In the future, the space here at pagelaw.wordpress.com will house our blog, containing casual observations, timely commentary, and the occasional rant. We look forward to your comments and hope you continue to keep us in mind for all your legal needs.

For one thing, the Clerk of Court is the official keeper of the court records.  If they tell you your court date is March 15th, it IS March 15th.  They make the dockets, mark the files, and keep the records.

Secondly, they have an industrial phone system and multiple personable and highly-trained staff  available to take your call.

Finally, and best of all, they have a website where you can look up your pending criminal or traffic court date.

We have been inundated over the last year with requests for assistance in these areas and have previously referred the cases to other attorneys in the area.  Nevertheless, it has become increasingly clear that there continues to be a real need in this area for another firm to practice in these matters. We know that these are often sensitive cases involving damaged relationships and raw emotions, and we are here to give you sympathetic and thoughtful legal advice.

We strive to give you honest and up-front counsel, reasonable rates and strong advocacy for your rights.  As always, our consultations are free up to a half-hour, in which we will listen to your situation, assess your case  and quote you a fee.  We will also happily consider matching any other fee quote you receive.

If you or someone you know has a need in these areas, please do not hesitate to contact us.

If you want your attorney to work some magic on your Drunk and Disorderly charge, it is really not a good idea to show up to court so obviously impaired that the bailiff sends you home.

*Sigh*

When you start a business, you must decide whether it will be a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or limited liability company (LLC).

Which of these forms is right for your business depends on the type of business you run, how many owners it has, and its financial situation. No one choice suits every business: Business owners have to pick the structure that best meets their needs. This article introduces several of the most important factors to consider, including:

• the potential risks and liabilities of your business
• the formalities and expenses involved in establishing and maintaining the various business structures
• your income tax situation, and
• your investment needs.

Risks and Liabilities

In large part, the best ownership structure for your business depends on the type of services or products it will provide. If your business will engage in risky activities — for example, trading stocks or repairing roofs — you’ll almost surely want to form a business entity that provides personal liability protection (“limited liability”), which shields your personal assets from business debts and claims. Acorporation or a limited liability company (LLC) is probably the best choice for you.

Formalities and Expenses

Sole proprietorships and partnerships are easy to set up — you don’t have to file any special forms or pay any fees to start your business. Plus, you don’t have to follow any special operating rules.

LLCs and corporations, on the other hand, are almost always more expensive to create and more difficult to maintain. To form an LLC or corporation, you must file a document with the state and pay a fee, which ranges from about $40 to $800, depending on the state where you form your business. In addition, owners of corporations and LLCs must elect officers (usually, a president, vice president, and secretary) to run the company. They also have to keep records of important business decisions and follow other formalities.

If you’re starting your business on a shoestring, it might make the sense to form the simplest type of business — a sole proprietorship (for one-owner businesses) or a partnership (for businesses with more than one owner). Unless yours will be a particularly risky business, the limited personal liability provided by an LLC or a corporation may not be worth the cost and paperwork required to create and run one.

Income Taxes

Owners of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and LLCs all pay taxes on business profits in the same way. These three business types are “pass-through” tax entities, which means that all of the profits and losses pass through the business to the owners, who report their share of the profits (or deduct their share of the losses) on their personal income tax returns. Therefore, sole proprietors, partners, and LLC owners can count on about the same amount of tax complexity, paperwork, and costs.

Owners of these unincorporated businesses must pay income taxes on all net profits of the business, regardless of how much they actually take out of the business each year. Even if all of the profits are kept in the business checking account to meet upcoming business expenses, the owners must report their share of these profits as income on their tax returns.

In contrast, the owners of a corporation do not report their shares of corporate profits on their personal tax returns. The owners pay taxes only on profits they actually receive in the form of salaries, bonuses, and dividends.

The corporation itself pays taxes, at special corporate tax rates, on any profits that are left in the company from year to year (called “retained earnings”). Corporations also have to pay profits on dividends paid out to shareholders, but this rarely affects small corporations, which seldom pay dividends.

This separate level of taxation adds a layer of complexity to filing and paying taxes, but it can be a benefit to some businesses. Owners of a corporation don’t have to pay personal income taxes on profits they don’t receive. And, because corporations enjoy a lower tax rate than most individuals for the first $50,000 to $75,000 of corporate income, a corporation and its owners may actual have a lower combined tax bill than the owners of an unincorporated business that earns the same amount of profit.

Investment Needs

Unlike other business forms, the corporate structure allows a business to sell ownership shares in the company through its stock offerings. This makes it easier to attract investment capital and to hire and retain key employees by issuing employee stock options.

But for businesses that don’t need to issue stock options and will never “go public,” forming a corporation probably isn’t worth the added expense. If it’s limited liability that you want, an LLC provides the same protection as a corporation, but the simplicity and flexibility of LLCs offer a clear advantage over corporations. For more help on choosing between a corporation and an LLC, read the articleCorporations vs. LLCs.

Reproduced with permission of Nolo.com

This question represents one of the larger sources of misunderstanding between the ethics of the legal profession and those who view attorneys in the worst, most stereotypical fashion.  I can’t speak for how other attorneys might answer this question, but for me the answer is:  I represent them, because someone once did it for me.

“But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”  ~ Romans 5:8

I like to think that the way an attorney intercedes between the judgment of the court and his client, and argues on behalf of his client before the judge, is similar to the way a sinless Christ intercedes before a holy God for those who believe and follow Him.

I am so thankful that Christ’s death atones for my sin (and yours).  Yet, as familiar as most are with this theological principle, it often escapes us that He gave up his life, and took up the sins of the world, when the whole world had abandoned him.  He died while we were still sinners.  Unconditionally.

So, yes, it is easy to represent the righteous, the innocent and the falsely accused.  It’s also relatively easy to represent the remorseful and penitent, and to do so in ethical fashion.  But I’m also called to represent those that have not yet repented.

Hopefully, they repent and find Jesus in this life, or they’ll find themselves unrepresented in the next one.

If you flip someone off in traffic, you might get angry stares or a nasty honk of the car horn, but if you do it in court, expect much more severe consequences.

A McHenry County [Illinois] man found that out the hard way.

Kane Kellett, 24, raised his middle finger while he was being sworn in to face home invasion charges at a rights hearing, the Daily Herald reported. He also hurled profanity at Judge G. Martin Zopp.

Zopp promptly gave Kellett six months in jail for contempt of court.

H/T CBS 2 Chicago

Unless you’re going for a lack of capacity defense, not a good look.

There have been times in the past in which it was difficult for me as a solo attorney to be in all the places I was needed and to quickly respond to current and prospective clients.  Having Kris on board greatly enhances my ability to ensure that all of my client’s needs are being met.  Now we are able to tackle our day as a team, whether that requires handling cases in multiple counties or responding to client inquiries while the other is in trial.

A recent admittee to the North Carolina Bar, Mr. Hilscher is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Campell Law Observer.  Moreover, during his third year in law school, he practiced with the 11th District Attorney’s Office in Johnston County and gained significant experience handling cases in criminal district court.  I expect that clients of Page Law Office will appreciate his writing talent, courtroom skills and the personal service he provides.