Latest / Ask the Lawyer / 06/08/2023 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton

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06/08/2023 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton · Ask the Lawyer

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You have eight twenty one on five. Then whs the voice of Charleston,
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Jeff Jenkins and Harvey Painton of the Pinton Law Firm in Natro every Thursday
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morning for a quarter of a century. Let that sink in and Harvey is
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here and looks none worse for the wear. Well, I love none worse
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for the wear. I'm just about my nine lives are just about up.
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It's uh, you know. In the last like fifteen years prod state removable
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colon cancer and then what do they call it? A dissecting, a order
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and a bounced around, bounce back from all those, I feel pretty good,
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but you look great well coast, my wife. I don't know about
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the next one. If somebody says you got to do have some kind of
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surgery, I may say, well, let's just hold off on that door.
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A run. Today. It was a beautiful morning, I absolutely gorgeous,
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coolst morning, fifties, low fifties. The smokes terrible here. Imagine
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how it is. I heard was listening as I always do to this day,
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on the way up from Podham County, and Chris Lawrence was talking about
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seeing news footage of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York through this red haze.
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It's truly a serious problem. And you know, and I firmly believe that
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the scienists are correct and that homogenetic climate change is a threat to life on
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Earth as we know it. When that cataclysmic event may occur, I don't
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know, but we're seeing certainly effects. I believe that more intense heat,
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higher winds, longer periods of drought in certain areas of the world are attributable
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to a degree to the increase of CO two in the atmosphere. And I
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say that in relation to Canada from experience. I first went to Canada to
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go fishing in nineteen seventy six, I believe in nineteen seventy seven, Bill
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Fisher, my friend who's a dentist, over in Moorfield, and I scraped
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our pennies together. Both of us had young families, but we drove.
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It's a long drive, I'll tell you to Montreal. Caught a plane to
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a town called Shibooga Mooo in Quebec, which is one of the cities.
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It's now been vacated by the Quebec provincial government because of the fires. And
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it's a verdant, green, heavily forested area. Canada has some of the
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densest forest land in the world. And then started traveling over to the Atlantic
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provinces in the mid nineties. And the closer you get to the edge of
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a climate zone, you notice change at the fringes of anything. There's a
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little incremental change on the fringe, you know, is more noticeable than a
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little incremental change is in the middle of the spectrum. And you know,
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the folks who live on the Newfoundland and then Labrador remark about, well,
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all the sea ice is thinner. We can't hunt seals anymore. The salmon
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runs are different, the insect hatches are different than they were, and it's
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on and on and on and so twenty five years later you can see a
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real difference, uh in climate. I mean they remark on it unabashedly in
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Canada, where they're in a zone that seas even marginal changes is a great
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change. We've we've got to do something. Um, but the smoke is
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really really bad. And they got twenty three hundred fires. All were Canada,
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mostly out west, in BC and Calgary and uh and in the Quebec
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province and in and uh no Scotia. Well, I think the thing I
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noticed is that earlier, earlier this week, they said that, you know,
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be gone by Wednesday. Now they've another day and you know what I'm
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saying. So it seems like it just continues to continues to stretch one.
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But those are certainly issues that are above our pay grade here and the paydon
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law firm. Despite I think the universal belief in our office at homogenic climate
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change is a threat. There's nothing we can do about it, except hope
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that the public policy is addressed where it should be, by legislators and executive
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leaders. So which once leads me to segue. I've always said, and
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I continue to say, that public policy is going to be set somewhere.
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When there's a problem that's apparent and it affects the overall good, the cultural
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norm of a country or any given universe, somebody's going to make a policy
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to deal with it. Now. It could be the legislature unless they just
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abbregate their duties to deal with that. It could be the executive unless the
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executive takes no action. Unfortunately, I think in the United States, over
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the last probably quarter century or better, we have abbregated policymaking to the courts.
