I know that for regular readers of DasUberBlog!, it has seemed like a quite a bit of my posts lately have been commercials, notably for various law firms around the country. What can I say? You gotta do what you gotta do to get the revenue rolling in. This next post, however, is not a plea to go check out a law firm in Dallas, or turn to a Dodge dealership in Miami or realtor in Calgary to fulfill your upwardly mobile needs or awkward legal entanglements. This is about what happens when a young entrepreneur goes to the mat to save her small business concerns. Reema Bajaj, a 27 year-old lawyer in northern Illinois, has agreed to a three year suspension of her law license after the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission filed a complaint against her. If the deal is approved, it will be forwarded to the Illinois Supreme Court for final determination. Bajaj is only the second lawyer ever to be disciplined by the state if Illinois for a prostitution conviction. The complaint stems from a guilty charge Bajaj made in DeKalb County last year to a misdemeanor count of prostitution for an incident that happened before she gained her law license. Bajaj, worked as an escort from 2005-2011 under the name "Nikita," and according to the original complaint, had accepted money, gift cards, DVDs, and office supplies in return for sex from two men while getting her practice set up. Damn. Damn. Dammmmmmmmnnnnnnnnn... This might just be perfect fodder for those who think all lawyers are whores to begin with. My checkered past with attorneys notwithstanding, I do not believe all lawyers are whores, just 99.998% of them. My most recent experience with retaining an attorney was great, although the two layers I retained beforehand (different matters) were tits on a muffler worthless. Not to mention- what kind of confidence should you have in your lawyer when she has to give handi jays to cover her office expenses? To the best of my recollections, even Lionel Hutz didn't have to resort to that. Troy McClure, maybe, but that's for another article... Now I know what you are thinking...if this happened before she got her license to practice law, how the hell did her license get suspended? Good question, damn glad you asked. It was her lack of disclosure that she had been working as an escort that got her in hot water. The ARDC accuses Bajaj of criminal conduct and making false statements in both a disciplinary matter and on her bar application by not mentioning to what extent she had been working for legal pads, toner, and postage. Neither Bajaj nor her attorney returned messages from the Chicago Tribune last week regarding the case. All I am left wondering is...how was this bill settled out? You know, I could be a more sensitive kind of blogger and say that nobody looks forward to a divorce. Then again, you know I would be completely full of it if I tried to sell you on that way of thinking. The reality is, marriage is a coin flip deal. That's why half of them end in divorce. That's half. Those aren't great odds, but those odds will be even less in your favor if you don't have a solid legal partner in your corner. You need a lawyer that knows how the game is played, and is in it to win it from bell to bell. When it comes to finding that partner, whether for family law or for a divorce lawyer, Cambridge residents start with Amy Huff Harris. The Law Office of Amy Huff Harris knows there is nothing easy about the divorce process, and that there is nothing cut and dried when it comes to matters like child custody, marital assets and property division. They go to the mat for their clients, tailoring their services to fit the needs of the client while always offering competitive prices. Call the office today for your free initial consultation. Wow. This could wind up being a fantastic example of being hoist on your own petard. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo launches a corruption commission, and what does the commission do? They find potential corruption, and it's linked to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. I think this would be where Homer yells doh! At issue are two donations totaling $100k made to Cuomo's campaign on January 28 by corporations tied to Extell Development. January 28 also happened to be the day a housing bill was passed, giving Extell Development $35 million in tax breaks on a luxury apartment building. Two days later, the bill was signed by Gov. Cuomo, and then less than three weeks after that, Extell Development Chief Executive Gary Barnett kicked in a $100k donation of his own to the Cuomo campaign. Ain't coincidence something? This was also the first time that Barnett, or the two companies, Elco Master LLC and 134 W 58 LLC (both of whom report the same Louisville, Kentucky address as Extell Development) had donated to Cuomo going back to 1999, the oldest records the New York Daily News could access. The commission's response to this has been to issue subpoenas to Extell Dvelopment and four other companies who made out good with tax breaks, none of which is starting to look particularly good for Gov. Cuomo. With an already crowded field of scandal in New York politics as of late, one has to wonder why Cuomo would try such a grand gesture, a corruption commission, when he should have maybe figured