New York Recent Legal Answers from Lawyers

Sometimes, not often (and maybe never in NY; I have seen it once or twice in other jurisdictions) buyers and sellers use the same attorney.  In my opinion, both the parties and the attorneys are out of their minds to do so.  Maybe you can do that if the buyers and sellers are close family members and there are no issues, but if you need an attorney at all, you need your own,not one trying to represent conflicting interests.... Read Answer

For the month of October 2021, the F4 category for sponsored siblings of US citizens is available for immigration visas for those who filed before March 22, 2007 for all countries of the world except for India, Mexico, and Philippines natives who must wait longer. If born in all other countries, the waiting time is thus 14 years currently. Due to the limitations of the Lawyers.com Forums, Alan Lee & Arthur Lee, Esqs.’ (the "Firm") participation in responding to questions posted herein does not constitute legal advice, nor legal representation of the person or entity posting a question. No Attorney/Client relationship is or shall be construed to be created hereby. The information provided herein by the Firm is general, and requires that the poster obtain specific legal advice from an attorney. The poster shall not rely upon the information provided herein as legal advice nor as the basis for making any decisions of legal consequence.... Read Answer

In applying for a discretionary visa like J-1, there are generally no guarantees that the visa will be issued by the consulate or embassy. Although your wife is not the direct beneficiary of the I-140 petition, she may be asked whether you have filed any immigration petitions. A good factor for your wife to point to if such comes up is that you have elected consular processing instead of an adjustment of status application. On the question of an impact to the immigration visa process, your wife’s applying for the J-1 visa would not impact it as long as she does not make any misrepresentations on form or speech before the consular officer. Under recent guidance, a dependent family member does not have to state on the nonimmigrant visa form that he or she has applied for a visa petition. You have indicated the better strategy if deciding to apply for the J-1 visa to make the application first and then continue paying the IVP fees and completing the DS-260 form. Due to the limitations of the Lawyers.com Forums, Alan Lee & Arthur Lee, Esqs.’ (the "Firm") participation in responding to questions posted herein does not constitute legal advice, nor legal representation of the person or entity posting a question. No Attorney/Client relationship is or shall be construed to be created hereby. The information provided herein by the Firm is general, and requires that the poster obtain specific legal advice from an attorney. The poster shall not rely upon the information provided herein as legal advice nor as the basis for making any decisions of legal consequence.... Read Answer

Your sister can apply for you while you are here in the States, but her petition does not give you any rights to stay in the country while your case for immigration is pending. For the month of October 2021, the F-4 category for sponsored siblings of US citizens is available for immigration visas for those who filed before March 22, 2007 for all countries of the world except for India, Mexico, and Philippines natives who must wait longer. If born in all other countries, the waiting time is thus 14 years currently. Due to the limitations of the Lawyers.com Forums, Alan Lee & Arthur Lee, Esqs.’ (the "Firm") participation in responding to questions posted herein does not constitute legal advice, nor legal representation of the person or entity posting a question. No Attorney/Client relationship is or shall be construed to be created hereby. The information provided herein by the Firm is general, and requires that the poster obtain specific legal advice from an attorney. The poster shall not rely upon the information provided herein as legal advice nor as the basis for making any decisions of legal consequence.... Read Answer

Practically speaking, it would not appear to make much consequential difference as to what you do vis-à-vis your work where USCIS has already approved your I-485 adjustment of status application. If the unofficial online notice is correct, you should receive the official notice and green card shortly thereafter. The date should coincide with the unofficial online notice date. Technically speaking, however, employment authorization on the green card does not begin until you receive the green card itself. Your C9 card which I understand that you did not use is expiring next week, so you are authorized to work under that until next week. You have said that your OPT is expiring in 2022. So if you have not yet received the green card, you should technically be able to continue work on your OPT until you actually receive the physical green card. I do not believe that this is a fish or fowl situation. Interesting question. Due to the limitations of the Lawyers.com Forums, Alan Lee & Arthur Lee, Esqs.’ (the "Firm") participation in responding to questions posted herein does not constitute legal advice, nor legal representation of the person or entity posting a question. No Attorney/Client relationship is or shall be construed to be created hereby. The information provided herein by the Firm is general, and requires that the poster obtain specific legal advice from an attorney. The poster shall not rely upon the information provided herein as legal advice nor as the basis for making any decisions of legal consequence.... Read Answer

