by Andy Chen | Apr 26, 2021 | California, Statutes... and stuff
If you didn’t know, I have a Youtube channel in addition to this blog that I, more or less, regularly post to. A while ago, I put out a video on the Youtube channel about contingency fee agreements used by attorneys in California. Here it is: Actually, to be technically correct, I put out two videos. The one I embedded above talks about contingency fee agreements in California cases generally (i.e. all cases except family law). The other video (linked here) talks about contingency fee agreements in family law cases because the question of ‘Can I use a contingency fee agreement in a family law case?’ often comes up. For background, a “fee agreement” is the contract you sign when you hire an attorney. These agreements are, of course, not specific to California. If you’re going to hire a lawyer in another US state, chances are that lawyer will want a fee agreement of some sort signed also. California, though, has numerous rules that fee agreements have to satisfy. I went over some of those rules in my videos (e.g. required contents of a fee agreement). In this post, though, I’m going to go over the rules relating to presentation. What “presentation” refers to is that a client needs to be given a copy of the fee agreement after it has been signed. Personally, I would have thought it blatantly obvious that a client needs to get a copy of their signed fee agreement, but it apparently isn’t that obvious because it’s addressed not only once, but twice in California’s statutes. The first is in section 6147(a) of the...
by Andy Chen | Apr 20, 2021 | California, Statutes... and stuff
When it comes to the law and court cases, it is extremely common to have to serve documents by mail. You can serve documents in person as well, of course, but that can be inconvenient or impractical given the need to coordinate schedules, locations, etc. It’s obviously much more convenient to be able to serve legal documents by simply dropping it in the US Mail. If you subscribe to my Youtube channel, you’ll know that I have a video on how to fill in California Judicial Council form FL-335 (available here), or Proof of Service by Mail for California Family Law cases. Here’s the video: There is an equivalent proof of service by mail form in California civil court (i.e. the form POS-030, which is available here). I don’t have a video on the POS-030, but the concept is virtually identical to the FL-335. The keen-eyed among you, though, will have realized a flaw in the concept of a proof of service by mail: “Just because I drop it in the mail, doesn’t mean it gets there. What happens if it gets lost in the mail?” There are two answers to this excellent question. First, the US Mail does occasionally lose items. Moving mail in the scale that the US Postal Service does involves a ton of human labor and machines so mistakes and accidents do happen. In my experience, though, lost mail happens far less often than people claim. In the vast majority — I would say 95% of the time — of instances, legal documents that are served by mail do arrive as they are supposed to....
by Andy Chen | Apr 16, 2021 | California, Vehicle Code
In this post, I’m going to discuss California law regarding automotive window tint. Many vehicles are sold new with window tint from the manufacturer. If your particular vehicle did not come with window tint originally, you can also, obviously, get tint installed aftermarket or do the tinting yourself. If you’re in this second category of car owners — in other words, your vehicle was not sold brand new with tinted windows and you’re getting it installed — you need to make sure your tint complies with California law. If it doesn’t, then you could get pulled over by law enforcement officers just because you have illegal tint. If you’re interested in it, the reason why you can be pulled over just for illegal tint has to do with Probable Cause and the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. As I’ll explain below, window tinting on automobiles in California is covered by the California Vehicle Code. There are a variety of court cases in California that hold that any act which appears to violate the California Vehicle Code — including burned out tail lights, expired registration, speeding, stop sign violations, etc. — is sufficient to constitute probable cause that would justify a detention by law enforcement officers. Anyway, aside over, the most common scenario — at least in my experience — is that the tint is darker than California law allows so that’s what I’ll go over below. The California law in question here is going to section 26708 of the California Vehicle Code. Section 26708 goes over several things, including where on the windshield you can legally affix items...
by Andy Chen | Mar 29, 2021 | California, Family Law, New York
I live and practice law in California. When it comes to divorces, California is one of nine US states that follow the Community Property system when it comes to dividing property. In theory, community property is a simple idea — namely, the general rules are that (1) whatever the individual spouses acquire on their own prior to the marriage is their own property and is not split up during a divorce, and (2) whatever the individual spouses acquire during the marriage is generally “community property” and, thus, needs to be divided 50/50 in the event of a divorce. To be clear, though, (1) and (2) are just the general rules under the California community property system. There are exceptions under which, for example, an item acquired during the marriage is still the separate property of the spouse acquiring it due to the manner in which the item was acquired. In practice, though, applying the community property system can be quite involved. Over on my Youtube channel, I put out a video a few months back going over some common problems that occur when you try to apply the idea of community property in the real world. Here is the video. If you haven’t seen my Youtube channel, I encourage you to take a look at it as I go over community property as well as various other ideas related to California law also. What I am going to do in this post, though, is try to compare Community Property to the other system — Equitable Distribution — that is in place in the other 41 US states. By the...
by Andy Chen | Aug 12, 2020 | California, Criminal law
Today’s post will be short. I’m going to go over the right to have a lawyer appointed for you in a criminal case and how that is handled in California state court. Most of you — at least I hope it is most of you — have heard of the 6th amendment to the US Constitution which says the following: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” (emphasis added) The part I’ve bolded and underlined is where a criminal defendant’s right to an attorney comes from. If you’re familiar with the Miranda Warning — or at least seen it on TV before — that also mentions a criminal defendant’s right to have an attorney. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?” (emphasis added) What this right to counsel means in the real-world, though, can be quite involved. Some...
by Andy Chen | Aug 7, 2020 | California, Criminal law, Statutes... and stuff
Over the last several months, the Los Angeles Police Department has been involved in a scandal where several of its officers have been accused of adding people to California’s CalGang database without sufficient cause. The Los Angeles Times has reported on this extensively. Some officers have been criminally charged with falsifying the evidence and documentation needed to justify adding someone to CalGang. Allegedly, these officers were fabricating this evidence in order to meet quotas instituted by LAPD’s data-driven culture about how many people they needed to add to CalGang. Failure to meet those numbers would presumably have been used as evidence individual patrol officers were not doing their jobs, not being productive, etc. The LAPD has now been sued civilly for this scandal by people who allege that they suffered injuries (e.g. job loss) as a result of being improperly included in CalGang. In this post, I’m going to go over two sections of California’s Penal Code — sections 186.34 and 186.35 — pertaining to how individuals who have been added to CalGang can challenge their inclusion. These two statutes, obviously, are not specific to the city or county of Los Angeles. If you have a problem with CalGang elsewhere in California, these statutes might be helpful for you as well so read on. What is CalGang? Let’s start from the basics. CalGang is a statewide database maintained by the California Department of Justice. Like any database, it is meant to provide a single source for accurate information about a particular subject that multiple parties can draw upon. According to the CalGang website, CalGang’s purpose is to “provide law...