his potentially crooked-ass dealings might just make it to the light of day. The only other thing you could reasonably draw from this is maybe Cuomo thought the commission wouldn't bite the hand that created them, or that he could tell them what business to investigate and which to leave alone. At any rate, maybe the Governor should start looking up the word ironic. Maybe he'll score the hipster vote and save his career. You've always heard that driving is a privilege and not a right, and you heard that 100% correctly. But what happens when you find yourself parked, with the oh-so familiar red and blue lights flashing behind you? Most traffic citations are minor infractions, equal parts annoyance and cash from your wallet, but there are more serious traffic charges drivers can face, from driving on a suspended license to driving under the influence. Knowing your rights in these situations is crucial if you are to have a fair shot in the legal process. For example, Tennessee law does not require you to agree to perform field sobriety tests when requested by an officer, and there is no legal penalty for refusing a field sobriety test. However, the investigating officer has no duty to advise you of this right when you are faced with a DUI stop. Not only are the tests humiliating, they are rigged worse than a state fair carnival game. Breathalyzers? Sure, they'll nail you with that, but those machines are not infallible, and several municipalities have even started reviewing prior cases due to faulty equipment having been used in the field. Nothing is certain, however, except for one thing- if you get a traffic ticket in Tennessee, you shouldn't have to face the system alone. That's where Andrew C. Beasley comes in. As a former prosecutor, Andrew knows the system and is one of the most effective Nashville DUI lawyers out there, which is what you need when even first-time offenders can find themselves hit hard by a DUI charge. It happens sometimes, I suppose. After my commentary on the past-ludicrous "small government" theory behind Detroit's attempted bankruptcy-in-motion on last week's Probably Uncalled For, I found myself sitting down to work on this piece about the Detroit fiasco while watching the Dolphins and Cowboys play the NFL Hall of Fame game. Before I got down to the task at hand, I saw a photo on Facebook I felt like sharing on my fan page. Nothing too controversial, just a picture of a fish, with the captioning: Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for life. Give him someone else's fish, and he'll vote for you. Pretty prescient statement, even if you are not a cynic. So there was a remark, calling me out for being juvenile and short-sighted, as well as creating further division in our country with "posts like mine." Okay, I cannot argue that I can be juvenile on occasions, perhaps short-sighted here and there if the wind's blowing properly, but all I am accomplishing is further division in our country? I hope for at least as much. This was not your standard internet free for all. I replied reasonably and respectfully, the commenter agreed with my point of view, and the discussion was closed. While I am sure you wanted to be regaled with ten more minutes of flame war play-by-play, it's just not my style. The long and short of my reply was that I was not slamming President Obama, I was actually drawing a comparison to Detroit's bankruptcy, and how situations like this come about. Nearly four dozen unions handling city employees, obviously outdated jobs kept staffed through cronyism, and one of those ruinous typical pension systems, and what was Detroit have to show for it? The fact they are so broke, if it cost a nickel to shit, they'd have to throw up. Oh yeah, and the Howdy Doody puppet. They got that going for them also. Half the city's abandoned, and looks worse than even Robocop made it out to be in the future. Hell, the police basically threw a party themed "Stay the Fuck out of Detroit if You Know What's Good for You." In a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 51% of Democrats support a bailout for the city, with only 28% of independents and 18% of Republicans willing to back that idea. No wonder the right seems like it going off in a dozen different directions, with 18% thinking parking a couple pallets of cash at the steps of City Hall. Interesting to me that a solid majority of African-Americans (57%) and Hispanics (48%) are in favor of a bailout as well. Not that this speaks to any thing racially specific, nor would I stoop to that level to try and make a point, I think this speaks to the long-term efforts by the left to secure the minority voting blocks at almost any cost. Coming back around to the picture that started it all. Detroit has been run by the Democrats for over forty years. You know why Detroit has been run by the Democrats for over forty years? Because they gave out fish. They gave out fish for forty years, and now they are looking stupid because all they are left with is a shitty looking lake that isn't feeding anyone. And now they want somebody to drop some more fish off. From a department I like to call Damn it so much...apparently the on-again, off-again live-action adaptation of Akira is back on again, at current. There had been rumors of concerns about the project's estimated $90 