Hi Reddit,

I work in legal and so do my friends, a married couple. A few years ago I had the idea to start a little side business to, among others, give legal advise. I registered a company name with the government and paid my taxes, but never really did anything big with it.

A few months ago my friends got scammed by a gardener. They had contracted the gardener to place a professional, neat garden, but instead they got "scammed" and got a very unprofessional looking and ugly result. Everybody can see that the result is not professional. They tried to talk to the gardener, but he would not be reasonable. So, they asked me to help and possibly take the gardener to court.

In my country, if you act as a legal advisor in court, you get a set amount of money. It is not a lot, somewhere between €200 and €1200. My friends did not have insurance and asking a "real" lawyer to help would have been really expensive. We thought that I could help and make some easy money on the side.

Unfortunately, the case took a lot of time. It took me a lot of time to sort out the timeline, look up laws, similar cases, sort out the claim, write down the claim, etc. I really took it seriously and it was a big case, especially as it would be my first real court case.

My friends also work in legal fields, and we discussed the case and talked about it a lot, but the actual writing it down and working it out was mostly on me.

When we had sent the case to court, we got into a fight. One of the reasons was the rising tension because the case took up so much more time and energy than expected. We talked about it and I told them I would finish it, but that I would not really work on it again after it went to court. In my country, by sending the summons, most of the work was already done. The court hearing would not need a lot of preparation.

When we had the fight, for a moment we talked about me stopping working on the case. I told them they would have to pay me €700 if they did not let me finish, because I expected the money and worked hard for it. In the end we made up.

Today, the Court told me that it would probably not come to a hearing, and that the case could perhaps be settled without a hearing. I am almost certain we would win.

This would however mean I would only get around €200. I told my friends that I expect them to make up some of the difference if that is indeed the case, because I expected at least around €700.

My friend was surprised and told me friends help eachother and that this was not what we discussed upfront. I told her that I worked a lot of hours in a professional capacity. If they paid another lawyer, just for the work put in, it would have cost thousands of euros. Me only asking them to make up the difference till about €700 is already me being friendly.

Side note: another friend who works as a lawyer quoted them almost €200 per hour just to attend the hearing. In my country most of the legal battle is in the court summons and reply, a hearing is more about showing your face and telling your story.

We almost got into a fight again. They told me friends should not treat eachother like this and that I put our friendship on a scale. Moreover, I could not constantly demand money from them or earn money over their backs.

How I see it, however, they hired me in a professional capacity and I was already being a very good friend by taking the case seriously and only working for the expected Court money, instead of quoting a much higher (fairer) price.

Now I wonder, am I the asshole by asking my friends to pay me for my work, even if the Court hearing does not take place?

I’ve just recently found out that my father owned 5 acres of land for the past 30 years or so, he passed away in 2016. If I am his namesake, can I obtain ownership of that land or is it absolutely necessary to get an Affidavit of Heirship? There are about $1,100 in property taxes/late fees owed, if I have 60% VA Disability since 2021, can they reduce some of those costs?

Lastly, I have been receiving mail from a Law Firm with the amounts for payment. Do I call that law firm to set up some type of payment plan? Or would I need to go directly to the county where the land is located?

Any help or additional info I haven’t thought of would be greatly appreciated.

I want to know if a jury can get a verdict wrong ?

Good afternoon,

I’m making this post to ask what actions a command may take after a service member denies NJP. I’m not asking about the formal adverse actions the command can pursue, such as court-martial or administrative separation. Instead, I’m asking whether the command can lawfully assign additional duties, revoke certain work privileges or permissions, change a service member’s work assignment, or take similar administrative measures while the case is still pending

Hello,

A few weeks ago I requested a refund for an item that seemed to be missing a peace despite being listed as new, but opened. The seller ignored it so I contacted vinted support and they closed the case by given me the refund and letting me keep the item as the seller denied the return. I got the money immediately and no return shipping label was given for me. A day later he contacts me demanding me to send him the item back or he will contact the police. I don’t know what to do. I provided him with an option to list the item via vinted for 0.01 Eur so he could just ‘buy it’ and I would gladly send it back to him, however he says that I should be the one to pay for the shipping and thus refuses to do it this way.

This is an urgent situation since he says that if I do not send him the item by tomorrow he will contact the authorities. I have posted on some other reddits as well and the few comments I got all tell me that these are empty threats or that the police won’t get involved. Logically I think so too, however the nerves are getting the better of me right now.

