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posted by admin on Apr 18

Winning at Custody is one of the most difficult issues parents confront in divorce. In many cases, both parents want custody and are willing to spend whatever it takes to win. Custody is all about what is best for the children - and that involves proving that you are the best parent - i.e. that the other parent is not as good a parent as you and/or that the other parent is just simply a bad parent.
My recommended tips for winning at custody are:
1. If you are not involved in your children’s lives now, you are not getting custody from a judge. If you are a working parent who lets your spouse handle all of the details of parenting, you are not prepared to win at custody. You must either change your objectives or change your parenting. If you really want custody, get involved now - in all aspects of your children’s lives. Get involved in your children’s schooling. Attend their extra curricular events. Take them to the doctor and dentist. Get to know what professionals your children see and be involved with them?
2. Make sure that you are not exposing your children to unsafe or unhealthy environments when they are with you. Are you involved in another relationship? Has there been more than one? Be very careful about exposing your children to your companion(s). Many judges, professionals, and other parents object to the children being subjected to other relationships too early in that process. More important, if you really want to win at custody, it should be because you want to spend time with your children parenting them. Spending time with someone else when you have the children is a recipe for losing at custody in court.
3. Do you put down your children’s other parent when the children are with you - either consciously or subconsciously? If you do, stop. One sure way to lose at custody is to hurt the children’s relationship with the other parent. A judge will consider whether a parent promotes or prevents the other parent’s access to and relationship with the children when seeking custody.
4. Winning at custody requires that you keep a calendar for everything. You need to be able to look back and remember details when it comes time to litigage custody. If you do not know when you had the children, what events you attended, where they were or you were or allof the times your spouse was not timely for a pick up or drop off, you will only hurt your own case. You can keep track on your own calendar, with your own journal, or with a professionally managed calendaring system. We do provide access to a professional calendaring system for custody cases on our web site at http://www.millenniumdivorce.com/custody-planner.asp.
5. Be on time…Be on time….Be on time. Few issues cause as much conflict as a parent who is persistently late in picking up or dropping off children. It irks the judges, it creates arguments with your ex or soon to be ex, and it stresses out the children. So, Be on time.
6. Be flexible. If the other parent wants to switch weekends or weekdays, do it if you can manage your schedule. When the time comes to tell the judge why you should have custody, you can tell the judge that you are the parent who makes sure that the schedule works. In a close case, this issue makes a difference.
7. Do not involve your children in the issues that are pending in court or with attorneys. Courts generally are very opposed to the children knowing the details of what are essentially adult issues. Children should be told that both parents love them and want to see them - that’s it. The children may see a psychologist and/or an attorney or other professional if the court directs that. The children can talk to those people about your case - you should not be giving them the details, especially if giving the details involves denigrating the other parent.
8. Winning at custody requires considering one other very important factor: where do the children want to live. It is not a good idea to coach your children on this issue. They will have an opportunity to tell what they want to either the court, their attorney or a psychologist. However, it is a good idea to know what they want. If they want to live with their other parent, you should not spend all of your time and money pursuing custody, unless you believe that it is unsafe or inappopriate for the children to live with that parent.
9. You do have to be willing to show why your children’s other parent should not have custody. So, you need to keep track of whether that parent is on time, involved, and flexible with the schedule. If that parent has any issues that affect custody, such as a history of mental health issues which impact his or her ability to care for the children or alcohol or drug addictions, you need to let the court know. Other issues that can and do affect custody determinations include the number and frequency of romantic relationships and the epxosure of the children to those relationship, the proper supervision of the children, and ensuring that the children attend school and see professionals such as a doctor and dentist when necessary.
10. Above all else, hire a good attorney and be open and honest with your attorney. Listen to your attorney, not some friend or relative who is sure about what you should do because they had a friend or a relative who got a better deal. If you are paying your attorney, listen to what he or she has to say.

