Author Archive

Attorney Michele Fuller: 5 Must-Do’s to Protect Special Needs Children

January 17th, 2011. By BrendaC

Lawyers Giving Back looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we’re talking with Michigan attorney Michele Fuller…

Attorney Michele Fuller: “Not exploring the options is the biggest mistake a parent can make.”

Parents of special needs children are often so busy with day to day issues, they neglect to prepare for the day when they’ll no longer be there. “Many consumers and parents don’t realize when they have these kinds of issues that they really need to see an attorney who specializes in these kinds of issues,” says Michele Fuller from the Michigan Law Center.

Fuller, who herself is the mother of a child with autism, says not exploring the options is the biggest mistake a parent can make. Many parents incorrectly believe that their child will lose all his or her government benefits if they are included in the will.

“Once they go to a specialist or someone experienced in this type of planning that knee-jerk reaction disappears,” says Fuller, who also is the director of a non-profit group called Advocacy that helps families with mentally or physically challenged children with legal issues.

“I think disinheriting a child is one of the biggest mistakes parents can make because they are leaving the most vulnerable child they have nothing.”

Fuller often advises parents to provide for a “third party trust” in their will to protect their most vulnerable child. It can also protect the estate for the benefit of the more capable siblings.

“This contract is for the benefit of your special needs child—a third party beneficiary,” says Fuller. “They don’t own the money, they are just benefiting from the contract you are creating. That is why we call it a third party special needs trust.”

“With our non-profit group (Advocacy) we have created a third party joinder agreement, so that people can enter into a pool trust,” says Fuller. “It is really meant for people with more modest estates. They don’t have a lot of money, but they still need effective planning for their special needs child or disabled family member.”

Parents often leave everything to a so-called responsible child, but Fuller points out some problems with that decision. “What they have done is essentially disinherited their most vulnerable child in favor of the most responsible child,” says Fuller. “But especially in this economy where people may lose their job, or go through a divorce and half of—or all of—that money may go to creditors or a former spouse—now they have really opened up to door to disaster for their most vulnerable child.

“That sibling may simply not have time to devote to their more vulnerable brother or sister, but there is still an important role for them to play.

“One of the great ways to incorporate family and a trustee is to appoint a trust protector,” says Fuller. “They supervise the acts of the professional trustee so if something goes sideways—they have the ability to move the trust.”

Fuller offers this top five list for parents of physically and/or mentally disabled children.

1. Do not disinherit them

2. See an experienced special needs attorney or planner

3. Make sure there is a plan and fill out letters of intent

4. Make sure who ever is going to help take care of your child knows your child. Does your child have pets, or special friends, or do they go to sleep with the light on?

5. The money situation can be handled, your child will be going through a huge transition so make sure the right person is going to be there for them

Fuller is also a member of the National Academy of Special Needs Planners.

“People who are passionate about this often have a child who is disabled,” says Fuller. “I love helping these families, they are so appreciative and you feel like you really change lives so it is extremely satisfying.” 

Michele Fuller is the founder of the Michigan Law Center. She is an expert in a wide range of estate planning issues, particularly special needs planning, elder law, probate administration and settlement planning. Michigan Law also helps fellow attorneys, advisors and other professionals with advice on the best to serve their clients in these areas.

Tags: Estate Planning, Lawyers Doing Good, Lawyers Giving Back, Michele Fuller, Michigan Law Center, Special Needs Children
Posted in Lawyers Giving Back | 6 Comments »

“I Find People” says Investigative Attorney Charles Eric Gordon

January 10th, 2011. By BrendaC

Lawyers Giving Back looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we’re talking with attorney Charles Gordon…

Attorney Charles-Eric Gordon: The Lawyer Lawyers Turn To to Find People

If you’ve ever existed, investigative attorney Charles Gordon can find you. Not only that, he teaches other lawyers how to find you, too!

He’s an expert in the art of ‘Skip Tracing’—which is, rather like it sounds, the business of tracking down witnesses, debtors or former spouses who “skip” out on obligations—or, they could be missing heirs to estates, or they just need to be found for some other legal reason.

