Posted on June 26, 2014 in Personal Injury

Summer means vacations for many families across the nation, and Illinois certainly is no exception. Some may plan trips to visit friends or family while others head to a beach or a lake. No matter the destination, summer months will certainly be seeing an increase of traffic on the roadways. Any road travel comes with the risk of an accident, but that risk is likely to increase with more vehicles on the road. While drivers cannot always control other's actions, they can take steps to ensure their careful attention to the road while driving.

Safety Tips

No matter how near or far drivers travel this summer, it is important to follow proper safety precautions while operating a vehicle in order to avoid a possible accident. Some safety tips for drivers to keep in mind this summer include the following:

1. Maintain the safety of your vehicle. This includes everything from having your vehicle properly inspected and checked before heading out on the road, to packing the car in a responsible way to avoid blind spots and decreased visibility.

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 Posted on June 20, 2014 in Immigration

Sometimes an employer, especially in a highly specialized industry, needs to bring in a worker from outside the United States. One might think the worker would need to apply for a work visa on their own, but this is not the case. There is a specific type of visa that allows employers to sponsor skilled foreign nationals to come to the United States and work for them. Employer sponsored visas are becoming more and more common.

About 140,000 visas are available each year for skilled workers that can get sponsorship from employers. Once an employer gets a labor certification for that worker, they must file an I-140, a Petition for Alien Worker. This must be done in the appropriate employment category, of which there are five. The categories are:

• EB-1, or First Preference category. There are three subcategories: persons with extraordinary ability (for example, a Nobel Peace Prize winner or Olympic medalist), outstanding professors and researchers, and multinational managers or executives. Persons of extraordinary ability will file their own I-140s, and do not have to have specific job offers, as long as they are continuing to work within their field of achievement. The other two subcategories do need a job offer, and will have their employers file their I-140s. Specific criteria must be met for a worker to be granted an EB-1.

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 Posted on June 20, 2014 in Family Law

Taking care of aging parents can be an incredibly stressful experience. It is not uncommon for it to take a heavy toll on you, your spouse, and even on your marriage. The married couple needs to strike a balance between their needs as a couple and the needs of aging parents.

Avoid the trap of overcaring, as one author puts it. This happens when well-intentioned loving people sacrifice their marriages in which they have invested years because they spent all their time and emotional energy on family caregiving responsibilities.

Below are some important tips for fostering your marriage while at the same time caring for your aging parents.

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 Posted on June 19, 2014 in Personal Injury

Crashes involving tractor-trailers often have devastating consequences. Not only are the vehicles significantly larger than other cars on the road, but they are usually found on highways and freeways where they travel at an increased speed. What may be surprising, however, is that statistics show that more than 70 percent of accidents involving such trucks are the other driver's fault. This illustrates how important it is for drivers to do what they can to avoid accidents with tractor-trailers. The following safety tips can give drivers some direction as to how to properly navigate around trucks.

Safety Tips

Give truckers a lot of room. Drivers should avoid being too close to a semi for a number of reasons. Tire blowouts are common and can cause pieces of the tire to collide with nearby vehicles and may even make the driver begin to swerve. Windy conditions can also lead to trucks being blown around the road, and may cause them to become hard to control. Lastly, large trucks have a number of blind spots. It is best not to linger too long next to, very close behind, or very close in front of a tractor-trailer, since the truck driver may not even notice the car.

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 Posted on June 17, 2014 in Personal Injury

A car accident can be caused by any number of factors. In some cases, causes of accidents are out of the driver's control. In other cases, drivers have control over the circumstances that may lead or have led to a crash occurring. Distracted driving is such a situation where all drivers have control over choosing to give their full attention to operating the vehicle and not partaking in any other activity that could take their attention from the roadway.

What is Distracted Driving?