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And last week I was here, I mentioned that I was going down
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to the Trial Lawyer's Convention in downtown Charleston, and part of the discussion there
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we had a report from Justice fun from the Supreme Court about you, first
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and foremost, the technological changes that the Court is making as far as filing,
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and which is all going to be for the good. It's going to
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be better for the clients to get their work done more probably it would be
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better for the attorneys and their staffs to have the ability to access and to
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file, and to do more things online, take depositions. It's going to
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be a money saver, you know, no more of this traveling by jet
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playing all over the country to interview and depose witnesses and experts. But the
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topic then drifted to abuse and neglect. Now, the court has a fund
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from which it pays counsel to represent abused and neglected children. And when a
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child is the subject of an abuse and neglect proceeding and that child's disposition is
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an issue, the child's n't a little lawyer and a guardian that lightem someone
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to speak on the child's behalf, regardless of what the lawyer says. And
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those to perform those services, one has to undergo some fairly intense training and
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it's prescribed by the court. It's required for the lawyer to practice in that
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area. But it's not the type work that many people want to do.
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I mean, I've said many times on this show, I think we have
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a paucity of lawyers who want to do everyday work for families and individuals and
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small businesses. There's an even greater shortage. I believe from my personal observation
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of lawyers who are willing to do abuse and neglect work, you know it
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is. It's grueling on your psyche to deal with children who are beaten or
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abused, or people as don't want them. They treat them like they treat
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a child like a good chattel, so less than a car. You know,
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you give me a car, and I'll give you this child, or
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a look I've got I'm going with my new boyfriend. Third removed from this
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child's father. Here, mom, you take the child, or here my
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ad or here my grandparents, and the child then ends up drifting around and
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or subject to any manner of physical and sexual abuse. So that when you
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have a child and they're innocent at birth, right, sorry for the little
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children come unto me, and by age twelve or thirteen, you have on
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your hands almost animalistic, sexually disoriented person that you have to try to try
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to shape, trying to intervene to make something some sort of productive societal participant,
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not a person who acts out and appropriate leaving as a young adult,
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commits drug offenses or sexual offenses, or and often happens murder kill people.
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Unrestrained psychopathy and to deal with that day in and day out is just a
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task. And unfortunately, for my observation, and I've observed this personally and
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sitting in the Supreme Court during arguments, that the work devolves to people who
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are committed but perhaps not well, it's not remunerative. I mean, you
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do disappointed work and you get paid as it's mere a mere pittance, so
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what a practicing attorney can make. And you do this like, well,
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we're going to get burnout and it shows, and the arguments are stale and
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they're overworked. So the legislature is not going to do anything about this.
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We looked at this the last term when we talked about six thousand foster children.
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You know, when they convene and cut taxes, and the governor's not
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going to do anything about this. He says he cannot do anything unless the
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legislature acts, but he never comes to town to deal with the legislature.
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And I'm not saying he's any worse than Earl ray was or Mojo. Nobody
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has dealt with this problem because it doesn't have a constituency. These little children
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do not have a constituency, but they could have, and I would to
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me. It's like corrections. This is going to approach a constitutional level of
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neglect by the policymakers who should deal with it, that being the legislative and
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the executive. Just like years ago when Art Wrecked took an educational system that
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was living in the late nineteenth century and hann't it done the Wrecked decision.
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I would wouldn't be surprised to see the courts simply order the legislature to form
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some I mean, how about an office of you know, we have a
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public defender's office which takes care of folks who are accused of breaking the law.
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How about statewide cadre of attorneys who are not only well trained and motivated,
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but well paid, who can afford to mentally endure and financially endure this
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type work administered by the court, with expertise, the ability to come and
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talk and meet. I mean, that would be a way to address the
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problem. And we've got to do something corrections. I don't know, corrections
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maybe just a financial problem, although I'm not sure that if you just offer
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more money that's going to get your better corrections officers. I think this locality,
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it's a terrible idea. How do you say, Okay, we're gonna
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give a locality paith, We're going to pay a correctional officer in eastern Panhandle
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more than someone in Wyoming County. Well does the person in Wyoming County have
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a car? Right? I mean are they able to drive from Wyoming County
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to Jefferson County to take one of those jobs? Well? Sure, and
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so what does that do to Wyoming County? It just it just enhances the
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shortage. But something's going to happen. And surprisingly enough, we've been We're
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in a room where most of the lawyers are litigators. Not all of us
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are exclusive litigators. We're not the big TV advertising file over the universe.