Attorney Charles Eric Gordon

 

Gordon’s a Brooklyn Law School-educated attorney, but as he’ll tell you, “I haven’t litigated a case as the attorney of record in a long, long time. When I go to court it is as an expert witness. I’m an investigative attorney.”

The computer is a mighty sword in the search for those individuals who are missing pieces to legal puzzles. At his free workshops for the Brooklyn Bar Association Volunteer Lawyer Project he teaches people how to use Google or ancestry.com and search licensed databases to locate people.

“It is something I really enjoy doing,” says Gordon. “I get some insight—especially when the lawyers bring up questions from their own practices and I talk about how I would handle the issue.”

“I tell them the computer is important,” he adds, “but the internet isn’t everything.”

Gordon’s a bit of a charmer, too and in his business, that’s a definite plus. “Lawyers who want to learn how to find missing witnesses or heirs to estates have to “use the schmooze”. It’s a Yiddish expression,” says Gordon. “Basically, what I mean is get out there and talk to people, don’t just sit at the computer.”

“Is there a dry cleaner or a bodega in their old neighborhood where someone might remember what happened to them,” says Gordon. “Or maybe someone there might remember somebody who would know where they went.”

Gordon loves his job. And sometimes, when a lawyer comes to him struggling to find someone critical to a case, if it’s a worthy one, Gordon will hop on the case pro bono and get the work done.

In the early 1970s, as Gordon was graduating from university with an English degree (yes, there was another degree before this one) his career options were limited. “I started out working a debt collector. I became very good at finding debtors and setting up car repos. And I loved the chase,” says Gordon.

“You could say I’ve carved a little niche for myself,” says Gordon, sitting in his sunny office on 7^th Avenue in New York. He’s got a collection of phone books going back to the early 1900s—one of the artful tools in his people-finding kit. “Sometimes people will say something like, my uncle lived on a street with an animal name, but I can’t remember it.”

“I flip through the phone book and find Zebra Lane or Dromedary Street,” says Gordon. “I know where to start looking.”

As Gordon said, it’s an art.

Charles Gordon of Charles-Eric Gordon, Esq. specializes as investigative counsel serving the legal profession and real estate industries by locating missing heirs, legatees, beneficiaries, witnesses, debtors and defendant; especially those absentees missing for many years or about whom little information is known. Gordon also conducts investigations involving rent stabilization and rent control fraud by tenants and conduct asset investigations of judgment debtors. He serves as a consultant to private investigation firms and corporation counsel, and teaches continuing legal education courses on tracing missing persons and conducting landlord-tenant investigations.

Tags: Brooklyn Bar Association Volunteer Lawyer Project, Charles Eric Gordon, Charles Gordon, Lawyers Giving Back
Posted in Lawyers, Lawyers Giving Back | 2 Comments »

Help CAALA Help Others: Clean out your Closet with Clothes the Deal

January 4th, 2011. By BrendaC

LawyersandSettlements.com has a new column that looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we’re talking about the annual Business Clothes Drive by Clothes the Deal, which is supported by many Los Angeles area law firms…

Suit by Gieves and Hawkes

The Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA) is among the many volunteers behind an important organization that has helped thousands of Americans get back into the job market. Since 1995, Clothes the Deal (CTD) has gathered high-quality business clothing and accessories that are then given to job hunters who may not otherwise have the resources to afford a new “interview suit”. 

CAALA is the final homerun phase of its annual clothing drive for Clothes the Deal. Last year alone, CTD distributed 15,000 pieces of business clothing to over 6,000 job seekers in California alone. 

Clothes the Deal was the brainchild of Ann Gusiff who wrote the The Deal’s first business plan as part of an MBA Thesis in Chicago in 1995. Two years later in 1997, Clothes The Deal was recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization. 

The organization, which also helps job seekers learn to dress for success, established an important partnership in 1998 with the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE). Clothes The Deal moved their operations out of the garage it had been using and into a space at LACOE’s facility in Downey, California. 

Volunteers who gather from organizations like CAALA are critical to the success of Clothes the Deal. 

“With the rise in unemployment and the decrease in funding, we have had to brainstorm ideas of how to fundraise to help those in need of our services,” says CTD president, Deborah Brusavich. “We soon realized how many people are willing to donate their time to help our organization thrive during a time of such uncertainty.” 

