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Add value to your neglected assets - Life Insurance Policy Review
Law Firm Business | 2023/04/10 03:57

During a life insurance policy review, you should look at your current coverage and beneficiaries and decide if any adjustments should be made. A Life Insurance Policy Review can be incorporated into initial planning or regular reviews when significant life changes have occurred. Factors that can impact changes to your life insurance needs can include marriage, divorce, health status changes, buying or selling a house, having children, and paying off debt.


It's important to review your life insurance policy annually or more frequently to ensure your policy is set up to adequately protect your loved ones after your death. When conducting an insurance Policy Review and presenting options that include replacing an existing insurance contract, it is important to discuss the risks and benefits.


You should conduct one after any major life events involving changes to your family, health, or finances. Significant life events that impact your family, health, or finances can change how much life insurance coverage you need and who you want as your beneficiaries. The amount of life insurance coverage you need, and who you want as your beneficiaries, depends in part on the people who count on your income to cover their expenses.


If you or a loved one experiences a significant improvement or decline in health, it could increase or decrease the amount of coverage you might need. You can review your life insurance by checking the hard copy of your policy, logging into your online account with the insurer, or talking directly with an agent.



Wisconsin Supreme Court control, abortion access at stake
Headline News | 2023/04/03 10:57
Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and likely the future of abortion access, Republican-drawn legislative maps and years of GOP policies in the key swing state rests with the outcome an election Tuesday that has seen record campaign spending.

The winner of the high-stakes contest between Republican-backed Dan Kelly and Democratic-supported Janet Protasiewicz will determine majority control of the court headed into the 2024 presidential election. The court came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s narrow win in 2020, and both sides expect another close race in 2024.

It’s the latest election where abortion rights has been the central issue since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June. It’s also an example of how officially nonpartisan court races have grown into political battles as major legal fights play out at the state level.

All of it has fueled spending that will double, and likely triple or more, the previous high of $15.4 million spent on a state court race in Illinois in 2004. Democrats have spent heavily for Protasiewicz and Republicans for Kelly.

Democrats are trying to flip control of the court, which has had a majority of conservative justices the past 15 years. That has allowed the court to uphold an array of Republican priorities, including banning absentee ballot drop boxes last year and affirming the 2011 law all-but ending collective bargaining for most public workers.


Supreme Court skeptical of man who offered adult adoptions
Top Legal News | 2023/03/28 21:43
The Supreme Court seemed inclined Monday to rule against a man convicted of violating immigration law for offering adult adoptions he falsely claimed would lead to citizenship.

Attorneys for Helaman Hansen told the justices during approximately 90 minutes of arguments that the law he was convicted of violating was too broad. But the court’s conservative majority in particular seemed willing to side with the government and conclude that it is not.

Justice Neil Gorsuch noted that the law “has been on the books for 70 years” without some of the issues Hansen’s lawyers worried about. He also expressed no sympathy for Hansen himself, who he said was “taking advantage of very vulnerable people.”

“He had every intent in the world to keep these people here to take their money with no prospect they’d ever” actually get citizenship, Gorsuch said.

The case involves a section of federal immigration law that says a person such as Hansen who “encourages or induces” a non-citizen to come to or remain in the United States illegally can be punished by up to five years in prison. That’s increased to up to 10 years if the person doing the encouraging is doing so for their own financial gain.

The federal government says that from 2012 to 2016 Hansen — who lived in Elk Grove, California, near Sacramento — deceived hundreds of non-citizens into believing that he could guarantee them a path to citizenship through adult adoption.

Based on Hansen’s promises, officials say, people either came to or stayed in the United States in violation of the law, even though Hansen knew that the adult adoptions he was arranging would not lead to citizenship. The government says at least 471 people paid him between $550 and $10,000 and that in total he collected more than $1.8 million.

Hansen was ultimately convicted of encouragement charges as well as fraud charges. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the encouragement charges and another 20 years on the fraud charges. But a federal appeals court ruled that the law on encouragement is overbroad and violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment and overturned just those convictions.