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We actually have contact at sea level with real people. And I mean one
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of the extremely competent and prominent natural resource attorneys from the north central part of
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the state, and another attorney I've known her for years from like the Clarksburgh
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area, and somebody Greenberg County. Look, we've all seen this. This
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has to be dealt with. And and just to say, Justice Bond was
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trying to say, the court is looking at this, and I can't say
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too much, but I would think the Court is going to have to step
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into one of these cases and say, look, this child has been hasn't
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cost two still right to the equal protection of the laws with regard to their
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treatment, their placement. I mean we're talking about you tell you a child.
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If the department takes custody to that child, the child is not at
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liberty to get it's not a liberty for his family to go where they want
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it. Are you saying, and Harvey Peyton's with us at the Payton Law
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from a night er, three or four, three four five fifty eight fifty
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eight is the number lines are open? Three or four, three four five
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fifty fifty Are you saying just because these attorneys that handle these cases, there's
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so many of them, there's a lot of burnout here. There's so many
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of them, and it's it's it's a you know, it's not paid well
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that some of the kids aren't getting the representation that they should get. Well,
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I've seen the representation they get, and it's not the representation they should
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get. But it's not necessarily the fall of the person who's providing the representation.
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If you've got if you have a passion for this work and your capacity
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is to handle thirty cases at a time, and you've got sixty because there's
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nobody else with the training to do the work, and it doesn't pay enough
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to attract anybody in the field. You do the best you can for the
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child. Note if the best you can do doesn't meet a constitutional standard,
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then the court should step in and do something, and perhaps they will.
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It's it's an activist position for a court to take. But if nobody else
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is going to handle this severe public policy issue, the courts are last resort.
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It shouldn't be that way. It should not be that way. But
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think about asbestos, think about cigarettes, think about the drug crisis. Did
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Congress do anything to the state legislatures do anything to the administrative agencies of the
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government do anything Not until they got sued and their money was at risk.
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Did this whipioid problem come into focus? All right, let's go to the
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lines orlay's on the line. He's called in earlier on the air with the
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with Harvey. Go ahead, good, I'm doing well. Party of listen
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to you, Oh my gosh, forever but never called. But I got
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to ask you a question. You say locality pay is an issue, but
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you know, the only really metro area we have an entire state. There's
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two areas, the Northern Panahama and Eastern Panahill. The basic needs, basic
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services, cost of living is inherently higher there than it is the other counties,
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the two year counties in next and A border counties. You can't pay
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thirty five thousand dollars average salary for correctional officer, an average teacher starting pay,
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or even local jurisdiction of a local pay for state police or any other
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state employer's partner highways. I've lived in both areas and we routinely, not
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not in a in frequent basis, weekly, yearly, what have you?
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They teachers, CEO's, local police, state troopers, they stay in those
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positions for short amount of periods of time until they're recruited or can find out
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that they can drive a half hour and make substantially more money, not chasing
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quarters on a dollar going from Toyota to the new Still, the new Cord
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initiative is going to go up in Mason County. I mean I'm talking hard
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dollars and better benefits. With the same education attainment level and the same tenure
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that they have there is twenty five to maybe forty percent more. Give an
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example, teachers in Washington County, Maryland start out in the sixty thousands with
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a master degree. Sixty to seventy thousand that starting pay, and instead've got
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five years of tenure, five years expense. That jumps to about ninety thousand.
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And they still ford that they've got more money, still have the same
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house, but a better quality of life because they have more discristinary spending.
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I don't mean it's rude. You live in the valley from Huntington to Charleston.
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You walked at your head stuck in the hand in a sandbox. The
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policy leaders do because the leadership from the Eastern Panhandle, they don't stand up
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for the rank and file. They want to do They want to pull the
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party line, and that goes from the top down. That's that's the President
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of the Senate, that's everybody else that he's got on his team. And
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you see some of those venture off from the crew in the house because they
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understand. I applaud Ed Hardy. I love Ed Hardy. That is a
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hell of a guy. But he's he's righting for local office in Berkeley,
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Cannada. But I don't think you're right on this. I think you have
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no understanding of the hardship that people who want to be in public service who
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live in those two areas space every day and they don't know what to do
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well that I don't know whether you understood what I would saying about locality pay.