Distracted driving occurs when a driver operates a vehicle in addition to performing another activity that distracts from the main task of driving. There are numerous factors that could take a driver's attention from the road, and therefore many activities can fall under the larger category of distracted driving. In fact, many states, including Illinois, have enacted laws to prevent drivers from taking part in some of the more common forms of distracted driving. Illinois' new law banning hand-held cellphone use while driving, which went into effect this year, is one example of such a law.

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 Posted on June 13, 2014 in Immigration

While the American school system is not the best in the world - that honor belongs to Finland - there are still many students worldwide who want to study in the United States at all levels of education. In order to study academically in the U.S., one must obtain what is referred to as an F visa. This type of visa allows a foreign national to come to the United States and study, even if the same program is offered in their country. Vocational students have a separate visa, the M visa, which covers their category of study.

Application for F Visa

Before a foreign national can even apply for an F visa, he or she must apply and be approved by a school that is a member of the SEVP (Student and Exchange Visitor Program). A fair amount of U.S. schools are members of this program, but not all. If a foreign national applies and is accepted by a non-member school, their F visa will most likely not be granted because that school has no infrastructure in place to communicate with the State Department about their student status via SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System).

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 Posted on June 13, 2014 in Family Law

Commingling Lives

When a couple decides to marry they are choosing to come together and combine all aspects of their lives. They consolidate their living space, blend their families, and join finances. Unfortunately, joining finances sometimes also means taking on the other spouse’s individual debts.

Am I responsible for my spouse's debt when I get married?

Marriage is a symbolic joining of two parties into one unit. Marriage is also a contract. When you first get married, there are many ways to avoid taking on your spouse’s debt. However, how you go about managing your finances throughout the marriage will determine if you will be responsible for the debt later on in the marriage or upon divorce.

Make sure to be clear in whose name the debts will be titled. If you do not want to be liable for the debt, make sure your name is absent from the title. Also, depending on the state in which you reside, different property laws may apply to ownership, division, and debt.

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 Posted on June 12, 2014 in Personal Injury

Those who have been injured in a car accident in Illinois may be hesitant to seek the help of legal counsel. This may be true because they feel overwhelmed by the process, because they simply do not know whether the facts of their specific case would give rise to a claim at law, or because they are unsure of whether they would be entitled to any form of compensation.

No matter what the the circumstances surrounding the accident or the extent of the injury, it is always a good first step to meet with an attorney to determine whether there is basis for a lawsuit or other type of action. A personal injury attorney would be able to advise a potential client about what claims he or she has, if any, and what to expect if he or she decides to institute a claim. In addition, the attorney can explain how the laws in the state of Illinois affect the case and can immediately take steps to protect the client's rights.

Illinois Law

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 Posted on June 10, 2014 in Personal Injury

It is important to realize that accidents between vehicles are not the only causes of injuries and fatalities on Illinois roadways. Pedestrians are also at risk, and often they are severely hurt when involved in an accident with a car. It is important for pedestrians to take proper safety precautions while on the streets in order to avoid an accident.

The Statistics

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, approximately 70,000 pedestrians suffer injury and more than 4,000 are killed across the country each year as the result of a collision with a vehicle. The nicer the weather, the more likely an accident is to happen. In addition, age contributes to the likelihood of a pedestrian accident, with a significant proportion involving either those over the age of 65 or under the age of 15.

Likely Causes of Pedestrian Accidents

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 Posted on June 06, 2014 in Immigration

Removal proceedings can be terrifying. They can break up families and interrupt lives. When you or a loved one has been placed in removal proceedings, you have a few options. One of the most common prayers for relief from removal is a discretionary grant called cancellation of removal.

Cancellation of removal replaced an old program referred to as suspension of deportation (SoD). The problem with SoD is that it did not discriminate; it did not give a different standard to legal permanent residents (LPRs) who had been in the country lawfully and to people not lawfully in the United States. Cancellation of removal does have different standards for both categories, though in both cases, it is entirely at the discretion of the immigration judge.

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