Legal Advide

Anyone seeking out free legal advice would be well served to consult two very different sources in attempt to find legal assistance. The first, and perhaps simpler would to undertake an internet search. The second would be to survey friends and family about any contacts they have whom may be able to provide legal assistance

An internet search can provide two different ways of providing free legal advice. Legal assistance can be gained from websites which hosts devote a section of their websites to hosting a bulletin board section. When seeking free legal advice from a bulletin board site the person requesting help posts their inquiry on the bulletin and it is then responded to by a lawyer experienced in providing legal assistance. Free legal advice can also be gleamed from the personal websites of some lawyers. A lawyer paying for their own website upon which they provide free legal advice is going to provide very generalized information. One drawback from the website of a lawyer seeking to provide legal assistance on a website is that statutes vary from state to state. As a result, what may be invaluable free legal advice for individuals residing within the jurisdiction of and facing legal challenges in one state may very well prove useless or even misleading to an individual facing the jurisdiction of another state. This means that anyone looking to attain free legal advice online must make sure that the lawyer with whom they are in consultation is capable of providing legal assistance both relevant to the individual and applicable in the individual’s state.

The most valuable source of information about free legal advice may be within an individual’s very own family. The most obvious source is if a family member is themselves a lawyer, especially if they specialize in the particular area of law in regards to which the person is seeking to receive legal assistance. Even if a family member who is a lawyer does not practice the specific area of law in which the person needs help they may be able to recommend a source of legal assistance from within their law firm if the firm is broad ranging enough. If the lawyer does not belong to a law firm of the law firm is not very large, they may be able to point out a source of free legal advice whom they have found through their networking.

If no family member is a lawyer, however, all hope is not lost. A family member or friend may have had contact with a lawyer at some point in their life. In an increasingly litigious society this is becoming a much more frequent possibility. A recommendation of legal assistance may be just as important if it serves as a discouragement from a particularly source of paid or free legal advice based on the experience of a trusted source. Friends can be especially valuable in this regard, because they are often in the same situation as the individual who needs help both in terms of their financial reality and their expectations of service.

Native Americans

The United States has had a historically divisive relationship with the native Americans found within its borders. The poor relationships between settlers and native Americans began before the United States was even established. Early British and other European colonists paid little attention to the territorial claims of rights of the natives in the American lands which they dubbed the New World. Despite native American support of settlers who first came to America the help they provided was forgotten as soon as it ceased to be beneficial to the settlers to remember.

When Christopher Columbus landed in Hispaniola, modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic, he abused the native American tribe known as the Arawak. In his journals upon first encountering these native Americans he estimates that it would take as few as fifty men to subjugate the entire tribe. He believed the native Americans he encountered to be hiding gold deposits from him, which led to his brutalization of them in an attempt to extract the nonexistent gold stores he was convinced they were hiding from him. The brutality with which the Spanish conquistadors treated the native Americans they encountered in Hispaniola is believed to have reduced the population from approximately one hundred thousand in 1492 to less than six hundred by 1531. In the areas which comprise present day Canada and United States there were nine geographic classifications of native American tribes prior to the arrival of Europeans. These classifications were, ranging from northwest to south east part of the continent, Artic Native Americans, Sub-Artic Native Americans, Northwest Coast Native Americans, Plateau Native Americans, California Native Americans, Great Basin Native Americans, Southwest Native Americans, Plains Native Americans, Northeast Native Americans, and Southeast Native Americans.

Columbus’s exportation of native Americans to Europe as exhibitions of his experiences, as well as his grossly exaggerated claim of the wealth to be obtained in the New World caused a rush of settlers seeking to find wealth across the Atlantic. These settlers would carry on the mistreatment of native Americans started by Columbus and his crew. Pre-Columbian population data has been difficult to establish. Nineteenth Century scholarship estimated to population to be approximately ten million individuals; by the end of the Twentieth Century, scholarly consensus places the population at approximately fifty million people. Some scholars, however believe the population figures to be closer to one hundred million native Americans. It is estimated that the death rate among native Americans due to widespread of disease is as high as eighty percent. Pre-Columbian population figures are a subject of heavy politicalization, with interpretation of sources subject to debate among individuals who may criticized Western civilization or who may seek to minimize criticism of European expansive efforts. It is possible that in the hardest hit areas Eurasian diseases which the native American populations had no previous exposure may have killed as much as ninety percent of the population before any direct contact was experienced with Europeans.