Law firms generate thousands of pieces of business clothing for Clothes the Deal. In 2010, the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles and 30 individual law firms such as Agnew Brusavich, Esner Chang and Todd Bloomfield LLP hosted clothing drives for CTD or provided drop-off spots. 

Last spring, the Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker law firm pitched in and ran a successful two-week clothing drive for CTD. The firm was so impressed with the work that Clothes the Deal does that it offered a number of pro bono services to CTD. 

“We are really grateful to the work Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker is doing on our behalf and proud to be one of their charitable causes,” says Brusavich. “We are looking forward to a long and prosperous relationship.”

The current CTD Business Wear Drive ends tomorrow, January 5, 2011–but there is still time to drop off your donation at the following locations: 

Girardi and Keese, 1126 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90017

Law Office of Lisa Maki, 1111 S. Grand Avenue, Suite 101, Los Angeles, CA 90015

Rice and Bloomfield,LLP, 5550 Topanga Canyon Blvd, Suite 200, Woodland Hills, CA 91367

The Cochran Firm, 4929 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1010, Los Angeles, CA 90010

Greene, Broillet & Wheeler, 100 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 21, Santa Monica, CA 90401

Cheong, Denove, Rowell & Bennett, 10100 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 2460, Los Angeles, CA 90067

Esner and Chang, 234 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 750, Pasadena, CA 91101

Tim Ryan and Associates, 8072 Warner Avenue, Huntington Beach, CA 92647

Law Offices of C. Michael Alder, 9308 Civic Center Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210

AgnewBrusavich, 20355 Hawthorne Blvd. 2nd Floor, Torrance, CA 90503

Chapman, Glucksman, Dean, Rober & Barger, 11900 West Olympic Blvd., Suite 800, Los Angeles, CA 90064

Dimarco, Arujo & Montevideo, 1324 North Broadway, Santa Ana, CA 92706

Clothes The Deal is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization that assist men, women, and at-risk youth in transition, empowering them to interview with confidence, gain employment and achieve economic self-sufficiency.

Tags: CAALA, Clothes the Deal, Deborah Brusavich, Lawyers Giving Back
Posted in Emerging Issues, Lawyers Giving Back | No Comments »

Pro Bono Lawyer Jameika Williams Saves Homeless Man from Jail

December 28th, 2010. By BrendaC

LawyersandSettlements.com has a new column that looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we talk with Attorney Jameika Williams Mangum of The Mangum Law Firm in Chicago… 

Attorney Jameika Williams: “You don’t have to do pro bono work—but I think pro bono is extremely important.”

It might sound like a small case, but in David Liberty’s world, the stakes were high. The 51-year-old homeless man was accused of assaulting another homeless man, and without a lawyer to defend him, he would likely do 30 days in the notorious Cook County Jail.  

Attorney Jameika Williams Magnum

“He asked me if I had ever been in the Cook County jail,” says young attorney Jameika Williams Mangum. “I told I had not and he said ‘well, you don’t want to go there, because I have been there before and it isn’t a place you want to be`.”

The center of Liberty’s world was his truck. He did odd jobs and worked as a painter sometimes. If he went to jail, he would almost certainly lose the truck and everything in it.

“He was very worried about that—he wanted to know what would happen to his truck,” says Mangum.

So you see, to David Liberty, this case was huge.

Chicago lawyers are expected to work out a deal with clients who have a limited ability to pay, but Mangum knew from the beginning that this was definitely a pro bono case—even if it meant hours of preparation and going to trial, she had no intention of sending him a bill.

Mangum runs a general law practice, and Liberty is definitely not any lawyer’s dream client. “You can`t call him on the telephone, or send him a letter in the mail because he basically lives on the street,” says Mangum. “All our meetings took place at the courthouse and I would write notes down for him.”

And although justice is supposed to be blind, the reality is appearance counts when you go before a judge or jury.

“I immediately let the court know this man cannot afford to buy a suit and tie,” says Mangum.

“He would come to court and he had not changed his clothes in weeks,” says Mangum. “So I explained the situation to the prosecutor and asked him to let the judge and everyone else know why he looked the way he did.”