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I don't agree with the concept of locality pay. I agree with the
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concept that if a if a well trained correctional officer has value at fifty five
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thousand dollars a year, pay a well trained correction officer fifty five thousand dollars
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a year. If that's what you have to pay to get them wherever they
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work. We can't do that, Yes we can. We've got you.
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Look this guy who sits up here in blubbers around and brags about surpluses.
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They got a billion dollars sitting in the back. We can do it.
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This state can do We don't have to live like a backward coal colony,
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passing up billions of dollars in severeigns taxes to keep people who live in Philadelphia
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or New York or Boston or Long Beach or Atlanta happy because they get premiums
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from land companies that own about half this God for sake, we need to
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pay these people what they're worth, what they're valued, period, and we've
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got the money to do it. We just don't have the courage or the
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gumption to do it. That's the problem. To you debate policy in act
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policy. You don't develop policy. You you're judicious in your approach and what
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you do. You civic duty is inherently different than a public stir And the
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people of Charleston. Leadership in Charleston don't care about the people any outline outlining
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areas. The southern part of the state has has ruled, ruled, ruled,
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and still rules. But I don't think you understand the impact that that
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has short, intermediate, and long term. They can't sustain that state wide.
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Other states, other states, real quick, other states do jurisdiction pay
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in North Carolina, in Virginia, when you live in northern Virginia as a
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teacher, you're paid inherently different from the state allocation and local allocation, and
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the same at urban areas in North Carolina like Charlotte and Raleigh. What have
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you I've been there, I've done, I've lived and worked in all three
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places. And I'm talking to you about you were you were so far you're
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in eastern Kentucky across the Ohio River about understanding this. And I don't mean
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that you're one of the smartest people I ever listened to every day. But
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seriously, Charleston antitide is the reason West Virginia doesn't work. I'll agree with
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that a wholeheartedly. I mean and a micro and a microcosm from my observation
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as a mere resident of the city of Saint Albans and now Puttenham County Charleston,
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which has essentially been run since the eighteen seventies by the owners and the
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descendants of the owners of massive land companies who have lived from extractive industries like
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coal, oil, natural gas, salt, rented slaves, banking have dominated
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the political status in Charleston and Kana County for over one hundred years. And
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we're no better off for we were sitting here with an airport that now we're
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promising seventy years after this county in sixty years engage in a concerted effort on
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behalf of the coal company land company descendants, who also haven't own the newspaper,
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to defeat a modern airport on the promise that by nineteen sixty eight we'd
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have a seven thousand foot runway at what there was in Kenaal Airport. Go
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measure the runway today and tell me if it's seven thousand feet And the answers
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no. And what we get from the leaders in Charleston who are still cowtowing
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like they did in Huntington forever to the Southsiders who own monumental fortunes of coal,
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oil and gas land and dictate how it's mine and when it's mine,
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and you get the same song and dance, and that does carry over to
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the state of West vind And when the boys in the black suits and the
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money and the money bags from Philadelphia, New York and Boston, Atlanta hit
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the ground at the state House, ask these guys up there how that goes.
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When there's anything anything that would affect the coal industry and any perceived negativity
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for the people who owned the land, companies who get paid royalties, no
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matter how much blood is on their hands for the royalty, somebody was getting
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paid for every ton of coal was mine at Big Branch, MASSI hadn't known
22:18
that coal that cold been by. My grandfather worked up there, crawling around
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in holes in the ground like a dog at the same mountain they were mining
22:26
on, and the same people owned the coal in and got paid by the
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royalties they've got paid. Now, I mean, I'll give some thought to
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what ever all had to say. I mean, I'm certainly open to changing
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my mind. I just don't think locality paid for I'm not much on that.
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For correctional officer, you've got a problem, and it's because you can't
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get the right people. People said, well, what's what is a good
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correctional officer worth? Or the worth what you have to pay them. It's
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like what's a good car worth? Well, car's worth, what's you have
22:57
to pay for it? You can't be here to ball to it and say,
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well, I think that Corolla is only worth the thirty five thousand,
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that's all I'll give you. Well, you're not going to walk out with
23:07
a Corolla, you know anyway? That that really is not legally that's not
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a legal theory or that's just my personal thoughts on the observation of the economy
23:18
and governance. And I'm not saying it's only in West Virginia. Congress is
23:22
completely If you see what happened in the last couple of days, the House
23:26
of representatives can't pass anything. They can't even bring a bill to the floor
23:30
because twelve people from some of the most backward, myopic congressional district in the
23:40
world say that we as a country can't do business. There's something wrong with
23:45
that. All right, We're gonna take a break. Harvey Payton or the
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Payton Law Firm in nighter lines are open three or four three four five fifty
23:51
a fifty eight. Like Earl called in, You're welcome to call three or
23:55
four three four five fifty eight fifty back in a moment on five eighty wchs.