If the tenant has no lease, you are best off terminating the tenant. Depending on the length of time that the tenant has been in occupancy, you will either have to serve a 30, 60 or 90 day notice of termination. Once the notice expires you can start a holover eviction action to remove the tenant and collect the rental arrears owed to you.... Read Answer

Whenever a government regulation or policy impacts a suspect class like race or a fundamental right, like marriage,  it is subjected to the strict scrutiny test in court which means that the government has the burden of proving that the regulation is necessary to achieve a compelling state policy objective. However whenever a government regulation impacts or discriminates based on the category of age, The burden of proof to uphold the Constitutionality of that law is the rational basis test, which only requires proof that the regulation is Rationally related to achieve any legitimate state purpose. Because children have a much lower incidence to contract Covid and if they contract Covid, they have a far higher recovery rate than an adult, the regulation would pass the rational basis test because the age discrimination is rationally relate to Protect both children and adults from the virus. But because children have more of a natural immunity from the virus than adults it isn't necessary for them to have a vaccine. Accordingly, The court would most likely uphold the law even though it discriminate based on age, because it is rationally related to the legitimate purpose as discussed above.... Read Answer

An 8 point violation can have a significant impact on your insurance, and there will likely be a high fine included with it. You don't mention where you got the ticket, but if you got it outside of NYC then you may be able to have your attorney negotiate with the prosecutor to reduce your violation to a lesser violation which will include less points, fine, etc. If it was in NYC please be aware that NYC Traffic Violations Bureau does not negotiate pleas. Instead, you can have your lawyer fight the ticket for you there at your traffic court trial. As far as how this will impact your parent's insurance, you will have to speak with the insurance company to look at your policy. With that being said it seems like you were covered by the policy at the time of the violation, and either way you were driving the vehicle so I suspect that it will have some impact on the insurance premium.    I hope this information is helpful. ... Read Answer

In looking over our cases since the beginning of the year (which we do not separate by service center), only one employment authorization application based on adjustment of status has been approved. Nebraska has a posted EAD processing time of between 7.5 –9 months. Due to the limitations of the Lawyers.com Forums, Alan Lee & Arthur Lee, Esqs.’ (the "Firm") participation in responding to questions posted herein does not constitute legal advice, nor legal representation of the person or entity posting a question. No Attorney/Client relationship is or shall be construed to be created hereby. The information provided herein by the Firm is general, and requires that the poster obtain specific legal advice from an attorney. The poster shall not rely upon the information provided herein as legal advice nor as the basis for making any decisions of legal consequence.... Read Answer

First of all, it sounds like you're talking about someone that you only met online, so I will assume that for the purposes of my response. The short answer is No, you cannot be arrested for denying someone access to nude photos of yourself. Quite frankly it sounds like the person you are speaking to may be pretending to be "his friend" in order to give you a hard time. I suspect their next course of action may be to say they won't go to the police if you do in fact send them photographs. I can't stress this enough, but you have no obligation to provide someone with naked photos of yourself. Additionally, it does not sound like you harassed the person you were speaking to, or promoted a suicide (PL 120.30) which effectively means helped someone commit suicide. These would be criminal offenses.    With that being said, if you do find a legitimate police officer contacting you, your best course of action would be to contact a Criminal Defense Attorney immediately. If the police contact you, be aware that you have the right to have an attorney present during any conversation with police, and their questioning of you should cease as soon as you let them know that you want an attorney present. I hope this is helpful.    This information is for general informational purposes only, and is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship. This information should not be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. Legal jurisdictions often differ on major and minor aspects of the law, and each legal situation is unique; requiring that all legal situations be addressed with competent legal counsel. My practice is based in New York, and the law of other jurisdictions may differ.... Read Answer