million budget, but now the project is going ahead with director Jaume Collet-Serra. Serra, who has two projects with Liam Neeson on the horizon (the airplane-based action thriller Non-Stop, with a tentative February 2014 release) and Run All Night, now in pre-production), is working on not only trimming down the budget but trying to work the project back into his schedule, which would push the start of shooting to Spring 2014 at earliest. While I am among the legions who think this is a monumentally bad idea, at least enough time has passed for Keanu Reeves to fall away from the project. Garrett Hedlund (Tron Legacy) has been on board since late 2011 in the lead role, but his involvement is ultimately going to come down to scheduling as well. Such is life in development hell. I would say get back to me when the film is again on the back burner (where it belongs), because I'm not exactly sure I have enough left in me to make fun of the inevitable big money bomb this is going to wind up being. Don't get me wrong, I'll still have enough left to turn my nose up at it when I see it in a bargain bin or impulse rack somewhere, but yeah, either make the damn thing or let it die already. Do they still make fainting couches? If so, I think I need to make an investment in the upcoming weeks. By now, unless you are still in the throes of Prince George of Cambridge fever, you have no doubt heard about the Discovery Channel's new survival-style reality show Naked and Afraid. Pretty simple premise- take a man and a woman, strip them butt naked and give them each one survival tool, then they must spent a week toughing it out in harsh conditions before making their way to an extraction point. Call it bivouac for nudists, I guess. I'll admit to watching the premiere, if only to try and knock 35 minutes of Nik Wallenda rapid fire praising the Lord that his Grand Canyon publicity stunt went off without a hitch. Almost worse than having Blurred Lines stuck in your head. Almost. Nothing worth getting up in arms over, but I forgot- for every non-issue, there are people perfectly willing to weep and gnash teeth and proclaim it the worst evil to befall our land since alcohol and gambling. One Million Moms is apparently no exception, although they have taken their indignation to new and exciting levels. Wait, shouldn't have said excited. Excitement for these women should be best saved for extreme couponing and pretending half the stuff in their bedside table is for "therapeutic" massage. In a breathless missive on their website, the group decries Discovery Channel's new show for the audacity to "air n*dity and then call it entertainment." I wouldn't say I completely agree with that, but I have seen a couple episodes, and they could do with some better looking people getting naked and imperiled. I know what you are thinking, and yes, you read that right. They even censor the word nudity, for fuck's sake. Their hysterical statement also censors the words n*ked and p*rn. Again, I say...for fuck's sake. If I were in charge of the Discovery Channel, I would be perfectly willing to meet them halfway. I would take the show off the air, but only if I could replace it with One Million Moms Doing N*ked Hot Yoga. I mean, they wouldn't totally be n*ked, there would be strategically placed big f*cking ast*risk, the international symbol for oh my damn, you have got to be f*cking kidding me. If you want to see what the big fucking deal is all about, the damn show (Naked and Afraid, not the hot yoga thing. It doesn't exist unless One Million Moms has a YouTube channel I'm hopeful to remain unfamiliar with. ) airs Sunday nights 10 east/9 central. In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't been to New York City since 1976, when the plane toting my infant self from Germany landed at JFK. However, I have seen every single episode of Law & Order, and believe me when I say that getting arrested is a big enough hassle. Now imagine that arrest taking place in New York City, and ask yourself how simple the court system is going to be in the largest city in the country. You do not want to go in unprepared, or worse yet, with a public defender. If the need should arise for a criminal defense lawyer, Manhattan and the rest of the boroughs, day or night and even on weekends, The Law Offices of Jason Steinburger is the number you need to keep in your smartphone. With experience as a criminal prosecutor, assistant district attorney, and adjunct law professor, Jason Steinburger knows the system, and knows what to expect from the other side of the aisle. What sets Jason ahead of the pack is his 24 hour availability, and his personalized attention to your case. When you are in need of representation, you shouldn't feel stupid at the conclusion of every minute, which is why every aspect and detail of your case will be explained at the level you need to fully understand what is going into your defense. Going through the legal system is stressful enough, do not make matters worse by putting yourself in the worst case scenario. Contact The Law Offices of Jason Steinburger now, no matter what the time, to speak with Jason personally. |
DasUberBlog!
Winner, The Blogitzer
(Best Overall Writing), 2011 Blogger's Choice Awards Archives
July 2014
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