Legal trouble is never ideal, but it helps to know how to face it should it arise.
When it comes to legal troubles, you’d rather never have to think about them or deal with them. If you’re on the up and up and lucky, you won’t have to. However, anything that can go wrong will go wrong, as they say. When and if you find yourself in need of legal counsel, it’s important to know what kind of lawyer can best represent you based on your circumstances and needs. Here’s what you need to know.
Government Lawyers
In legal matters concerning the US government, you’ll need a government lawyer. While this may sound self explanatory, you might be surprised to know that any lawyer that works for the court system itself qualifies as a government lawyer. On the other hand, more obvious scenarios such as needing the services of a district attorney also fall under this category. A government lawyer will need to be intimately familiar with any government document management software or physical document storage in order to properly address your needs, for starters. By and large, government lawyers are primarily on staff within the judicial system at large, but they can also occupy positions of higher stature, such as working for the Department of Justice. This means that they will tend to matters of law pertaining to the state or federal government and are likely to be commissioned, when applicable, directly by other government employees and officials.
Intellectual Property Lawyers
Matters of copyright are potentially pertinent to anyone engaging in a creative pursuit, and the same could be said about trademarks and patents. Generally speaking, consulting with an IP attorney about protecting your work is highly recommended, because you’ll need to meet certain criteria to register a copyright or patent in order to avoid infringing on existing intellectual properties. On the flip side, you may be on the receiving end of a case of copyright infringement, and you will then need the help of an IP lawyer in order to determine the most objective legal state of your case vs that of the defendant. Copyright cases are fairly typically open and shut cases, due to the fairly black and white nature of copyright law and the bias in favor of copyright holders, but you’ll still need a knowledgeable expert on the subject and someone to go to bat for you with that expertise at his or her disposal. Because of the wide array of published and copyrighted works in existence simultaneously, it’s easy to infringe upon someone else’s work unintentionally, but just as often, people will knowingly and willfully try to profit off of the protected works of another in order to turn a quick profit.
Employment Lawyers
Employment is a fairly universal need, and conflicts surrounding employment are many. Therefore, employment attorneys are often necessary in order to resolve these conflicts based on the letter of the law and the evidence presented. Such conflicts include matters of wrongful termination or the denial of workers compensation in the event of an injury. However, dedicated workers comp attorneys are also available to tackle this specific problem with a bit more specialized expertise on the subject. You may need an employment attorney in the event of unresolved workplace harassment, something that still happens far too often and is far too often not taken seriously to an adequate degree. Harassment cases are potentially an edge case in which the employer, as well as a separate offending party may be on trial separately for the same crime. However, just as often, the reason that such a conflict isn’t resolved in the first place is because the harasser is in fact the employer themself. Employment attorneys face a wide variety of potential charges, each with their own explicit and implicit rules that add nuance to each case, not unlike a criminal attorney.
Legal trouble is never ideal, but it helps to know how to face it should it arise. This is a rundown of some more specialized attorneys that can help you out in the event of some out of the ordinary legal issues, but there are several other types of lawyers, each with their own role to play.
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