Maryland General Practice Legal Questions

Well assuming that the Notice or summons to appear for a court hearing is a validly issued service of process upon you, then if you fail to appear, arguably a warrant could be issued for your arrest. I would contact an attorney in the state that you reside to review The documents that have been served on you to determine the validity ,or lack thereof,  of proper service upon you.... Read More

You should get a second opinion. If the death of mom was caused partially or wholly by the car accident, then the car accident claim for personal injury would be replaced by a claim for wrongful death. If the passing of your mother had nothing to do with the car accident, then you still could pursue the claim but the estate of your mom would have to be the plaintiff, and the estate would be able to sue for her pain and suffering and medical bills between the time of the accident and the time of her death. Again you should get a second opinion, and protect yourself from the statute of limitation is running if a lawsuit has not already been filed. ... Read More

Yes you can sponsor your brother and sister, but it's going to take probably 10 years or more before they can qualify to apply for a green card. Siblings fall into the F4 category, and in order to determine the time that they will have to wait, you can google the "department of state visa bulletin board" and it will tell you under that category what priority date that US CIS is currently working on.... Read More

Your mother (assuming she had no living spouse) had the right to give or leave her property to whomever she wished if she was competent.  Thus, to overturn the gift she made to your brother, you would have to file a lawsuit claiming either than she was not competent at the time of the gift, or that she was under the undue influence of your brother at the tiime.  If you can prove either of these things, you may be able to overturn the gift, but that doesn't mean that you would necesssarily get 50%, it would depend on the provisions of her will, or of the last will she made while still competent.  If, for example, that will provided that all the money would go to charity, that's what would happen.  If there was no will, than the assets that were gifted to your brother would be divided according tot the laws of intestacy.  I don't know aht they are in Maryland, but you are probably correct that, if there was no surviving spouse, and no surviving parents or siblings (parents or siblings might make a difference, but probably not) the assets would be split evenly between the surviving children.... Read More

There are many ways to handle compensation, but in general attorneys are not paid by the caae.  Most often an attorney working for a firm is paid a salary regardless of what case he/she works on or in what capacity, and will often receive additional remuneration, usually a percentage of the payment the firm receives, for "bringing in" a case.  In the situation above, the two attorneys would most likely each receive their salary, regardless of which is first chair and which second.  The first chair is probably more senior and/or highly regarded, and thus more highly paid, or he/she wouldn't be first chair.  In addition to the salary, the second attorney, who brought the case in, would probably receive a percentage of what the firm is paid. ... Read More