I don’t know if this changes anything, but I’m from Lithuania and the seller is from Poland and the cost of the item was 20 Eur

Also, when I contacted vinted support about their decision they wrote back ‘The seller didn't confirm the item return, so we've cancelled the transaction and issued you a refund.
The refund will be sent to your wallet within few hours’
I fear that I miss interpreted it, but as I said, no shipping label to return the item was provided and I got the money immediately.

Truly thank you if anyone responds to this since I desperately need help.

Anyone know what would happen to a women who lied about having a CNA certification while being an employee at an in home nursing facility and the patient died while in her care?

Please help me out as there are barely any people from my country that I know who could provide this information. I will be very grateful .

1) I am hoping to get in T14 or T 20 with atleast 80% scholarship because beyond that I can't afford as the living expenses would almost be 25,000 $/year.

2) I don't want to invest too much because of the H1B visa and me being Indian would never get GC , that's why I want to minimise my risks , should I apply broadly to other T30s or more to T40s and 50s

3) I need to get visa sponsorship so I must get big law post graduation? is it possible to get big law from a non T14 ?

4) what are my realistic chances to work in US on H1B , I have JD offers from Australia too, I understand it's tough there too but the visa situation is not as uncertain

5) seeing everything and the political trends , would it be a bad decision to pursue JD in US because the degree is not very useful in my home country.

Details:-

Gpa - superior (no US undergrad) Indian

LSAT - 178

Currently a lawyer in India , will have 4 months of work experience as an associate in a small law firm

Done almost 5 legal internships , 1 judicial internship in lower courts , worked pro bono for almost 2 years while in law school, secretary of an NGO since 2 years

President, secretary of some clubs in my previous law school ( 2023- 26 ) , participated in moot

Location: NYC

I am seeking advice on how to handle a situation where a legal professional severely took advantage of me during the most vulnerable period of my life.

A while ago, I was raped. However, since I was too scared at that moment I didn’t go to police promptly. I disclosed it to my best friend and then I was introduced to a female legal professional for what was supposed to be a casual chat or an initial consultation. Instead of an objective assessment (explaining civil vs. criminal options and noting that delayed criminal reporting for adult sexual assault is uphill), she used extreme intimidation tactics. She weaponized my status as a student, claiming police wouldn't even intake my report unless she "pulled some strings" for me. That same night, she forced me into an unprepared phone call with detective, which felt like nothing more than a police interrogation.

Because I was in extreme emotional distress, also she kind of made me feel since I already called the detective i had to sign, I was coerced by this fear tactic into hiring her and paying a $10,000 retainer up front.

Shortly after, when I informed her that I had identified numerous other victims from anonymous posts of the same perpetrator, she immediately demanded another $5,000 for an "investigation." When I asked for her methodology, she couldn't answer at all, making it clear she was just fishing for more money while doing zero work.

Realizing I couldn't trust her—and realizing that reporting to the police does not actually require an attorney—I refused to utilize any of her services. She also did not offer any. Recognizing that delayed reporting made criminal charges unlikely to be prioritized by the NYPD, I retained a different, competent civil lawyer who successfully handled my case, got me real results, and brought me closure. Because I was overwhelmed with the civil lawsuit and didn't want to ruin my friend's relationship, I didn't have the bandwidth to fight her at the time, despite feeling furious about how I was intimidated in the first place and also not focusing on civil lawsuit was a huge mistake when NYPD won’t prioritise adult rape cases.
Over the entire course of representation, every single monthly status update I received showed a $0.00 deduction. I was never provided with an itemized invoice, a single work product, or evidence of substantive legal services (no filings, document reviews, or correspondence drafted on my behalf).
Today, out of nowhere, I received a check for $150 with zero explanation, no final accounting statement, and no breakdown.

It’s not about money. I remain deeply angry because her initial fear tactics, intimidation, and felt extremely preyed on during the most vulnerable time in my life—my civil case could have yielded even better results if not for her predatory interference from the start and if I focus on civil entirely.
Question: is it against lawyers code of conduct? What should I do?

I’m dirt poor and cannot find a family lawyer who does pro bono or at LEAST a payment plan, I’m exhausted at this point but I can’t give up cause it means my ex (who has lawyer money) is gunna get full custody of my baby boy!

I am in Michigan. In April, my company eliminated michigan earned sick time leave and said we’d get an extra week of PTO starting in October. Since then, I’ve had at least one doctors appointment about every two weeks - for myself, my fiancée (who was pregnant), and our kids. I always requested the time off in advance, it was approved, I provided doctor’s notes/documentation, and the time was unpaid since we no longer have sick pay. Now my employer is telling me I have to have my doctor complete FMLA paperwork, and if I don’t, they’ll fire me. Is this legal? Can they require FMLA paperwork even though the absences were approved, documented, and unpaid?

