[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Every adult with a reasonably healthy mind has had a dispute with another person. Chances are good that a person is involved in a dispute while the person is reading this article. Trial lawyers dispute things professionally, but most people want to end disputes or […]

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Unless you are a lawyer or judge, you probably do not think much about alternative dispute resolution (commonly abbreviated as “ADR”). Most people have experienced or heard about ADR, but many people misunderstand, misuse, or entirely miss creative dispute resolution opportunities that ADR systems provide. […]

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] We wonder sometimes whether we will run out of topics for our blog and newspaper columns, but we always find more legal subjects that people misunderstand. People misunderstand contracts more frequently than they misunderstand many other subjects, so we are shining a light on them […]

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Litigation is like war. Just as warfare is expensive and dependent on unpredictable factors like weather and human behavior, lawsuits often burn fortunes with unreliable outcomes. In most war and litigation, each side is partly right and partly wrong, depending on someone’s perspective. More lawsuits […]

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Do all families fight about money when their members die? We have all heard stories of feuding families, but in more than two decades of estate and trust practice, the attorneys at Hawkins Law PC have only seen a few families fight openly. Most families […]

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] When someone disagrees with you, the disagreement threatens to deprive you of something you that want or load a burden upon you that you do not want. Disagreements end in various ways, including physical violence, smoldering grudges, court orders, arbitration decisions, and negotiated settlements, but […]

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] We Americans are very agreeable people. We make agreements with hospitals and doctors to deliver our children and with funeral directors to bury our parents. Some simple agreements only require common knowledge. In other cases, however, seemingly simple agreements may have important, permanent consequences. It […]

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Most people have experienced conflict or heard of families that have split after the death of an older family member. Conflicts are a natural part of life, but not all conflicts have to happen. This article describes some things that people can do to maintain […]