Legally Easy is a free source of legal help, news and information from Charley Moore and the legal team at RocketLawyer.com. Rocket Lawyer is the easiest way to make a legal document, find a lawyer and get free legal advice for yourself and your business.
How to Protect or Recover from ID Theft
With breaking news of the largest identity theft scam in U.S. history, everyone should take a moment to learn how to protect their credit and good name from ID Theft. The Identity Theft Legal Center is here to help you learn about how to protect your identity with a credit freeze and more.
Think you may be a victim of Identity Theft or Credit Fraud? Here are critical first steps to take to recover, from the Identity Theft Recovery Center:
Follow up with creditors, banks, government, and others. Use Rocket Lawyer's easy interview process to request a Credit Freeze and create the written notices to follow up with whoever you need to resolve your situation.
Here is the news from Reuters:
Three men were indicted on Monday for allegedly stealing more than 130 million credit and debit card numbers in what U.S. authorities said they believe is the largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted.
Albert Gonzalez, a former government informant already in jail in connection with hacking cases, and two unnamed Russians were indicted on charges related to five corporate data breaches from 2006 to 2008.
Card numbers were stolen in those breaches from credit-card processor Heartland Payment Systems and retail chains 7-Eleven Inc and Hannaford Brothers Co, prosecutors said.
The men targeted two other corporations, the U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey said in the statement, without naming those companies.
Heartland Payment Systems and Hannaford Brothers had previously and separately acknowledged the breaches, but the scope of the fraud had not been known.
Authorities also for the first time tied those cases to Gonzalez, who was arrested last year on suspicion of hacking into a restaurant chain's payment system.
Attorneys for Gonzalez were not available for comment.
In a case that will have both practical and political reverberations, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against the City of New Haven Connecticut in a reverse discrimination suit. The case, known commonly as "New Haven Firefighters," has political impact as well, due to the fact that Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonya Sotomayor, participated in the appeals court ruling that has now been overturned by the Court. What does the ruling potentially mean for you, your business or organization?
The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide, potentially limiting the circumstances in which employers can be held liable for decisions when there is no evidence of intentional discrimination against minorities.
The fact that this was a 5-4 decision indicates that even at the highest level, judges remain split on the application of employment law to the facts raised by the New Haven case. In particular, the case asked whether the city of New Haven Connecticut erred in throwing out the results of a promotion examination because minority test takers were unlikely to receive promotions based on the results of the exam.
Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy states:
"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,"
Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Alito and Thomas.
The dissenting Justices were Ginsburg, Souter, Bryer and Stevens:
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."
Undoubtedly, labor and employment lawyers will be busy crafting new rules for employers to follow in employment testing situations. Employers will be wise to review their employment practices for compliance with the New Haven ruling and to consult with an employment lawyer to understand the issues raised by the case in application to their own organization's practices and policies.
The sensational break-up of America's most famous television family again highlights the legal side of family life. According to the San Francisco Examiner, "on Monday, June 22nd, divorce documents were filed in the Berks County courthouse."
In their televised announcement of the divorce, Jon Gosselin said: "Kate and I have decided to separate...I am stil in the show, but we'll interview separately. Nevertheless, apparently, TLC will continue to air the Jon & Kate Plus 8 show. Mom, Kate Gosselin, said (really) "the show must go on."
While the blogesphere and mainstream media is full of angst over whether, on its face, the televising of the Gosselin saga borders on child abuse, will the continuation of the show possibly do some good by illuminating some of the issues faced by children of broken marriages? Divorce, child support and raising good children after bad marriages is part of life. Now, is it possible that the Jon & Kate Plus 8 show might actually live up to "reality?"
Before, during and after a marriage, couples and families experience a romantic, legal and financial relationship. It is a good idea for everyone to learn about the legal side of marriage, such as prenuptial agreements, child care, child custody and for some, divorce and child support. The Rocket Lawyer Family Legal Help Guide is a good place to start.
Now that the election is over, Rocket Lawyer will work to help you understand what the transition to a new government, led by President-elect Obama and the new congress, will mean for you and your family, your business or your law practice. The election results clearly indicate that next year will be marked by change. We can certainly expect a flurry of legislation targeted toward economic recovery, potentially including sweeping action on taxation, health care, energy and education.
How can you plan for the new government? What opportunities and risks will emerge in the coming months as a result of America's new political direction? These are important questions that Rocket Lawyer will help answer. The Rocket Lawyer Free Legal Help center will continue to be a good place to find simple answers to your legal questions.
We plan to be very active on behalf of consumers, small business owners and legal professionals. We'll be asking for your opinions so that we can understand how best to serve you. We hope that you will take the time to complete our survey and tell us what you think and what legal services and information you need, in this time of change.
Lexis-Nexis teams with RocketLawyer.com for easy online legal services!