Chemical warfare was also employed intentionally by some Americans in an attempt to move native Americans off of their tribal lands. In 1845, John Sullivan wrote an article in which the phrase manifest destiny appeared. Manifest destiny, the idea that it was the divine wish for the United States to spread from Atlantic to Pacific was used as a motivation for the removal of native Americans from their lands. This was in continuation of policies established under Andrew Jackson of Indian removal. Indian removal was part of a ongoing struggle to “civilize” native Americans. After the American Revolution George Washington and Henry Knox, the first American Secretary of War, laid out a six point plan to civilize native Americans. They advocated impartial justice toward Native Americans, regulation of the purchase of Native American lands, promoting commerce among native American tribes, support of attempts to civilize or improve Native American society, the extension of the authority of the President to provide presents to tribes and tribal leaders, and the punishment of anyone violating the rights of native Americans. Unfortunately the punishment of violations of native American rights did not appear to extend to actions of the federal government. Native American tribes were considered domestic dependant nations in the eyes of the law until 1871. In 1871 the Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act, which removed federal recognition of native American tribes and nations. When the tribes were considered independent tribes and nations they were entitled to treaties governing the state and federal government’s interactions with the tribes. These treaties have been routinely violated.

The only portion of the treaties that have not been violated has been the removal of native Americans from the lands on which they had been living. Often native Americans were removed from lands they had been relocated to only a short amount of time earlier. By 1890 treaties had removed nearly every nation of native Americans from their tribal lands. Those which had not been evicted to reservations were extinct. Often times native Americans were forced to sign the treaties after their insurrections in an attempt to defend their rights were defeated.

Andrew Jackson perpetrated one of the worst acts against native Americans. The Trail of Tears was the removal of forty-six thousand native Americans from historic tribal lands located in the Deep South. Their removal allowed white settlers and homesteaders to open up twenty five million acres of land for development. Much of this land would become valuable farm land. The Trail of Tears was authorized by passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The first tribe removed was the Choctaw in 1831. The Seminole tribe followed in 1832, with the Creek coming in 1834the Chickasaw in 1837, and finally the Cherokee in 1838. The Choctaw ancestral lands were found in Mississippi and Alabama, the Seminole in Florida, the Creek in Alabama, and the Cherokee in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These five tribes of native Americans were known as the Five Civilized Tribes. All five tribes were forced to travel from their tribal lands, the traditional homes of their ancestors, to the recently established Indian Territory in what would become Oklahoma.

Divorce Lawyer

Divorce lawyers are the most reviled species of attorney. Anyone who finds themselves going though a divorce is already on an emotional roller coaster. Bad divorce lawyers will try and keep those emotions and all that anger brewing for as long as possible because like all lawyers, an divorce lawyer is paid hourly. When emotions are aroused it is harder to make concessions quickly. A pressing concern for any one seeking a good divorce lawyer is how to make the encounter as painless as possible. One highly efficient solution is to consult a mediator.

A mediator can serve to shorten the divorce proceeding because a mediator is in a position that a divorce lawyer is not: a mediator must maintain complete neutrality. While the two litigants in the divorce proceeding hire their own divorce lawyers, mediators work for both sides to attempt to reach a fair and equitable settlement. A mediator may be in a position to offer a compromise that would be construed as a sign of weakness if offered by a divorce lawyer. In many cases, neither of the divorce lawyers would want to be seen by their client or by opposing counsel as giving something up in the fight that may involve the couple’s assets or the rights to child care and visitation.

A divorce involving children may present a strong motive for staying away from divorce lawyers and leaning more heavily on a mediator. Mediators who have experience dealing with divorces where child custody is at stake may be able to advocate for the child better than a divorce lawyer who is hired by the parent. This may be the case because the divorce lawyer has an obligation only to the client by whom the lawyer was hired. lawyers especially stringent upon the rights of his or her client may end up being harming the children involved in the divorce by the proceedings more than is necessary.

There is also evidence that divorcing couple who choose not to involve lawyers until absolutely needed may have less complicated divorces. Those opting to mediate the divorces through an impartial party are more likely to derive satisfaction from the process and results, complete the divorce faster and at a lower cost, and are less likely to have to return to court in order to resolve further arguments. In many states, the only time that courts require an lawyer become involved in divorce proceedings is to draw up papers to complete the process and legalize the divorce.

Utilizing a mediator in divorce proceedings effectively and minimizing the presence of lawyers, however, have one obstacle. Both parties must agree to the mediation. If one of the parties wants to exact revenge on the other, or does not want to involve a mediator then the process is doomed to failure. If the two sides cannot set aside the reasons for the divorce in the first place then no divorce lawyer or mediator can make a split any more amicable or less painful for the parties involved.

