best advice and
tools to avoid litigation and prevail if it should
occur.
dren’s information, and so on and so on.
2. Set up a word document file where you save
this information plus each form you create for
later reference. If you wish to also keep this
record elsewhere, do so too (duplication will
only help you). You should also keep a hard
copy file of signed documents and your key
fact documents.
Insurance: Umbrella Liability
Coverage to protect you from
the lawyers on the prowl
3. If you do not have a fire proof safe, get one
and put these documents into them. The
office supply stores (e.g., Staples, Office Max,
and Office Depot, and their on line affiliates)
have them and will usually deliver at no
charge, so you don’t break your back carrying
your safe home. They cost about $150 each.
You can get them cemented into your base-
ment or into your floor for extra protection.
Do this too, if you can.
You should consider adding an umbrella liabili-
ty policy to your homeowner’s policy immedi-
ately to protect you from unforeseen lawsuits.
An annual additional liability policy of up to $1
million often costs no more than $100 per year.
This not only protects you from additional
losses should they occur, it also usually pro-
vides for the insurance company to cover and
manage all legal costs and activities—so you
can get on with your life in relative peace and
quiet. Do it!
4. Review these forms and consider doing well
care for yourself legally in advance of any
prospective problems. This means doing
proactive things you may not need immediate-
ly (important but not urgent, a category we all
tend to ignore at our peril), such as wills, pow-
ers of attorney, trusts, medical instructions,
and the like. If you don’t do them immediate-
ly, write out a schedule in which you will do
them—and then do them.
This Guide With Step-by-Step
Advice Per Form
We have provided you with this Guide in addi-
tion to step-by-step advice for each legal form.
After each document, we have provided specif-
ic advice for that form or letter in a “review
list”. This way, that advice is specific to the
form and not over generalized here.
Notwithstanding that, the following is general-
ly useful when filling out the forms and letters.
5. Encourage other members of your immedi-
ate and extended family to do the same kinds
of things. You will give them a great gift by
doing so.
1. Prepare and keep a separate document with
the key facts pertaining to each individual
and/or corporation and/or other entity you
enter into these documents. For individuals,
this should include their legal name, address,
social security number, passport number, other
pertinent numbers (such as Medicare or
Health Plan number), date of birth, date of
marriage, date of divorce if applicable, chil-
Action items:
1. Get additional umbrella liability
insurance policy coverage.
2. Get a home safe.
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Legal Survival Kit
INTRODUCTION
“You Have To Know The Law Well
To Make It Work For You.”
boldly than nonlawyers because they have
been trained in the law, have experience and
feedback from their prior activities, and there-
fore have a better sense of how to use these
tools (i.e. the forms) to expedite and formu-
late agreements for themselves and their
clients.
Clarence Darrow, the great trial lawyer, said
this long ago. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
admonished a participant in a particularly ugly
case, “Do not make the mistake of confusing
justice with the law.” Finally, one can com-
plete that thought with Winston Churchill’s
repeated comment, said in various contexts,
that democracy, and the rule of law, although
messy, is the fairest system people have yet
invented.
If you are not a lawyer, you should restrict
yourself to the simpler forms or fill out a form
you need and then request a lawyer to review
it on your behalf. Your very act of selecting and
completing certain documentation in advance
of turning the matter over to an attorney will
save them time and therefore save you money.
Audio One: Introduction
Our primary objective in this Guide, with illus-
trative audios, is to provide you with a broad
background of the legal system and suggest
the appropriate tools to use when dealing with
the legal system in general and lawyers in par-
ticular. Our 600-form section is used by many
practicing lawyers who, like you, can benefit
from prepackaged forms that can be edited
upon demand. Lawyers can do this more
Tip:
If you ever feel “concerned,”
“worried,” or “uncertain” about any-
thing discussed or presented in a legal
form, that is your tip-off to contact a
lawyer for clarification and implementation.
Self-help forms should never be used unless
you are entirely confident of your actions. We
do not offer legal advice. We offer personal and
business advice about how to interface with
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Legal Survival Kit
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