1. Build Trust – One of the most important guidelines for a successfully executed lawyer to client relationship in family law is to build trust. Having a trusting professional relationship is vital to a successful partnership. Using email as a primary form of communication is not near as effective as having one on one, face to face meetings. Mixing in telephone calls also works much better than email.
2. Respond to Phone Calls, Same Day – Always respond to phone calls the same day if at all possible. If for some reason a lawyer is not able to return a call, have the Legal Associate return the call and ask if they can help, depending on the situation. Never ignore your client.
3. Promptly Respond to Emails – Use the same logic with email that you do with phone calls. Ask your client to carbon copy the designated Legal Associate on an email to you. That way the legal assistant can help you if needed.
4. Itemized Monthly Bills – Always send the client itemized bills each month. If it is a heavily litigated case you may choose to send bills more often. This will help you minimize the chances of non-payment. It also helps establish a regular review of the charges and hopefully make the client understand the lawyer’s time is important and expensive.

It is of utmost importance to build a strong relationship with your client. Always use face to face communications and telephone communication whenever possible. Don’t fall into the trap of using email all of the time. Email is impersonal and not a good way to build a strong relationship with a paying client.

Sacramento Divorce Lawyers

The family law attorneys of Bowman & Associates help clients California from our offices in Sacramento & Folsom. If you or someone you know has legal questions, contact our experienced divorce lawyers for a free consultation. We are here to help.

Every employer is responsible for ensuring the workplace is free of unlawful harassment in Citrus Heights. Harassment in the workplace, at company-sponsored events, and on company time can lead to financial liability for employers and individual employees. While most companies have anti-harassment policies in their employee handbooks, this is not enough to protect a company from a costly sexual harassment lawsuit.

Both federal law and the California Fair Employment in Housing Act prohibit sexual harassment. In California if a manager engages in sex harassment against an employee under their direct supervision, the company may be held strictly liable. Furthermore, employers cannot retaliate against you because you complain about sexual harassment.

Overtime Wages

California overtime laws protect hourly California workers from abuses by employers with a variety of rules and regulations. Outlined below are important California overtime regulations. Also included are two exceptions to California overtime pay rules. If you feel you may have an overtime claim or other labor law violation, a California labor law attorney will provide a free case review.

California Minimum Wage: The current California minimum wage for 2012 is $8.00 per hour. This minimum wage rate remains the same as the 2011 California minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. California employers must comply with the higher state of California minimum wage rate when compensating non exempt employees.

Wage and hour rules are governed by the California Labor Code and the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers often violate three categories of the wage and hour requirements: unpaid wages, unpaid overtime wages, and failure to meet minimum wage requirements. Some of the common causes of wage and hour violations include:

• Employees misclassified as “exempt” from receiving overtime pay.
• Employees not provided an uninterrupted meal break within the first five hours of work.
• Employer failed to provide ten minute breaks for every four hours of work.
• Employer failed to provide paid time for tasks required to prepare for work.
• Employer failed to provide a second meal break for shifts longer than ten hours.
• Employer failed to ensure that employees being paid per-project were meeting minimum wage requirements.
• Employer failed to provide proper pay stubs with all required information (generally including gross wages earned, total hours worked, number of piece-rate units earned and applicable piece-rate, all deductions, separately itemized, net wages, dates included in payroll period, employee’s name and social security number, employer’s name and address, and all applicable hourly rates during the payroll period).

Discrimination

It is illegal for an employer to discriminate against an employee in Citrus Heights on the basis of his or her race, gender, national origin, age or sexual preference. Any employer who does so is guilty of employment discrimination and would be the possible subject of an employment discrimination claim.

It should be noted, that as opposed to harassment, which deals with actions taken against the employee personally, employment discrimination claims stem from actual employment practices like hiring, promotion, demotion and termination. It should also be noted that for a successful employment discrimination claim, you need to not only prove that the employment decisions were made, but were made based on the race, gender, national origin or sexual preference of the employee as opposed to a legitimate business reason.

Wrongful Termination

If you have been discharged from your job, you need to speak with an experienced Citrus Heights employment law attorney to learn your rights. California is an “at-will” employment state; you can be released at any time for any reason, as long as it does not violate the law or the terms of a valid employment agreement. Our experienced employment lawyers can help you quickly determine if you have been the victim of wrongful termination, regardless of where you are located.

