Updating the blog can sometimes fall to the bottom of the list. This week it has. But I have a window of time today and thought I would bring it up to date, sort of.
I went to a seminar last week that dealt primarily with the updates on DWI laws and Court decisions. Lawyer have to attend a certain amount of Continuing Legal Education seminars each year. In each of those years we have to complete a certain number of Ethics credit hours.
These credit hours are usually jammed in with some other seminar. Thus, this particular seminar had a segment devoted to computers and ethics. Most of the segment was devoted to online social activity.
With the advent of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social media networking there seems to be a problem with lawyers posting some pretty stupid things on the Internet. I have no intention of embarrassing the profession by revealing those to you in this blog. However, some of them are really stupid.
On occasion you might read something here about a case I have handled. You should keep in mind that I am not ever going to disclose anything on this website or any other social media that is not public record. In other words, if you read it here it has already been in some newspaper, on television or in a public document in the courthouse.
Sometimes I talk to you about cases. Please understand that I always change the names of the people involved. In order to further protect my client’s privacy, and I feel the need now to disclose this to you, I also change the jurisdiction (County) of the case and do not truthfully report to you the accurate timeline of the case.
In other words, to protect privacy and confidentiality I have to twist the date, time and place of the case around and change the names so that a casual reader is unable to identify the real people involved.
To make this even more confusing for you, sometimes my clients authorized me to disclose the details of their case. Sometimes they want their case publicized. In that case, I may use the actual specific facts, names, dates and locations. The purpose of sharing any case information with you is to make you a better informed citizen, not to gossip about my client’s cases. You don’t need to know the actual names, dates or places to get the point as to how these situations affect your life. I hope you all can appreciate that.
Is all of this confusing enough for you? This is all as a result of attending that seminar about ethics and computers. The seminar lasted all day. It was Harrah’s casino in Maryland Heights. It was a very informative seminar.
Recently I appeared in Federal Court. I represented a client who was charged with, and pled guilty to, stealing around $17,000 from her employer. I was able to mount a very successful defense for this lady in spite of her guilty plea and she was granted probation. A condition of her probation is that she repay the money she stole. Not bad!
I was supposed to have depositions yesterday morning on a murder case but at the last minute someone from the Prosecutor’s office called to tell me that the prosecuting attorney responsible for the case was ill and would not be available. That sort of threw off my schedule.
My appointment calendar was filled last week with court appearances and appointments for new cases. The court appearances ran the gamut from municipal night court to preliminary hearings on some serious felonies. The appointments, interestingly enough, were mostly for DWI cases. I see a steady stream of people who have been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol. I would think that the bad economy would find fewer people out on the roads. That is not evident based on the people who are finding their way to my office.
There is an interesting website I want to recommend to you. It is called Speaking For Americans. A lot of interesting articles from a number of different contributors. I recommend that you become a contributor. It is free. You can register anonymously if you want. I am sure there are some things about which you feel strongly. Get it off your chest.
I am looking for ideas as to how to improve the law firm’s website. What things would you like to see on a law firm website? If you have any thoughts, please let me know.
Time to get back to work. Speaking of work, I have also seen an increase in the number of people I have spoken with regarding workers compensation cases. No matter how careful you try to be, sometimes the unthinkable happens and you get injured on the job. If that happens to you, a friend or family member I can help you. Just call Katie at 636-486-4861 and ask her to set up an appointment with me. I am sure I’ll be able to get you on the right path for you.
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