Section
Law
- 890 words
Prepaid legal plans, and the arithmetic that decides if one is worth it
A few hundred dollars a year buys unlimited consultations and a handful of documents. Whether that is a bargain depends almost entirely on whether you would otherwise have called anyone.
- 1,056 words
A stove that failed twice, and the settlement that ended it in eleven weeks
Two failures inside a year, three service visits, and a manufacturer offering a fourth repair. What moved it was a repair log, a specific demand and a date.
- 811 words
Summer work, winter argument. What to write down while the crew is still there
Contracting disputes are made in July and fought in January, by which time the wall is closed, the crew has moved on, and everyone remembers a different conversation.
- 792 words
Writing the complaint letter that gets answered, paragraph by paragraph
A complaint that succeeds is usually one page long and can be approved by whoever opens it. Most of what makes that possible happens in the first two sentences.
- 1,302 words
Retainer, contingency, or flat fee. What the engagement letter commits you to
The engagement letter is the contract for the whole matter, it is usually signed in a hurry at the end of a first meeting, and it answers most of the questions people later argue about.
- 860 words
Five complaints that got resolved, and what they had in common
The complaints that succeed are rarely the ones with the strongest grievance. They are the ones that arrive in the right place, in the right order, with the right thing attached.
- 996 words
Chargeback, small claims, or a regulator. Which route fits which dispute
Three routes exist for a consumer dispute and they work in completely different ways. Picking the wrong one costs months, and some of them close on a deadline.
- 798 words
What a lawyer wishes you had brought to the first meeting
An hour of legal advice is not expensive. An hour of legal advice spent establishing facts you already had in a drawer is.