Employment Law Attorney in Citrus Heights

The labor lawyers of Bowman & Associates help clients in Citrus Heights and across California with employment law issues. If you or someone you know has legal questions, contact our experienced attorneys for a free case evaluation. We are here to help.

The operation dubbed “Cross-Check” included more than 2,834 individuals who had prior criminal convictions. ICE officials noted that 50 gang members and 149 convicted sex offenders were nabbed.

Of the arrests nationwide, 2,834 individuals had prior criminal convictions and at least 1,063 had multiple criminal convictions, including murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, terroristic threats, drug trafficking, child abuse, battery on a child, sexual crimes against minors, and aggravated assault.

Of those arrested, 698 were also immigration fugitives who had previously been ordered to leave the country but failed to depart. Additionally, 559 were those who had reentered the country after having been deported. All of the defendants are in ICE custody pending removal proceedings. Among those arrested, 204 individuals have had their cases presented to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution on a variety of charges including illegal-re-entry.

Last year DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced a policy shift to focus more on removing criminal illegal immigrants, and repeat immigration law violators instead of conducting enforcement operations again non-violent immigration violators.

Sacramento Immigration Attorneys

The immigration lawyers of Bowman & Associates help clients across California from our offices in Sacramento and Folsom. If you or someone you know has legal questions, contact our office for a case evaluation. We work to get immigrants out of jail and back into their lives and jobs.

There are many ways that your employer may have taken advantage of you while violating federal and California state laws:

• Asking you to clock out before finishing your shift
• Asking you to work through breaks and meal times
• Not compensating you for telecommuting or for work you take home with you
• Failing to account for the hours you worked at two locations for the company
• Classifying you as an “exempt” or salaried employee when you should be classified as “non-exempt” or hourly, meaning that your employer does not compensate you for overtime
• Classifying you as an “independent contractor,” to avoid paying you benefits
• Calculating overtime by hours worked during a one-week period, but ignoring single shifts in excess of 8 hours
• Asking you to turn over a portion of your tips
• Failing to pay you entitled bonuses or commission

Non-Exempt (Hourly) Employee

It is crucial that you understand that in California, hourly workers are legally entitled to receive minimum wage, as well as overtime pay for additional hours worked, and meal/rest breaks.

As a non-exempt (hourly) employee, you are protected by California and federal employment laws, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, from illegal and demanding employer requests to work overtime without overtime pay or to skip meal and/or rest breaks.

Anyone who is not exempt from California’s wage and hour law is entitled to overtime pay. This can include on-the-clock employees forced to work off-the-clock without compensation, individuals with high salaries, managers who are misclassified as exempt employees and others. Not sure if you are nonexempt or exempt? We can help you determine your employment status and decide whether you should bring a claim.

Exempt Employee

Your employer may have you on salary and tell you that because you are on salary you do not qualify for overtime pay. Your employer may be wrong. Or your employer may pay you a salary and classify you as a so called “Exempt Employee” and tell you that you are not entitled to overtime pay because of that. Again, your employer may be wrong. Exempt by definition is determined on a case by case basis. Exempt and Non-Exempt employees fall under different overtime laws in California. Whether you are an Exempt Employee is determined by very technical overtime pay laws. The Exempt Employee overtime pay laws in California are very, very complex.

Sacramento Unpaid Overtime Lawyers

The experienced employment law attorneys of Bowman & Associates help clients across California from our offices in Sacramento and Folsom. If you or someone you know has legal questions regarding unpaid overtime wages, contact our office for a free case evaluation. We are here to help…

California child support is based on state formulas, with income representing a major factor. The level of child support is determined by guidelines in the statutes. The level is based on the parents’ incomes and the amount of time the child spends with each parent, adjusted for certain costs and other factors.

The guidelines calculate the amount of child support based in large part on the gross monthly income of the parties and the time-sharing plan. This means that if parenting time is split equally and the parties earnings are comparable, child support may not necessarily be awarded. It is in your best interest to speak with an experienced Folsom child support attorney who can accurately evaluate your situation and give you honest answers.

Finalized child support court orders can take a long time to obtain. Different stages of the process require different types of preparation. All stages need to be navigated very carefully. For example, temporary support orders may lapse before a permanent support order is in place. Every step of the child support settlement process requires delicate, skilled advocacy, which our experience has prepared us to offer you with confidence in Folsom.