Lawyers.comsm adds “do it yourself” options for common legal issues
Addition is one element of the new, interactive Lawyers.com legal community site
New York, NY – July 23, 2008 – LexisNexis announced today that Lawyers.comsm, the leading online resource for consumers and small business professionals to find an attorney and legal information, has added access to a comprehensive legal document service that combines “do it yourself” legal forms with online legal document review by real lawyers.
The additions come as part of a larger transformation of Lawyers.com by LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® that includes implementation of a variety of new interactive features.
One of the key new capabilities is the Legal Document Services provided by RocketLawyer.com™. This set of services now enable users of Lawyers.com to save time by creating legal documents themselves, as well as accessing fast, affordable legal help online right when needed from Lawyers.com member attorneys.
“Today, more consumers and small business professionals use the web to research legal issues before contacting a lawyer, and with the right tools and services they can often handle simple legal matters on their own,” said Sharon Lubrano, vice-president of Client Development at LexisNexis. “The addition of services from RocketLawyer.com offers Lawyers.com visitors user-friendly online resources so they can act faster and more efficiently on common legal matters. And, they can find and connect with one of more than a million lawyers represented at Lawyers.com via the same, easy to use interface.”
“We’re gratified to provide Lawyers.com users with easy and affordable online legal document services,” added Charley Moore, Founder of RocketLawyer.com. He continued. “Combining our easy online legal documents and our patent-pending “Click-through Legal Review” by real attorneys, with Lawyers.com, now gives Web users everything they need to take control of their legal matters.”
More than just a legal forms site, RocketLawyer.com makes it easy to complete many personal and business legal matters at Lawyers.com. For example, individuals can use the service to set up a last will and testament, create a living will, produce a bill of sale, designate power of attorney and much more. Business can use the service to manage processes such as setting up non-disclosure forms, creating service contracts and employee agreements, producing real estate leases, creating licensing agreements and more.
All of this is accomplished via a powerful set of integrated services, including:
Interactive Legal Forms and Interviews. Users answer a few simple questions and create complete legal documents in minutes. These documents are ready immediately and available anywhere with Web access.
Document Collaboration and Sharing. Users can share documents and collaborate with family, legal counsel and other parties.
Click-Through Legal Review™. Users can access a network of attorneys who can review legal documents online for professional help.
Safe, Secure Online Document Vault. Users get peace of mind by backing up their important papers with FileSafekeeper™.
E-Signatures. Users save time and paper by signing legal documents electronically via a computer, cell phone or PDA.
In addition to new capabilities from RocketLawyer.com, Lawyers.com has expanded its vast database of practice area articles and information for consumers and small business professionals to include:
Life Changing Events – Helpful information on legal issues that arise in most peoples’ lives, such as divorce, starting a business, creating a will and more.
Community and Interactive Features – Interact with lawyers through community message boards, “Ask A Lawyer,” scheduled online sessions to discuss specific legal issues, and more.
Videos - Clips from experts on common legal issues
Blogs – Attorney insights on current key legal issues and trends
On the Docket – Read questions other consumers and small businesses are asking and benefit from the answers
“All of these new elements are great examples of the ongoing transformation of Lawyers.com from a large and useful online directory into an interactive online community where individuals and small businesses can find, discuss, learn and take action on legal issues that matter to them,” said Lubrano.
For more information, contact:
Yolanse Lau Marketing Manager RocketLawyer.com marketingmgr@rocketlawyer.com 415.738.6337
One of the best kept secrets in a world of televised celebrity lawyers in expensive suits is that there are thousands of affordable real lawyers here to help you with your legal questions and issues.While celebrity attorneys may offer general information on TV and on the radio, real people have real questions that are specific to their lives and business matters that don’t fit into neatly canned answers.Real people also have personal and business legal documents that they need a real lawyer to review, revise and complete at a reasonable price.
Until now, these real people with their real legal documents would need to find a lawyer, go to the lawyer’s office (an office that costs money that results in higher legal bills for the client), pay for copies, mail, fax and other expenses, and then wait for the legal document, such as a legal will, a power of attorney, a lease or a business contract, to be finished, often after several weeks.Alternatively, a real person might try a web site that offers do it yourself legal forms.Most of these sites seem to offer nothing more than a downloadable PDF or word processor document, with little legal help and legal information.Other sites might have fill-in worksheets for legal documents and then require the person to wait for the document to be completed offline and mailed to them later.In either scenario, the real person is often left back where they started – needing affordable legal help and not being able to find it.
But wait – there is finally a better way, a way to have the best of both worlds – do it yourself legal documents, plus legal help and legal document review by real lawyers online!RocketLawyer.com offers both easy to use interactive free legal documents that real people can complete as well as click-through legal review by real lawyers.Now, a real person can fill in as much or as little of their legal documents as they feel comfortable with and then find a lawyer to help them online – without the need to visit a lawyer’s office or wait for the mail to complete the legal document.