In the end, Liberty’s charge was negotiated down to disorderly conduct. No jail time, and no fine.

“You don’t have to do pro bono work—but I think pro bono is extremely important and I am involved in another right now,” says Mangum. “In these economic times, people can not always afford to pay a lawyer $300, $400 or $500 an hour. They have real issues and real problems and there are not very many places where they can get help.”

“It is unfortunate that people with limited means end up serving jail time for a crime they didn’t commit or serve time when it could have been avoided if they had proper representation,” she says. 

 Jamieka Williams Mangum is a native of Los Angeles who recently opened a law office in Chicago and is proving herself to be a force to be reckoned with. She recently won an eyebrow-raising not guilty verdict for a man accused of knowingly bringing a gun on board an aircraft. Mangum argued he had simply forgotten it in his bag.

Tags: Chicago lawyers, cook county jail, homeless, Jameika Williams Mangum, Lawyers Giving Back, Pro Bono, The Mangum Law Firm
Posted in Lawyers Giving Back | 6 Comments »

Boy DUI Victim Holds Special Place in Attorney Joe Dunn’s Heart

December 21st, 2010. By BrendaC

LawyersandSettlements.com has a new column that looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we talk with Attorney Joseph Dunn of Wigington, Rumley & Dunn…

Attorney Joe Dunn: “People think lawyers don’t have feelings, well, we do”

Attorneys Joseph Dunn and David Rumley haveinvited 11-year-old Mason Archer to go hunting with them again this year in January on Rumley’s ranch in Texas. They first met little Mason when he was just five. A drunk driver slammed into the family’s truck leaving Mason paralyzed from the chest down and lawyers from Wigington, Rumley & Dunn were asked to represent the family in a complex personal injury lawsuit.

“We’ve come to know Mason and his family very well over the years. He is just such a special kid and he has such a positive attitude,” says Dunn.  

“He likes to hunt,” says Joesph Dunn. “So, I asked him last hunting season if he wanted to come down [to the ranch]. He got excited about that. We got all set up for him and flew him down.”

Charlie Archer, Mason Archer, Mason Dunn & Attorney Joe Dunn

“We got some wheelchair accessible hunting blinds,” says Dunn. “I brought my two boys and my partner, David Rumley, brought his son and we had a boys weekend, hunting and sitting around the campfire at night.”

“We were out hunting on the ranch for 3 or 4 days and it was a special time,” says Dunn.

It’s been five years since Mason’s accident and life has changed for the Archers in so many ways since that night on a twisty Arkansas road in 2005. Mason was riding in the back seat of the family’s GM extended cab truck. The seat belt failed to protect Mason and it wrapped around Mason like a barber pole says Dunn. To make matters worse, the medical team at the hospital took hours to notice that the little boy couldn’t move his legs. Quick and proper treatment likely would have mitigated his injuries.

Dunn and the other members of the legal team representing the Archers obtained a confidential settlement from GM in a product liability suit for defective seat belts and another medical malpractice suit against the hospital for delayed treatment. The 24-year-old drunk driver who caused the accident died at the scene. The Archers sued his estate.

“Mason has done wonderful things even from a wheelchair,” says Dunn. “He started an awareness campaign about the dangers of drunk driving and he is just a great role model.”

With the money from the settlements, the Archers have been able to a set up their home to accommodate Mason and provide him with the care he needs. His dad bought him a 6-wheel ATV that he can drive around their property.

“I think it is one of the highlights of my career, meeting Mason and his family,” says Dunn. “I know people don’t think lawyers have feelings, but we do. And it just feels good to have Mason come down here to visit and to help people like the Archers.”

“He’s special. Just look at how well he’s doing.”

Joseph (Joe) Dunn is a name partner with the firm of Wigington, Rumley & Dunn. He holds a B.S. from Texas A&M and a J.D. from St. Mary’s University Law School. He handles a variety of personal injury and medical malpractice cases. He also likes to hunt.

Tags: Joseph Dunn, Lawyers Giving Back, Wigington Rumley & Dunn
Posted in Emerging Issues, Lawyers Giving Back | 2 Comments »