Move-Aways and Custodial Child Relocation

Under California law, the amount of child support you pay or receive may have no bearing on custodial child relocation. Move-aways are becoming an increasingly larger part of divorce settlements and judgment modifications, as parents become more mobile. When relocation is being considered, the custodial parent is required to notify the non-custodial parent of the intent to move the child out of the child’s school district. The non-custodial parent has a limited time to file a petition to protest the relocation. Courts deciding whether to allow the relocation take into account a variety of factors, with a special emphasis on what is truly best for the child, including economic opportunities and emotional well-being of the custodial parent. Even non-custodial parents who have no joint legal or physical custody may file a valid petition to prevent a move-away, if it can be shown that the child will suffer because of the move.

Folsom Child Support Attorneys

The child support lawyers of Bowman & Associates help clients across California from their offices in Folsom and Sacramento. If you or someone you know has legal questions regarding child support, contact our experienced family law team to discuss your options. We offer free consultations and night and weekend appointments.

Our Sacramento speeding ticket attorneys can assist you in dismissing or reducing your traffic tickets to non-moving violations in many cases. Our Northern California traffic ticket lawyers are also able to get you a court date immediately when your license is suspended. This will halt the suspension and quickly put you back on the road. Having excessive points or being a negligent driver could cause your license to be suspended in California.

Speed limit laws can be written for three types of speed limits. Speed limits can be absolute, presumed, or basic. Violating an absolute speed limit is straight forward. If the posted limit is 55 MPH and someone is traveling at 56 MPH a violation has occurred. Presumed speed limits consider the weather and road conditions and a citation may result if an officer believes a driver was not proceeding at a safe speed for the present conditions. A basic speed limit means that an operator of a moving vehicle must travel at a safe speed even if it is below the posted limit. This covers drivers who may be traveling at speeds slower than the traffic and creating an unsafe condition.

Regular speeding tickets can cause you to have a point on your Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) driving record. Your insurance rates can be raised as much as 50% with regular speeding tickets. Speeding tickets for over 100mph can cause you to have 2 points on your DMV record. Your license could be suspended from at least a month to several months after a conviction. There are also heavy fines associated with these traffic tickets. Our Sacramento speeding ticket lawyers could assist you dismiss or reduce over 100mph traffic tickets.

The experienced Sacramento speeding ticket attorneys of Bowman & Associates will help by questioning the testimony of the police officer, looking into the accuracy of the traffic control devices used to track your speed, and considering other factors that can help to negotiate a better result on your behalf. Our lawyers have a proven track record of getting cases just like yours dismissed and fight hard to defend your rights in court.

Use of a radar gun or laser by a police officer may be illegal in California unless a valid engineering and traffic survey is on file to justify the posted speed limit. Generally, these traffic surveys are inadequate and the speeding tickets may be dismissed outright if you take the time to fight them (does not apply to maximum speed case).

Sacramento Traffic Ticket Lawyers

The Sacramento traffic ticket attorneys at Bowman & Associates recognize how important a clean driving record is. A clean traffic record is especially critical for commercial truck drivers whose livelihood depends on the driver’s license and driving record. Therefore, we work to challenge and mitigate the impact of traffic offenses.

Client Login

In the past, if a client wanted to review and save documents from their case, it took crucial man hours to track down those documents from our secure storage facility, make physical copies of them and prepare for our clients; not to mention substantial costs keep those documents safe. These are costs built into the business model of each law firm and handed down through fees and percentages.

Now the lawyers of Bowman & Associates login to a secure, password protected and easy to use database that allows them to upload client documents and share between our two office locations. Additionally, we can allow access to our clients so they can view, review and print their case documents at their leisure! Check out our new Client Login page.

Make a Payment

Sometimes it isn’t always easy to make it down to our office with a check, or the mail delivery may be too slow. Sometimes our clients need immediate service and having to wait for checks to clear for court filings or other necessities could take days.

As a secure and convenient option to payment, we are now accepting PayPal to begin work on a case or credit your account. The Law Offices of Bowman & Associates is a verified vendor of PayPal and accepting payments from clients across California. Check out our new Make a Payment page.