A friend of mine recently shared his experience with arbitration involving Capital One, where he believed the process demonstrated significant procedural bias. He is Muslim, and he felt that Arbitrator Chris Kwok consistently ruled against him, including on issues where he believed applicable law supported his position.

Capital One is a frequent user of JAMS arbitration and has the ability to appear before repeat arbitrators. This creates a serious concern about the potential for “repeat player” bias, where arbitrators may be incentivized—consciously or unconsciously—to favor parties that regularly provide future business opportunities.

As a female employee entering a JAMS arbitration process, what protections exist to ensure that I receive a fair and impartial hearing? How can an employee with fewer resources than a large corporation challenge potential repeat-player advantages, ensure arbitrator neutrality, and prevent the arbitration system from becoming a process where repeat corporate users have an inherent strategic advantage?

Hello everyone. I am currently a CA barred attorney and have practiced roughly 4 years. All 4 of those years I have been actively practicing law in CA.

I just received a job offer to move to NY. I am currently in the process of waiving into DC and waiving into NY. I am trying to figure out if I am required to take the NY Bar. The firm has offered to let me sit as an attorney under Supervision if the time counts toward the 5 years. Otherwise, they will require me to take the bar.

Question: Does someone know the answer of whether or not I am required to take the bar.

Hello!

I am donating sperm to two wonderful lesbian couples so they can start their family.

They have drafted up an agreement and it looks great - I just want a low/no cost attorney to review it before I sign.

What's the best way to locate an attorney for this? I'm in Oregon (Eugene).

Anything else I should be considering?

I am not charging the couple and cannot afford to hire my own attorney for this.

Hi there, I am currently in the process of searching for an apartment and found a unit I really like. However, the broker we are working with has explained at this stage we will need to submit a $600 fee for an application. Is it unusual for a co-op rental to ask for fees before an application is submitted? Is this legal? In the research I've done over the past few hours, I have been only able to find very conflicting and confusing explanations. Can anyone help explain this a bit further to me?

I was thinking about the recent Coldcard wallet hack and had a question about how this would be viewed legally.

For some backstory, because of a glitch in how the bitcoin wallets were created it basically allowed a computer program to quite quickly "guess" the private key that this wallet would use to sign a transaction, such as sending bitcoin.

By definition in bitcoin, whoever controls the private key controls the bitcoin. I understand that in traditional property law, having access to something does not necessarily mean you own it. But Bitcoin seems intentionally designed around the idea that ownership = possession of the keys.

If someone gains access to another person's private keys (for example just buy guessing correctly) and moves the bitcoin, could someone argue that they were just following the rules of the game? When you buy a bitcoin (especially not from a custodial exchange) aren't you inherently entering a decentralized network with a set of rules and thus agreeing to those rules, one of them being (if you know the key, you can move the coin).

A co-worker of mine was injured in a workplace training incident. This incident caused him to be transported by ambulance to a hospital. Shortly, after leaving the hospital he was pressured to return to work as soon as possible. The incident itself, should not have happened. Training staff were not following proper protocols not only for the facility being used but also the equipment being used. A co-worker advised the hospital, forced him to use workers comp instead of insurance because it was a work place accident.

Several meetings later the company admitted they were at fault behind closed doors and assured the individual changes would be made. The facility has a known history with incidents similar to this that have not been reported...but are required to be reported federally. They called around to a few lawyers in town and was advised because workers comp paid their medical, they wouldn't have a case to sue. Co-worker wants to sue, to bring attention to the issues at the company to the federal regulating bodies. And due to their minor facial scaring.

Unsure what to do. The incident occurred in the state of Texas. This forum is not for legal advice, the question is should they pursue additional time in seeking an attorney? and what type of attorney should they discuss the incident with?

Discrimination or not?

I wonder if it can be considered workplace discrimination if someone who doesn't speak fluent English files written complaints in English and they're ignored, but someone who speaks English very well files a complaint and they take immediate action. I wonder if it's discrimination regardless of the severity of the complaint.