I'm not sure whether you're saying you were cited for VTL 511 or VTL 509.1. Generally speaking officers can use discretion if they cited you for a VTL 509.1 infraction and may even use discretion if they cited you for VTL 511 which is a misdemeanor offense. There are a number of defenses to both of this infractions that a criminal defense attorney could assist you with. With that being said, an argument where you confirm you were driving the vehicle while unlicensed, but the officer let you drive away, is not one that is going to assist you with your defense. Whether the officer let you drive away MAY call into question his credibility or the fact that he may have been unsure if you were in fact unlicensed. However, what the prosecution needs to prove in a VTL 511 or VTL 509.1 case is that you were in fact operating a motor vehicle, and that you were doing so with a suspended/revoked license (VTL 511) or while you were not licensed to operate a motor vehicle (VTL 509.1). I hope this information is helpful.     This information is for general informational purposes only, and is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship. This information should not be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. Legal jurisdictions often differ on major and minor aspects of the law, and each legal situation is unique; requiring that all legal situations be addressed with competent legal counsel. My practice is based in New York, and the law of other jurisdictions may differ.... Read Answer

As far as whether or not he should take the plea - your best bet is going to be to speak with your Criminal Defense attorney regarding that. You should also consult with an immigration attorney as well, so that they can assess the specifics of your husband's situation to determine how the disorderly conduct would impact his immigration status. There's a number of things that can factor into this, including a potential order of protection, whether he has criminal history, what his immigration status is (LPR or undocumented) etc.    With that being said, as far as some general information - misdemeanor assault (assault in the third degree) is a class "A" misdemeanor offense and can subject your husband to up to to a year in jail, as well as three years probation. Disorderly conduct on the other hand is a violation with a maximum penalty of 15 days in jail. Obviously the disorderly conduct is significantly less serious than the misdemeanor charge both from a Criminal and Immigration standpoint. With that being said, you can ask your defense attorney whether an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal is possible - if they're offering a disorderly conduct they may consider offering an ACD which essentially would adjourn his case for six months (on a non-family case) or a year (on a family case) and at the end it would be dismissed and sealed as if it never happened. With that being said, in certain circumstances, such as if he has an immigration hearing coming up during that ACD period, he may be better off with the disorderly conduct - again it all depends on his specific circumstances so your best bet is going to be to contact an Immigration lawyer and go over the specifics with them. I hope this information was helpful though. ... Read Answer

Mr. Cifaldi, if you've already settled your case for skin cancer and signed what is known as a General Release, there is little hope of getting additional compensation for your other conditions / injuries.  A General Release would have included ALL claims, known and unknown, from the beginning of time up until the date of your release.  You should speak with your attorney and ask why you did not recover any compensation for these other conditions (or if the settlement does, in fact, include all of your claims).  Keep in mind that in the big scheme of things, skin cancer is arguably more significant than your other conditions which might explain why the settlement only made reference to it. Best regards,   Jonathan R. Ratchik, Esq. Kramer, Dunleavy & Ratchik, PLLC 61 Broadway, Suite 2220 New York, NY  10006 (212) 226-6662 www.kdrpilawyers.com... Read Answer

It is likley they can do that.  Since they are on the deed, I presume it gives all parties equal shares of the home.  If the home were worth $100,000, then you, your spouse, your daughter, and your son-in-law each have 1/4 equity interest, $25,000.  If your home is worth $200,000, then it is $50,000.00.  I suggest contacting an attorney in your state to verify.  ... Read Answer

Yes of course you can sue him.  If you think he"LLP respond to you without a lawsuit, you can speak to him and ask for money, but of course you can't force him to pay anything without suing him.  If you don't want to engage an attorney, the website for NY courts offers a guide to pro se litigants which will help you do it yourself. ... Read Answer

You will have to have a process server  serve an appropriate 90 day notice of termination on your tenant. If the tenant doesn't vacate when the notice expires,  you eill then have to start a holdover eviction action against your tenant in Housing Court. While your tenant remains in occupancy you need to make all required repairs and continue to provide essential services. ... Read Answer

You will have other questions you find as you seek to open an e-commerce web site or App.  In my experience, working with a lawyer as you begin will save you a lot of money in the future. I have written a legal guide  with issues you will need to discuss with an  Internet attorney.  I have placed a link here for your convenience: http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/legal-steps-to-opening-a-new-e-commerce-website-app-or-blog You may want to discuss your situation with a lawyer in more detail. Many lawyers offer a free phone consultation.... Read Answer