Making it Easier for You

Two of the core principals of our law firm’s philosophy are to 1) keep you apprised of the progress of your case every step of the way; and 2) provide superior value for your legal investment. By embracing cloud data in a responsible, secure and protected manner, we are able to use technology to reach the goals of our clients in a more timely, convenient and affordable way!

If you have questions regarding the new features Bowman & Associates, feel free to contact our Public Relations Manager Chad Bowman: (916) 985-2600 or by email at Chad@BowmanAndAssoc.com.

The University of Michigan Health System reports that “in 1999, 3,385 children and youth ages 0-19 years were killed with a gun [in the United States]. This includes homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries.”

If someone in your family has been injured by the careless acts of another, including accidents in the house, please do not hesitate to call me, Retired Superior Court Commissioner David P. Foos to help you get justice for your losses. I have 30 years experience helping people before the Courts. All consultations are free and if we take your case you pay us nothing unless we win the case for you. Also, we front all costs. Contact me at (916) 923-2800, or dfoos@bowmanandassoc.com, or our skilled Sacramento personal injury attorneys for a free case evaluation.

Childcare expenses are divided between the parents on a more or less equal basis, and are considered additional child support. Both parents are required to provide medical insurance for minor children if the coverage is available at nominal cost or no cost at all, through their work or union affiliation. Medical expenses not covered by insurance, such as co-pays, are generally divided equally between the parents.

An issue that can lead to complications is the difficulty in determining a parent’s income available for the purposes of paying child support. High earners, self-employed individuals, business owners and partners may see their income portrayed improperly. One parent could end up with an unreasonable support obligation when an incomplete picture is presented by individual tax returns and disclosure documents, or the other parent could end up with inadequate child support for the same reasons.

While ideally the support of the children should come from the two parents, in some cases, the parent with primary custody may need to receive AFDC payments in order to support themselves or the children. In the case of a child whose custodial parent is receiving public assistance, the Department of Child Support Services in El Dorado County may become involved with the collection of child support from the non-custodial parent. In these cases, any unpaid support is assessed interest at an annual rate of 10%. For this reason, it is especially important that a non-custodial spouse not be ordered to pay unrealistic support payments.

Whether you will pay or receive child support, approaching your divorce with dependable information and reasonable expectations on this issue is very important. Based on information about you and your divorcing spouse’s incomes and the time each parent will spend caring for children, El Dorado Hills Child Support attorney Ken Torkelson and our dedicated, professional staff will provide an accurate estimate of the child support order in your case. Contact our office for a free consultation.

However serious your injury may be, you can feel confident in our firm. Our Rancho Cordova attorneys handle serious injury and wrongful death claims with great care, attention and knowledge. We know how to investigate car accidents and how to prove these claims. We know what types of experts to hire and when they are needed. We know how to demonstrate to insurance companies and to juries the true cost of your car accident — so we can help you seek full compensation for everything you have lost.

The most serious injuries are those to the head, brain and spinal cord. Many are fatal, and others have severe effects on the person and the body. The bones of the spine support and protect the spinal cord, but in an accident, the spinal cord is vulnerable. Paralysis may affect all parts of the body below the point of injury.

California Motor Vehicle Accident Lawyers

Auto accident cases can be complicated. Our firm has extensive experience pursuing compensation for clients’ injuries. We understand the importance of receiving proper and immediate medical care. Medical documentation forms a significant part of your case. Reports, photos and other evidence can help illustrate the serious nature of your injuries.

Our investigation is thorough. We can talk with witnesses and police officers to get more information about your accident. When necessary, we can use accident reconstruction experts to help determine and prove liability. Our goal as your lawyer goes beyond getting you money for car repairs. We are committed to helping you receive maximum recovery for your injuries, lost wages and diminished earning potential.

Dealing with the Insurance Company

You and your insurance company — or the insurance company of another driver involved in a collision with your vehicle — are not on the same page. You do not have the same priorities and goals. Our Northern California car accident lawyers on your side, however, are invested with you in pursuit of fair compensation for your losses.

Whose insurance will cover the compensation you need? Is an excess umbrella policy available? Was the driver of the vehicle that hit you in the scope of employment at the time? Are there other assets available above and beyond insurance? Our experienced attorneys will conduct a thorough investigation in order to find the answers to these important questions that could determine the direction your case takes.