by Jean Mahserjian

posted by admin on Apr 3

A new law going into effect 1-Sep-05 will likely grow the demand for defensive driving online courses in addition to onsite courses and defensive driving video rentals and will increase the amount of road screenings shelled out by the Texas Dept. of Public Safety.
Beginning 9/1/05, a drivers safety course will be needed for all drivers under age 25 that get a ticket for a moving ticket such as speeding if they want to keep it off their record. This isn’t new in that many metropolises and regions already have this requirement. However, many judges in these counties dismiss the class requirement typically in exchange for probationary time period in which, if the driver stays clean of any additional Violations, the original ticket is discharged. Broadly speaking this arrangement generally also carries a fee to the municipality in addition to the probationary time period.
Authored by Dallas Republican John Carona & laid out as Senate Bill 1005, this new law is even more rigorous for those under 18. Automobile operators through the age of Seventeen will be called upon to take a road line 1 text with the Texas Dept. of Public Safety in addition to the fine and probation if they want to keep their records clean.
Those with a lot of experience with obtaining tickets will not be pleased with this law as it shuts down a loophole. Before this law judges were allowed to let off automobile operators under the age of twenty-five who received a traffic fine from a Drivers Safety Course. Some lawmakers were worried about teens, specially those who were taught to drive by their parents versus texas endorsed instructors. To web address this concern, they amended the road exam requirement for those under 18.
Ahead of 9/1/2005, there were two sections that pertain to deferred adjudication of violations. This simply means that if a driver pleaded “no contest” to the traffic segments and then did not break any further traffic laws for a time period set by the court, the violation would be wiped out from the driver’s record. One segment of the law specifically covers traffic cuts across indicating that a traffic violator must take an online defensive driving course or attend an alternative defensive driving school or course in order to have a ticket removed from their record. Misdemeanors are covered in the other section of law allowing judges to define the standard to be reached for “deferred adjudication”. Deferred adjudication means: the driver is placed on probation for a length of time & if driver stays ticket free during this period, the original traffic citation is erased from their record. Deferred adjudication, in addition to the probationary period, usually incurs a fine to the district in which the citation occurred. In many jurisdictions, this second section of the lay has allowed ticket to simply fine drivers as long as they didn’t get a second violation for some time period of time like 6 months.
For automobile operators under the age of twenty-five, Texas law SB 1005 eliminates that flexibility & in fact requires those who receive traffic citations & are under twenty-five to a take defensive driving online or in classroom setting.
The Texas Department of Public Safety indicated that an figured 21,000 teens will take the road test each year. All state driver’s license offices are gearing up to have officers available to conduct more of these tests. DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange stated that these offices already conduct road screenings now however as this road test has not been required to obtain a driver’s license for more than decade, most teens don’t take it so more officers will need to be available at each Department of Public Safety faciltiy. Those that do are usually at the request of their parents. Fortunately for the usually cash strapped young motor vehicle operators, the road line 3 text will only tack on another $10 to their already pricey traffic citation experience.
This new law will likely improve the demand for defensive driving online courses as well as onsite courses & defensive driving video rentals.

posted by admin on Apr 3

Making a compensation claim looks easy and a good idea in the beginning… but as time goes by, you discover the catches and fees. However, by that time its too late! Too late especially if the medical is done…
The claims culture arrived and it was chaos. Door canvassers and telesales, knocking and ringing constantly for an injury claim. Have you had an injury? Have you had an accident in the last 3 years? It went ballistic, new companies evolving and new tricks came into place that would work against you.
The 9 Pros and Cons…
The Salespeople
Avoid these people who stop you in the streets, shopping center or at the hospitals! They don’t give a damn about you and surely don’t give a toss what the outcome is, of your injury claim. They work on a commission basis.
The Agreement
Did you ever understand what was said before you signed the agreement? I guess not. ‘Don’t worry it doesn’t mean anything, the company will contact you and sort it out’. Did they ever? Today there is so much jargon, i.e. crap, out there that many people just ignore a claim for compensation even if they have an injury.
The Bank
In the beginning it was always a helping hand with your claim, until it was settled, with insurance and loan deductions. Policies were taken out in the thousands which back fired. And guess who provides the financially funded policies? The BANKS!
The Loan
A loan agreement to fund a claim is unnecessary, but the salespeople claim ‘otherwise it’s not possible to be compensated and you’ll have to fork out a couple of hundred upfront to get started’. However, the deduction is phenomenal as the interest accumulates over the period of the claim. It could last up to 2 years and it gets deducted from your compensation.
The BIG & small Company
It didn’t help the victims as it was deducted from their compensation, but surely helped the BIG companies, who have now declared bankruptcy with millions ’scoped’ from their victims. But today you have smaller companies doing a similar trick, we’ll do this and we’ll do that… with their technical wording.
You’ll get confused just like food, this many calories, protein and fat. There is so much advertisement going around that you just think forget it, stick to what we normally do. NOTHING!
The Law
Compensation is an entitlement by law, for release of funds to the injured for being involved in an accident or being injured to some form. Accidents do occur, that’s life as nobody’s perfect. But with the media filling our heads with different slogans, headlines and examples, we get more confused even when it all means the same thing.
The Media
On TV, there’s new advertisers showing victims of accidents and how they have had an accident. But what they don’t realise is, each accident is unique, so why portray victims as happy as they could ever be with their payouts. Imagine you doing that? It’s a marketing stunt. But unfortunately many do fall for it.
The Solicitor
Specialist solicitors in claims should only handle your case, not a solicitor with a commercial background. So you need a solicitor with experience in the appropriate field to handle an injury or accident claim.
The Internet
Browse from one site to another is not going to help. You’ll be there all night, all week, all month or all year and still never make a claim for compensation. Their technical jargon, all mean something similar. We’ll do this and we’ll do that. Find something simple that will help.
Now that you are geared with such knowledge, do yourself a favour?
Apply it!

By Mohammad Latif