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If you want a lawyer who has no nonsense, hard working and equipped
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with years of successful experience, you want the Peyton Law Firm. Let Tom
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and Harvey put the power of Peyton to work for you. If someone has
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seven five five fifty five fifty six or online at Peyton Law Firm dot com.
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to bankat city dot com. Our earlier accident a cross lanes has cleared,
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but we still have the one out in Putnam County around thirty five North between
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Hunticut Road and Plantation Road, Northfoundland closed there. There is a detour in
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place at Buffalo at the Buffalo exit. Also, we still have a lot
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of construction zone to include Kanas City. Don't expect to it through there quickly.
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There's day and nighttime construction activity, one line traffic and major delays from
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the WCHS Network Traffic studio. I'm Jenny Murray. What the power of Payton
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on the side. We have the courtroom experience that you need. We never
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give up. We're prepared to fight for your rights. When you need action,
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count on us. Push the power of Paton on your side. The
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power of Paton's a forty seven or five an w CHS The voice of Charleston
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Harvey Payton's with as Payton Law Firm in Nitro and the lines are opening questions
26:48
about the law three h four three four five fifty a fifty eight three oh
26:52
four three four five fifty a fifty. Since Harvey was here last stay,
26:56
Supreme Court Justice John Hutchinson says he's not going right. That was announced.
27:00
I actually that came out last Thursday while we were having our membership luncheon for
27:07
the trial lawyers down at the Embassy Suites. Was that Hichad this announced that
27:12
he's not going to run. Well, this doesn't surprise me and disappoints me
27:18
because I think Justice Hichison, when he know, he was on the bench
27:21
for decades and Ralei years, all right, so he knew his way around
27:23
the judiciary. And if you'll remember when he was appointed to the courts,
27:27
that was after he'd been through the impeachment and Brolio and everybody was new and
27:33
in the first opinions that came out, hitch rode him even though he was
27:37
the newest on the court by appointment, because I mean I think he took
27:41
sort of charge like you know, a hen with the chicks and said,
27:45
here's how you know I know how to do this. You know you you've
27:48
been in the House of Delegates, Justice Armstead and Justice what's his name,
27:55
he's gone name Jens is gone. And Walker. Here's how this get our
28:00
heads together and do this. And you know he's been a moderate voice on
28:03
the court. I think he's had a lot to do with the administrative in
28:07
workings of the court. But by twenty twenty four, guys, I don't
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know how he'd be close to mid seventies. Yeah, well, I think
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he's my age. He'll be, said he would be into twenty twenty four,
28:17
he'll be seventy four, seventy five. And you know he's entirely retirement
28:22
in the judicial retirement. It's in West Virginia. It's pretty good. Seventy
28:26
five percent of the of the salary of the position. He'll vacas he doesn't
28:30
get seventy five percent of a Supreme Court justices pay adjusted upward. Is that
28:34
if that pay ever increases. Plus have his insurance benefits and I'm not sure
28:40
whether what his military status was. He may have some other retirement income from
28:45
another source. I wish him really well. He's done the state proud.
28:48
He hasn't caused any problems. His work has been really good. Yes,
28:52
said he wanted to do some mediation made Well, that's good. You know
28:53
that some of them we had when mediation first commenced. They're just in a
29:00
whole cadree of learned intermediators out there. So a lot of retired circuit court
29:04
judges were excellent mediator. Judge Holiday down in Potdham County im mediated hundreds of
29:10
cases. Oh, Judge Steaker from Dona, Wayne County, Bob Steaker was
29:18
a wonderful mediator cases settled. We had Joe Albright during the period of time
29:23
you know, there was a hiatus there when he was off the court before
29:26
he went back on the court and sadly died while he was in office.
