Many mistakenly assume they only need a lawyer when going to court. In reality, our personal and professional lives exist in a complex legal landscape where having professional counsel can be the advantage you need to attain a favorable outcome. Here are six reasons you may need a lawyer.
To manage your estate
If you’re the primary provider for your family, it is crucial to have a plan that allows them to live a happy and fulfilling life even after you’re gone. Life is full of uncertainties, and you don’t want your family to go through emotional trauma alongside financial instability together. Contacting an estate lawyer to help you draft up a will ensures that your assets are divided among your heirs as per your wishes.
Leaving your family intestate means your resources are divided in court, a long and expensive procedure. Managing your estate now is much easier and less invasive than having a judge do it in the future.
To handle disputes
Even the most pacifist lifestyle cannot altogether avoid the possibility of conflict and confrontation. From issues with your service providers to mishaps on the road to a toxic workplace environment, life is full of different disputes, and having professional legal advice can help you navigate the situation.
Handling issues like being a victim of a roadside trucking accident or being mistreated by your medical practitioner alone can leave you open to exploitation while making litigation more likely. Often the companies involved or their insurers will try to minimize blame on their side and downplay the incident. Consulting truck accident law firms or medical malpractice advocates can safeguard your rights during conversations with the opposing side.
To help deal with the police
It is possible to become involved with the police and a criminal investigation without doing anything wrong. From knowing the victim to being near the crime scene to matching the assailant’s description, the police can have multiple reasons to bring you in for questioning, even where you have no involvement with any criminal activity.
While shows may have conditioned us into thinking that if you have nothing to hide, you do not need a lawyer, this could not be further from the truth. Police interrogations are full of intrusive questions that seem innocent enough on the surface but are being used to create a narrative of the crime event. Having a criminal defense lawyer during a police interrogation ensures that your rights are protected and that the police cannot use circumstantial evidence to secure your temporary detainment.
If you are the victim of police mistreatment or abuse, a lawyer can help you bring a claim against the police department and the specific officers involved.
To manage your employment
The corporate world is a complex legal space governed by corporate laws and contracts between different parties. When you enter this world as an employee, you become a contracted worker with stipulated rights and responsibilities. Having a legal professional help you navigate this maze ensures your rights are protected, with your career trajectory remaining positive throughout your employment life cycle.
Legal representation is useful from the day a firm agrees to hire you, where a lawyer can ensure any contract you sign is fair and does not contain any hidden stipulations. They can be crucial if you have a problem at work, like an unsafe environment or your seniors not rewarding your hard work because of their discriminatory attitudes. They can also help if you have decided to leave your job, where they can negotiate the terms of your departure and a healthy severance package.
To start your business
For entrepreneurs looking to kickstart their lives of working for themselves, contacting a lawyer is necessary to begin your venture as a proper business entity. While you technically can start a business without legal registration as a sole proprietorship, the lack of legal differentiation between personal and business assets means you will be entirely liable for any debts your business incurs. While this may suffice for extremely small-scale and low-capital businesses, entrepreneurs looking to grow must get formal legal recognition for their companies.
A lawyer is crucial throughout the company’s creation, from deciding what kind of entity to form, whether a general partnership or limited liability company, to ensuring all the documentation is there to complete the registration process. Once created, a lawyer can ensure the company remains compliant with all federal and state regulations surrounding the industry during its teething stages.
To manage your companies affairs
A business requires legal expertise to perform almost any function. Whether striking an agreement with a third party, like your suppliers or distributors, or processing a new employee, these agreements happen through contracts that create binding legal relations. A legal professional with specialized training in corporate and business law can ensure that your business has the best legal representation and is involved in agreements to its comparative advantage.
Lawyers are also essential for protecting the identity of your business and managing any changes to its structure. They can help trademark symbols, logos, and phrases integral to your company’s image so that others do not use them. They are crucial for protecting all your creative assets by patenting the technology involved in their creation so cheap duplicates do not flood the market and kill the value of your product. They can also help negotiate and streamline the process of mergers and acquisitions so that the new company can become operationalized as soon as possible.
Conclusion
Our private and public lives are structured around complex laws and regulations that aim at promoting social order. While a good system should have transparent and easily understood rules, the truth is that the legal system is full of complexities and nuances that are imperceptible to the layman. Having a lawyer to help you navigate these nuances can drastically improve your fortunes, both in your private and professional life.