I read this the other day and thought it was worth sharing. I’ve copied it here below for your ease, see below for the link. If you are looking at an imminent divorce you should be aware that attorneys are becoming more aware of the uses of social media in a courtroom. If you’re feeling anger or rage, I suggest you do NOT share you frustration in an online public forum. Posts on social media forums never truly go away, and you can never really know who will see it. The original article follows:

Read more…

Good fences make for good neighbors right? Well for an attorney a lot goes into that question. How long has the fence been there? Is it a new fence? Does it meet zoning requirements? Is it on the property line? What is the purpose of the fence? There are many situations where a fence has destroyed tranquility in the neighborhood.

Utah has several laws and doctrines on boundary lines. Depending on your situation you may wish to take advantage of one or the other. Many of the doctrines have very specific time periods. So, if you are thinking, “the neighbor’s fence is in the wrong spot, and it almost been there 20 years.” You better keep reading.

The unfortunate truth of any Family Law practice is that life happens much faster than the Courts may respond. Attorneys are used to this process, whether they like it or not. They understand and plan accordingly. They do all they can to prepare, file and then wait. Sometimes attorneys may forget that our clients are not as accustomed to this culture of law. I know that I have lost sight of that fact from time to time. It is important to remember that for clients, this pace is a very real and very frustrating purgatory.

They want to see something done and it is hard to blame them for this feeling. It is a hard situation to be in for both attorney and client. The attorney can remind, settle down, and empathize with their clients all they want but the cold hard truth is that the next day the attorney works on something else, someone else’s case. The client only has one case to dwell on, their own.

In Friday, September 5, 2014’s Deseret News, former Lt. Governor Greg Bell wrote a timely and important article about zoning abuses between those wanting to develop their land and their city or county. It is worth a read and can be foundhere. When I started spending a large part of my time working with developers in creating residential neighborhoods in the mid 1990’s, zoning laws were generally much more basic than they are now. Each city had its own learning curve as building and fire codes were updated and made more complex. Development in these cities was generally straight-forward and composed of common sense.

Do I need a will?

You only need a will if you have any assets you want to pass on. It is an unavoidable fact we will each die and someone is going to deal with our “stuff.” A will is the document which instructs who that someone is and how he or she is to distribute your assets That way your assets go where you want them to go.

Wills have been around for a long time and are relatively inexpensive to have drafted. If you don’t have a will, the state has drafted one for you. It is a one-size-fits-all model that changes every few years. Currently, if you are married and all of your children are also your spouse’s children (a first marriage), everything will go your spouse when you die. If it is a second marriage and there are children in the family who are not also your spouses, then your spouse gets the first $75,000 and the rest is split 50-50 between the spouse and the other children. That is not a pleasant mess to leave for your heirs to fight over. If your current family situation has children from more than one couple, has a child with special needs, or has a spouse or child who can’t handle money, you must make sure you have a will (as well as a trust).