Hospitals

When most Americans think of a hospital, they do not make a distinction among the three very different and general types of hospitals that are in operation in the United States: public, for-profit, and non-profit. While all three types of hospital provides essential services, each kind of hospital focuses on providing their service in very different ways to a different variety of patients. There are also differences in where the hospitals are found, as well as the who the primary people to whom they provide service. The patients in each kind of hospital varies in terms of insurance level, household income, as well as coming from a wide variety of a demographics.

Despite the difference in organization, all three hospitals share many of the same objectives. They all utilize doctors seeking to remedy the illnesses which their patients present themselves. Just because a patient goes to a public hospital does not mean they are deprived of capable care. While for-profit hospitals have the more cutting edge technology, a public hospital is not hopelessly outdated. All hospitals also are seek to improve the care they provide on several fronts. There are six fronts upon which these hospitals seek to improve their care. The first is to provide more safe care, which means seeking to reduce both the volume and severity of patient injuries. They also try to provide more effective care, making the care they provide more effective means reducing the number of wasteful and unnecessary procedures, and only provide evidence based care. The third way hospitals strive to improve care is by making the care more patient based, ensuring that the care is attentive to the needs, desires, and values of the patient in their care. There is also an effort to provide more timely care, thus reducing the wait time for all services rendered. More efficient and less wasteful care is another goal. The final way they try to improve care is by making it more equitable, meaning that the hospital staff will make they care the patient receives ignorant of the gender, race, ethnicity, geographic location, primary language spoken, or socioeconomic status of the patient in their care.

All three kinds of hospitals are facing concerns of budgetary shortfalls and funding issues during this economic downturn. Every hospital is concerned about its ability to cover its own operating costs, as well as the declining ability of to receive payment for the services that they provide. There will have to be a wholesale change to the way that hospitals bill for the care they provide if they can help people in the future. It is possible that the passage of Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act by the Congress will have an impact by forcing the widespread enrollment of American into insurance plans, but changes will have to be more widespread. Some way will have to be found to lower the operating costs for hospitals, especially for public hospitals, if these primary care institutions are to continue to provide the essential service that treat Americans when they fall ill.

Laws

Laws are the methods by which social order is enforced. Laws shape almost every aspect of modern life across the world, independent of social status, location, age, wealth, or any factor that may differentiate one person from another. Each country has a different way in which the law for that country is devised, as well as what is guaranteed in the code of law. The earliest example of a codified system of laws in history is Hammarabi’s Code. Hammarabi’s Code dates from 1750 B.C.E, and was established by the sixth Babylonian king. The seven feet tall stone which bears the code was found in 1901. Laws are generally meant to ensure rights, wither those of individuals, groups of people, or the government.

There are several common areas of laws that transcend most systems. The first is criminal law. Criminal, or penal, law is concerned with taking punitive action against those who violate the law. Another common area of law is constitutional law. Constitutional law covers the body of laws which affects the legal rights of individuals in regard to the government, as well as the actions that governments are allowed to engage in. Constitutional law is largely influenced by John Locke’s theorem that says individuals can do anything not prohibited by law, but governments may not take any actions the laws do not proscribe. Another broad area of law is contract law. Laws governing contracts follow the Latin saying pacta sunt servanda, “agreements must be kept.” Tort laws are another popular area of law. Tort laws cover civil wrongs, the most common cases which these laws cover include cases involving defamation and negligence. Property laws govern the rights of people to items they can consider theirs. Property law is concerned with both real estate and movable items. Property law makes a distinction between the right to an individual item, known as a right in rem, and a right in personam, which is the right to compensation for the loss of an item. “Possession is nine tenths of the law” is a fundamental part of property law. Equity and trust laws are concerned with the management of property by one person on the behalf of another person who is unable to manage the funds or property for themselves.

There are several methods by which systems of laws can be defined. The first is a civil law. A system of laws based on civil codes have a decreased importance given to judges. This system is heavily influenced by Roman traditions. Under this system legal precedence’s are not considered. The only factors allowed to affect rulings is what is in the laws themselves. The United States is influenced by this system, but more closely resembles a common law system, which arose from the Norman conquest of Great Britain. Common law grants previous legal decisions the same weight as the written law. The use of precedent was originally established following the signing of the Magna Carta. The final major inspiration is religious law, which derives its laws from various religious texts, with differing levels of modernization of these laws.