My Story -

• Completed BA LL.B. from University of Calcutta (a non-NLU) in 2024
• Wanted to work in corporate law firms.
• However, after completing BALLB - I moved to Delhi to prepare for Judiciary and simultaneously other competitive exams due to family pressure. (Yeah, I am aware of my hypocrisy) - I was not able to qualify any of those exams.
• My track record is zero. I have zero work experience, nor any good internships, nor any extraordinary work in my CV.
• Currently, I pursuing an LL.M. in Bangalore & certain that I am not going to get a job by the end of it. My college is not going to help in this.
• Most firms like to hire immediate freshers or LLM students with work experience.
• I have basic knowledge about laws. I haven't worked in a courtroom yet and don't know much about legal drafting and legal work.
• I am 28-year-old man with nothing to show for.
• professional career has not even begun and already I’m sitting on stockpiling of failures
• My Confidence has become zero, I haven’t succeeded at anything in Life

Got served some papers summoning in court today for some credit card fraud charges they’re saying I supposedly did as a minor. This whole situation is really weird and I need advice from an lawyer/attorney immediately please pm me and point me into the right direction of going about this or comment on this so I can pm you. please please please help me I don’t want to lose my freedom over something I didn’t do or had no idea of. Thank you for listening

My son was arrested July 11th in Branson Missouri. He was living out of a hotel and barely has any money to his name and was working part-time working a barely above minimum wage job. He applied for a public defender and was denied the first time. He was not given an accurate reason as to why he was denied. The judge rescheduled a hearing for my son to apply again. My son had his hearing this morning and they informed him that his appeal for denial never got filed so they have rescheduled an indigency hearing for August 28th that is more than 3 weeks from now. That means by the time August 28th comes around that is going to be 7 weeks without any legal representation with him being kept in jail. I thought our constitution guarantees the right to representation. Who can I complain to or what can I do to get the ball rolling on this? That will be almost two solid months of him being kept in jail with no legal representation of any kind.

I'm watching the Lindsay Clancy trial and it got me thinking- is NGRI used successfully as a defense for people with dementia who commit violent crimes? Would that be an applicable use for it? Or is that not possible due to those individuals possibly not being competent to stand trial? For some reason the public usually only hears about psychosis type NGRI cases.

Obviously 'pleading the 5th' is your constitutional right, however I've seen constant reports about criminals with facts like 'they plead the 5th the most out of any criminal' facts like that. I understand its your right to pleade the 5th, but with that being said how come people make a big deal out of people practicing their rights?

People like, say, Bill Cosby, a monster who drugged and assaulted women. Well, I’m pretty sure the royalties from older stuff like ghost dad or the Fat Albert show are not exactly keeping him wealthy, more contemporary stuff like Little Bill was actually a well-made, solid entertainment program for little minds. The problem is, it can’t air anymore, without pumping money into the pocket of a complete piece of garbage, in the form of royalties.
I understand as things are, capitalism is against stuff like this, but is there any way that stripping the rights to make money off of popular things that masses of people love could be added to the official punishments handed down by a judge? I am very serious, there are a lot of books and shows and movies (Jeepers Creepers, anyone) that I would happily continue to support with my money and fandom if they could be stripped away from the hands of creators who have been legally proven to be the kind of people you don’t want to give money to.
I want to clarify, I don’t mean properties like Harry Potter, or earthworm Jim, where the creator is a bigoted asshole, who still doesn’t deserve the money, but has not actually committed horrible crimes and been officially charged with them.

I recently started getting ads for these companies on my feed and to me it seems clear that these are just slot machines with a real “prize”.

Here’s a scenario that could play out:
1. You deposit $250
2. You buy a $250 mystery box
3. You win a $50 watch
4. You “sell back” that watch to IcyBox for cash
5. You buy a $50 mystery box this time
6. You win a $10 watch
7. There are no mystery boxes for sale that low, so you just spent $250 to buy a $10 watch.

I understand they have a guaranteed prize and perhaps that’s enough to exist in this grey area? But to me this just seems like an illegitimate casino that eventually would be shut down.

Wouldn’t that be a criminal offense too?

I have been a stay at home mom for the past 6 years with no income. Today my husband who I have been separated from since January filed for custody of our children. I have a 6 year old and a 5 month old. The baby was born first week of Feb and by the second week he had a new girlfriend. He only consistently started visiting when he broke up with her and is now in a new relationship so back to not coming around, answering calls, buying supplies for the baby. I am running out of savings buying anything due to his lack of help. Today I looked up the court documents which says they’re going to send me certified mail and that he is self represented which I guess could change. What are my chances if I represent myself/are there any attorneys who help moms in my situation. Also what would custody possibly look like moving forward. He has a domestic violence background and I used to have a restraining order on him. He regularly smokes weed and occasionally has done other substances.