If you are a lawyer, and you would like to join the growing RocketLawyer.com virtual law office network to begin offering your services online, just start here – and, best of all, it’s completely free for join the network and get a free professional profile here!
Doing your taxes yourself has never been easier. Here are some tax time tips to help you get the most out of the many free and low cost tax return filing resources available online. Filing your taxes yourself can be really simple or more involved, depending on the amount of information you want to consider.
Where to start?
RocketLawyer.com offers discounted H&R Block® tax return services online. Every Rocket Lawyer member saves up to 30 percent off the cost of their online tax return. Since everyone needs tax services, this is a great way to get the most out of your Rocket Lawyer membership. If you are already a Rocket Lawyer member, login to access your discounted tax filing services. If you don’t have a membership yet, now is the time to become a Rocket Lawyer member and save even more. Go to: http://www.rocketlawyer.com/.
RocketTax.com makes it simple to complete and file your tax return in a few clicks online. You can trust the tax services from Rocket Tax because it's in partnership with H&R Block, the leader in tax help. Go to: http://www.rockettax.com/.
IRS.gov includes every U.S. Tax form, such as the U.S. Tax 1050 form, the 1050 EZ form, tax Schedule C and all of the other official tax forms, schedules, tax worksheets and tax instructions.
Whether you decide to do your tax filing homework or to just let the easy interactive tax return interviews at RocketTax.com do it for you, filing your taxes yourself should take less time and money than ever.
Do most people shop at stores that look unsafe? Of course not. The same common sense caution should apply to online shopping. To help our members shop safely online, the Rocket Lawyer team has compiled some of our favorite safe shopping advice into an easy to remember acronym: I.N.S.P.E.C.T. Remember what each letter stands for to keep your online shopping experience safe and secure.
Identify the site. Look at the web address (the URL) in your browser and confirm that it matches the top level name of the site you want. So, if you are shopping at Amazon.com, make sure the part of the address before ".com" is "amazon." For example, a site with the address www.amazon.sneakysite.com might be a cleverly disguised imposter site. Be especially careful with sites you visit after clicking a link in an email message (which generally should be avoided, unless you expected the messages or trust the sender). Look for certificates from trusted organizations, like GeoTrust and the Better Business Bureau that enable you to double check the authenticity of the site. Lastly, install good security software that will warn you of potentially dangerous sites. A good safe browsing tool is the Authentic-ID™ toolbar that is provided free of charge from RocketLawyer.com.
Never give financial information without a secure connection. If you are going to buy something with your credit card or otherwise provide your name, address, or bank information, make sure to check the URL for https:// (note the "s" for "secure" after http). It is also a good idea, again, to look for the GeoTrust, Verisign, or other third party security badges on the site. Make sure that these security badges are active – if you click on them, they should direct you to further information from the issuer verifying your security on the site.
See the privacy policy. If you don't see a privacy policy, or if it doesn't contain a promise from the site not to use your personal information for any purpose other than with your permission or as required by law, think about not doing business with the site.
Print your receipt, including a description of your merchandise, the terms of service, warranty and any other information you see that you'd like to have in case of a dispute. For large purchases between individuals, consider creating a simple Bill of Sale.
Email addresses should only be given to trusted sites with published and customary privacy policies.
Check the pricing, refund and return policy. Look for a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Track shipping and delivery locations. Choose only secure delivery points for your merchandise. For example, if the items may be left on your doorstep when nobody is home to accept, consider delivery to your place of business. Common carriers like Federal Express, UPS, DHL and the Postal Service all have web sites where you can track and follow up on shipments with the tracking codes that you can obtain from most reputable e-commerce sites.
Following the guidelines in this article can't guarantee you a perfect online shopping experience; if you have problems with a site, you can create a Complaint Letter. Otherwise, the simple rules in the I.N.S.P.E.C.T safe shopping program should reduce your risk of trouble and help ensure that you and those who you may be shopping for online get to enjoy what you've purchased.
Do you have a list of the essential legal documents for this stage of your life? If the answer is yes – congratulations! You're ahead of the curve...so long as you have executed and properly filed your legal documents.
However, if the answer is no, you're not alone. Most adults don't have an Estate Plan. Similarly, most entrepreneurs, home-based business owners and other small business owners either haven't filed Articles of Incorporation (or LLC documents) for their business or don't keep regular Corporate Minutes. Missing personal and business legal documents increases the risks that your family and business can face in unforseen circumstances.
Want more free information and help? Now, you can easily and quickly complete your personal legal care check up and get the customized information you need in minutes. Just go to RocketLawyer.com and click FREE Legal Care Check-Up "Start Now" .
RocketLawyer.com™ provides information and software only. This site is not
a "lawyer
referral service" and does not provide or participate in any legal representation.
Place a fraud alert on your credit history.
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Follow up with creditors, banks, government, and others.