29:30
But when I had a number of FLA cases for railroad workers, he had
29:36
a lot of experience in that regard, both before and while he was on
29:38
the bench, and he mediated hundreds of those to successful conclusions. So yeah,
29:42
I think that hutch would be a good addition to the whole stable of
29:45
learned intermediaties that we have in this stay. And then one person you have
29:49
spoke highly of over the years, Republic Hian. Of course, he's a
29:55
non parson race where Charlie Trump comes out and says he'll be a candidate for
29:57
Supreme Court. Yeah. I didn't yep. Yeah, came out on Friday
30:00
said he's he's interested in running for Well, you know, it's probably it's
30:06
a non partisnant race. But let's be honest. There's a reason that some
30:12
non partisan elected judges who are registers Democrats are now going around and changing their
30:17
registration to Republican are independent because they don't want you know, they know that
30:22
while it's a non partisan race, politics is going to play a party.
30:25
You don't have to do any more than listen to the Eudius Greg Thomas when
30:27
he comes on David Allen's show to tell that. So I would think Charlie
30:33
Trump and places from the Panhandle, so you know he's going to carry seven
30:37
counties huge, and his name's Trump. I mean, there would be people
30:41
who will vote for Charlie Trump because they think he's Donald Trump's nephew or cousin.
30:47
We could do worse. I mean, I bet Charlie Trump. First,
30:49
he was in the House all years ago. He was a good friend
30:52
with Mike Hall, who's from Potenham County, and I have met him through
30:56
Mike Hall. We were both leaders that were pretty small caucus. Yeah,
30:59
that's right, but you know, I found sorry to be modern. He's
31:02
done a good job as Judiciary chairman up here. I mean he's gotten a
31:06
little bit social issue oriented to a degree at the end of it, but
31:11
which I I don't think it's appropriate. I mean, the Republican policies are
31:17
Republican policies always have been, you know, cut taxes, incentivize poor people
31:22
by giving them last, incentivize risk people by giving them more, and we'll
31:25
all not have to pay for anything because growth will get us off the hook.
31:29
You know that. But that's just the way it is. The country's
31:33
managed to function with that. It was one of the political parties for a
31:36
hundred years or better. So yeah, I hadn't heard that, but I
31:41
wouldn't think that's bad news at all. Another thing that you talked about in
31:45
Harvey's with this three or four three four, five fifty fifty you mentioned just
31:51
briefly there about the meetings last week about where are we on this electronic filing
31:56
well E filing, you know, for the because that's going to help,
32:00
that can help the plank that I mean, that can help, It helps
32:04
the public and the clients that are served by the lawyers. I mean,
32:07
lawyers are just figureheads for the clients they represent, and anything that can be
32:12
done to make the nuts and bolts of practicing law more efficient and more economical
32:17
benefits ultimately the clients, whether it be an individual client or an insurance compomy,
32:22
a bank, or a debtor. So with electronic filing, which is
32:28
now in place in a majority of the counties in West Virginia, the days
32:34
that a lawyer had to run down to the courthouse to present an order,
32:37
or the lawyer had to run down to the courthouse to file a lawsuit.
32:39
I mean that's all time and time as money and somebody's paying for it are
32:44
going to be in the past rapidly. If I need to file a lawsuit,
32:49
I can sit at my desk, I can dictate the lawsuit. I
32:52
can proof freed it, make sure it's correct. I loaded in PDF,
32:58
which is I mean, I don't even know what P stands for it.
33:00
It's some acronym for some sort of computer program or format, and then I
33:06
upload it through E filing with a cover sheet and they have a credit card
33:09
on file with the circuit clerk and their respective counties the lawsuits filed, the
33:14
summons is issue that electronically services made and after that everything goes through. It's
33:19
just a phenomenally more efficient system than we had, say fifteen years ago.
33:24
And in the next five years it's going to be statewide and the Supreme Court
33:30
has adopted an e filing system. Now. The one thing that came out
33:35
at our meeting in questioning to a representative of the Court who was there to
33:39
talk about e filing is the lack of absolute consistency among the circuits. Some
33:45
judges prefer to put their orders in a quote que where they stay for a
33:50
while and they're looked at, or they go to the law clerks q que,
33:53
which is some little section of the computer program, and other judges deal
33:59
with them differently. I think the Court could serve us well by just uniformly.
