 |
|
|
 |
 |
 Criminal Misdemeanor:
When you have been accused or charged
with a crime, Noel Benedict & Associates
can assist you in navigating the justice system.
Even seemingly small transgressions can be
serious matters.
If you are charged with a
crime, even if it is one you feel you are
not guilty of doing, you need a consultation
with an experienced attorney. A misdemeanor
crime is one that is defined by punishment
of 12 months or less, as opposed to a felony,
which can be punished by more than 12 months.
As experienced counselors of law, Noel H.
Benedict & Associates can give you expert
advice and guidance in serious misdemeanor
crimes, including but not limited to shoplifting,
embezzlement charges, simple assault, simple
battery, family violence, driving while under
the influence of drugs or alcohol, speeding,
or other traffic violations.
Don’t ignore
any citation you receive from the courts,
or you may find yourself in violation of the
law and subject to being taken into custody!
Call us for a free consultation today and
find out what your legal rights and obligations
are under the law. If you think talking to
an attorney is difficult, try telling it to
a judge. Hire an advocate to help you negotiate
your way through what can be a complicated
and stressful system.
 Divorce and Family
Law:
No other areas can leave us more
vulnerable or touch us as deeply as those
issues that affect our children, our spouses,
and our relatives.
Domestic relations and
family law have always been a part of Noel
H. Benedict & Associates’ client
services. We represent your best interests
when you are undergoing a divorce or separation,
trying to resolve child support, child custody,
child visitation, juvenile court, name changes,
family violence, court petitions, and any
other case that might arise within the family
circle. Noel H. Benedict & Associates
will help you understand the importance of
all of your options as you make transitional
decisions that will affect the rest of your
life at this difficult time.
We can provide
a set fee for an uncontested divorce, or provide
you with an hourly rate schedule for contested
divorces or divorces involving children. Our
goal is to provide excellent service for a
reasonable fee. Some attorneys may encourage
you to personalize the struggle, get mad,
and fight over the smallest details, all the
while leaving the meter running on their fees.
If you want to fight over the couch at our
hourly fee, you certainly can, but we may
tactfully point out that you might prefer
to buy a new one with the money you did not
spend fighting over the old one!
We help you
fight the battles that are worth fighting,
even as we try to remind you which battles
are the important ones. Don’t be taken
advantage of, especially by your own attorney!
Call Noel H. Benedict & Associates for
a free and confidential consultation of your
personal situation.
 Medical Malpractice:
Quality medical care should be
a guaranteed outcome when you consult a
physician or undergo surgery or other hospitalizations,
and the claim of medical malpractice is
a grave accusation. To be considered medical
malpractice, you must first consider two
criteria:
1. Did the doctor practice medicine in
a way that his or her peers would not have
done or would not have considered the correct
“standard of care?”
2. Did the patient suffer an outcome that
left him/her with an injury that is lasting
or at least substantial enough to pursue
a claim?
Contrary to popular media, abuse does
sometimes occur in the field of medicine,
but it is not always possible to take it
to court. Attorneys must work within what
is called the “rules of evidence.”
Not everything that happens is necessarily
admissible in a court of law.
At Noel H.
Benedict & Associates, we can analyze
your potential medical malpractice case
at no charge to you and advise you of your
legal rights and options.
You may have been injured by a doctor,
a nurse, or some other practitioner in
what is normally the “helping” profession.
Many patients who have been victimized
may
not have the money to pursue justice on
their own. However, the injury must be
substantial
enough to support the monetary costs of
pursuing a lawsuit. An astute attorney
must
also be a pragmatic business person, able
to get a return on investment of time and
money. Malpractice lawsuits, whether they
are medical or legal malpractice (yes,
lawyers
get sued, too!), involve filing fees, court
reporters’ charges, doctors’
depositions costs, objective experts’
opinions, as well as charges for medical records.
These expenses involved in filing
a lawsuit and building a case can cost
minimally several thousand dollars up to
several million.
Therefore, the attorney must be able to
prove in a court of law that this malpractice
occurred and must prove that the case has
met the above standard in a court of law.
 Personal and Business
Law:
You don’t have to be a huge
corporation to need advice from a seasoned
attorney who has represented both sides
of thousands of cases involving business
and personal liability and business practices.
In fact, it is the small business owner
who often needs legal advisement. Within
the scope of our insurance defense experience,
Noel H. Benedict & Associates has
represented and resolved cases for nationally
known
businesses when they needed sound representation.
We can provide legal advice, incorporation
services, contract interpretation and contract
dispute assistance, business agreements,
and other business related legal services
for the small or large business. Whether
you are an individual owner or a CEO, we
can provide the legal services you need
to stay in business.
 Personal Injury: Truck,
boat, plane, car accidents; assaults;
and
other bodily injuries:
If you have been injured in any
accident, injured on the job, or injured
through someone else’s negligence
or malpractice, or a product’s failure,
Noel H. Benedict & Associates can assist
you with your legal rights.
We have a substantial
legal background based on 33 combined years
of solid experience representing people
who have been injured and are seeking compensation
for their losses. We are experienced in
both sides of “tort litigation,”
that is, the handling of lawsuits involving
injury claims of all kinds. We have gained
this ability to analyze both sides of a
case by having over two decades of insurance
defense experience and claimant’s advocacy.
We can provide you a balanced
view and a true evaluation of your individual
case. After all, you want to hire an attorney
who is familiar with the process that an
insurance company uses to evaluate and defend
their costs.
Put candidly, you want someone
who knows “how the other side thinks”
and what they are most likely to do and
say if your case goes to a jury. You also
want an advocate who is respected by other
attorneys and the insurance companies
as
a worthy adversary. Noel H. Benedict &
Associates looks out for your best interests
before your case ever reaches trial. A
good
attorney doesn’t promise you what
you want to hear; he tells you what you
need to know to get good results.