34:02
I mean the Supreme Court is the ultimate administrator of all the court systems,
34:07
from the magistrate Court to the Supreme Court. To impose some absolute uniformity
34:14
so that a lawyer in Charleston who wants to file a suit in the Webster
34:19
County knows that the same rules are going to apply as far as they're e
34:22
filing and this submission of orders and motions and that sort of thing. We
34:27
could also probably benefit by adopting a system closer to PACER, which is the
34:30
federal system and it's nationwide, which, as you know as a news person,
34:37
it's monumentally easy to use and gives you access for a price. Now,
34:42
if you're a party to a case, you don't pay anything for access
34:45
to the filings in that case. If you're the lawyer or a party.
34:47
Now, if I want to access filings in another case, I may be
34:52
curious to see briefs that were filed if they're filed through PACER or the status
34:57
of a case, I have to pay for access to that, but not
35:00
much. I mean you probably have an account. Yeah, you have an
35:02
account with them. So if there's a you know, if you want to
35:05
see what's going to happen with a criminal case, an indictments return, you
35:07
go into PACER and it'll tell you when the next hearing is said in that
35:12
case, it'll tell you what the bond is. You can read the order
35:15
online and it's really great. Another great bit of technology that's rapidly approaching is
35:21
a more technology based system of discovery deposition. Yeah, this is very interesting.
35:29
The face to face interaction between a witness, either a lay witness or
35:32
an expert witness and the parties has always been logistically and financially an issue with
35:37
lawyers. You know, if you if you want to prosecute a case saying,
35:43
let's say it involves a failure of a safety device in an automobile,
35:45
well, maybe the from the plaintiff standpoint, the most outstanding expert in that
35:50
field is in Florida. But from the defense standpoint there their person is in
35:59
Texas. Well, that means it's somewhere along the line either that expert is
36:02
going to have to be paid to come Here's I mean these Then during pandemic
36:07
we adopted Zoom and teams, which are platform based. You download into your
36:14
computer and you have the platform there. Now now we've got a cloud based
36:19
service that doesn't require any subscription. You can log in, you can upload
36:25
your deposition notice, make arrangements for the witness to be wherever they are,
36:30
and so as you're everybody's in a separate quote room in that format, and
36:37
there's the witness who you see live on the screen and they have the exhibits
36:42
in real time that everybody looks at as the expert does. They can mark
36:45
them up and on the immediately to the right. The program has a voice
36:51
to tax facts functions so that you can see a rough draft of your questioning
36:58
as it's in as as taken. So if you need to jump back and
37:00
say, wait a minute, I ask you, it's not a matter of
37:04
saying asking the court reporter to stop. Go back to your notes. You
37:07
can go back and look at what was said. Now if there's a question
37:12
about what was said, there's also a certified court reporter linked into this who's
37:16
taking everything down, so it can be fine with courts. She can obviously
37:19
look back. This would ultimately help the clients. Oh my goodness, Yes,
37:23
it's going to ultimately help down put down on costs. What's going to
37:25
happen? I mean the driving force is money PLAYLISS. Lawyers generally don't have
37:31
much of it, because you know, you finance the expenses on a case
37:37
your client can't afford it except in rare circumstance. The insurance companies have a
37:43
lot of money, but the reason they have a lot of money is because
37:45
there cost hawks. So as this technology becomes more available and refine what we're
37:53
going to see is what we saw during the pandemic. We can't travel our
38:00
our client, which maybe an insurance company for the we cannot travel, so
38:06
then that shapes the cost and I would I would wager within five years,
38:10
ninety percent or more of depositions are going to be done through these platforms or
38:15
cloud based services. All right. Paytent law firm in Nitro. Pay law
38:17
firm in Natro twenty eight O one first avenue a law firm that primarily does
38:22
some litigation and claims resolution for persons injured in automobile accidents or industrial accidents,
38:29
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38:34
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38:40
advice, we just want to talk to a lawyer about anything, something we
38:44
can't help you with. We can point you in the right direction. We
38:47
never generally charge anybody for an initial conference, although we don't sit down and
38:52
answer a lot of questions for nothing. Let's not fair to answer to the
38:54
client. You can get a papal offer