 Premises Liability:
Injuries in homes or businesses are
sometimes caused by negligence. No place of
business or home is perfect. But a business
owner of any type has the obligation to inspect
the business premises and keep them safe.
A business should have a plan they follow
to make sure that customers are kept safe,
whether it is from debris on the floor or
dangerous displays. This is called a “duty
to inspect” and includes two types.
The first type of inspection involves inspecting
for transitory conditions such as rain, snow,
and ice. If a parking lot is icy, for example,
and putting down ice melt would make it less
treacherous, the landlord or owner should
do so within reason. A grocery store, to use
another example, should make periodic inspections
of its wares to make sure that slippery fruits,
vegetables, or other substances have not fallen
to the floor and created slipping hazards.
If aisles are wet and slippery, warning signs
should be appropriately placed to notify passersby.
The second inspection is for static conditions,
involving construction, upkeep, or maintenance
of stairs, ramps, railing, parking lot surfaces,
lighting, etc. If someone is hurt by a defect
in the premises because of an improperly constructed
display, or an improperly designed stair or
lighting, or improperly managed properties
which allow visitors to be hurt (elevator
accidents), or hurt because the owner has
not properly maintained the premises, the
owner is liable, or responsible, for the injury.
Slip and fall cases are a common type of premises
liability case. Call us for a confidential
evaluation if you think that you have been
injured or harmed by someone else’s
neglect.
 Product Liability:
Unhappy surprises can come in all
sizes and shapes. Sometimes there is more
than one way to design a product, and not
all designs for products are equally safe.
The manufacturer of a product can be liable
(responsible) for the injury caused by that
product if it was not properly designed, manufactured,
or assembled.
Good examples of this are some
airbags and seatbelts in automobiles. Airbags
meant to insure lives were actually deploying
in such a way that they caused serious or
fatal injuries, sometimes deploying after
only a minor bump. Seatbelts were at times
causing abdominal injuries. The “cure”
was never meant to be worse than the cause.
Manufacturers cannot always predict what possible
injuries might occur. But there have been
times when they have known in advance that
injuries might be caused by a design flaw
and yet proceeded with that product design
anyway. When this occurs, manufacturers and
designers, and anyone else who participated
in putting a faulty design on the market,
should be held accountable when it has injured
an innocent party.
 Social Security
Disability Insurance
The process of applying for social security
benefits can be long and arduous at a time
when you are already feeling very sick
and
disabled.
Unfortunately, there are no magic
wands that make this process easy. Contact
the nearest Social Security claims office
and obtain an application. They will explain
this process to you and give you brochures
explaining the process.
Most people who
apply for SSDI are initially rejected, so
do not be surprised and become unnecessarily
discouraged if this happens to you. The
percentages are against your getting benefits
in the initial decision. You will be given
the opportunity to submit your application
again for review by the state agency, but
the odds are still not in your favor. The
time to hire an attorney to help you is
after your application has been submitted
for review two times and received an unfavorable
decision on both occasions.
This process
may be lengthy, taking over a year from
beginning to the time of the second denial.
Prior to this, an attorney can do nothing
except assure you that you are not alone
and that this is a common occurrence. When
it happens to you, it is not easy to feel
objective about this rejection, but you
must persevere in the process to eventually
succeed.
When you call Noel H. Benedict & Associates,
we give you a free and confidential consultation
regarding your chances of winning an award
of social security disability. We compile
your complete medical treatment summary,
contact the Social Security Administration
and personally go to their offices to review
your file to make sure it is complete and
that nothing has been omitted or overlooked,
and request a hearing. We work with you
to ensure that your file is well documented
and go with you to the hearing as your attorney
advocate before an administrative judge
for a final determination.
Choosing the
right attorney makes a big difference in
the end. Call us today to discuss your case.
 Workers’
Compensation:
A serious worker’s compensation
injury is one in which there is permanent,
total, or permanent partial disability
resulting from a work related accident.
In any serious workplace injury, hiring
an attorney is extremely important because
there may be liability beyond workers’
compensation insurance coverage. For example,
a delivery man who slips and falls while
delivering a package may have a premises
liability claim for a slippery surface,
or a salesperson who is hurt in a wreck
while making sales calls during his or
her
workday may have a liability claim against
the other driver.
A knowledgeable attorney
will be able to help you maximize your
coverage and recover for your damages.
Don’t ever take the insurer’s
or the employer’s word for it that
you do not have a claim. They may honestly
think you don’t. Some employers may
feel it is in their best financial interests
to pay out of pocket for minor employee
injuries to keep their insurance rates from
rising. But it may not be in your best interest
for them to do this.
Consult Noel H. Benedict
& Associates for a confidential and
free consultation to better understand your
rights under the Georgia Workers’
Compensation laws.
 Wrongful Death
When someone you love dies and you are
grieving, the last thing on your mind is
thinking
about money. Money will not bring back
the person you lost. If the deceased is
one
of the primary breadwinners of the family,
then that person’s death creates an
even greater hardship.
A wrongful death
case is one in which, through someone else’s
negligence or misconduct, the victim’s
injuries are so severe that they result
in death. If someone’s neglect or
misconduct has caused the death of your
loved one, that person is accountable.
Even
at a time of grief, there are still legal
timelines that must be observed, so it is
important to preserve your legal rights
by consulting an attorney and filing a complaint
within what is called the “statute
of limitations.”
An attorney can explain
to you whether your loved one suffered a
wrongful death and the deadline by which
you would have to file a claim for damages.
These timelines vary by type of case. At
Noel H. Benedict & Associates, we can
help you understand your legal rights. Call
us for a confidential assessment today.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