The court’s three liberal justices seemed more concerned about the reach of the law. Justice Elena Kagan asked “what happens to all the cases” where a lawyer, doctor, neighbor, friend or teacher “says to a non-citizen: ‘I really think you should stay.’” Kagan wanted to know whether those people could or would be prosecuted under the law.


Republicans invoke Soros to steer narrative on Trump probe
Attorneys News | 2023/03/22 18:57
As former President Donald Trump braces for a potential indictment related to hush money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 campaign, Republicans blasting the case as politically motivated are blaming a frequent target: George Soros.

The 92-year-old billionaire investor and philanthropist — who has been falsely accused of everything from hiring violent rioters to committing election crimes — doesn’t know and didn’t donate directly to the New York prosecutor steering the probe. But that hasn’t stopped Trump and other high-profile Republicans from accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who convened the grand jury investigating Trump, of acting on Soros’ behalf.

Trump on Monday used his Truth Social platform to misleadingly claim that Bragg “received in EXCESS OF ONE MILLION DOLLARS” from Soros. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance tweeted that the prosecutor was “bought by George Soros.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called the case a “manufactured circus by some Soros-DA.”

Experts say the claims exploit a gray area of campaign fundraising, where tenuous connections between PAC donors and the candidates who ultimately receive the funds can be unclear.

Scapegoating Soros, who is Hungarian American and Jewish, also perpetuates deep-rooted false ideas about Jewish people and immigrants to underscore the conspiracy theory that he is a shadowy villain orchestrating world events.

The misleading claims about Soros’ link to the Trump case stem from a real donation the philanthropist made in 2021. Soros gave $1 million to Color of Change PAC, a political group that ran an independent expenditure campaign to support Bragg’s district attorney run.

But Soros spokesman Michael Vachon confirmed the wealthy donor’s contribution to the PAC was not earmarked to be used for Bragg. Soros didn’t donate to Bragg’s campaign directly, and the two have never met in person, by phone or virtually, Vachon said.

Soros’ contribution to Color of Change PAC, which told The Associated Press it supports prosecutors looking to change the criminal justice system, follows a pattern for the investor, who “has made numerous contributions in support of reform-minded prosecutors across the country since 2015,” Vachon said.

Soros wrote in an op-ed in 2022 that he supports these candidates because they invest in changes he supports, including mental health programs and treating drug addiction as a disease instead of a crime. Personally and through another PAC, Soros donated about $4 million to Color of Change PAC between 2016 and 2022, Vachon said.


Court: Ukraine can try to avoid repaying $3B loan to Russia
Headline News | 2023/03/15 21:43
The U.K. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Ukraine can go to trial to try to avoid repaying $3 billion in loans it said it took under pressure from Russia in 2013 to prevent it from trying to join the European Union.

The court rejected an attempt to avoid a trial by a British company acting on Russia’s behalf to collect the loans. Ukraine said it borrowed the money while facing the threat of military force and massive illegal economic and political pressure nearly a decade before Russia invaded its neighbor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that the ruling was “another decisive victory against the aggressor.”

“The Court has ruled that Ukraine’s defense based on Russia’s threats of aggression will have a full public trial,” he tweeted. “Justice will be ours.”

The case was argued in November 2021, and the court was not asked to consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three months later.

Ukrainian authorities allege that the corrupt government of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych borrowed the money from Moscow under pressure before he was ousted in protests in February 2014, shortly before Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

After the 2014 Ukraine revolution, the country’s new government refused to repay the debt in December 2015, saying Moscow wouldn’t agree to terms already accepted by other international creditors.

The case came to British courts because London-based Law Debenture Trust Corp. had been appointed by Ukraine to represent the interests of bondholders. The company initially won a judgment to avoid trial but Ukraine appealed.

The Supreme Court rejected several of Ukraine’s legal arguments, including that its finance minister didn’t have authority to enter into the loan agreement and that Ukraine could decline payment as a countermeasure to Russia’s aggressions.

The ruling, however, said a court could consider whether the deal was void because of threats or pressure that are illegitimate under English law.

While the court noted that trade sanctions, embargoes and other economic pressures are “normal aspects of statecraft,” economic pressures could provide context to prove that Russia’s threats to destroy Ukraine caused it to issue the bonds.


Executive gets 15 months in prison in doomed nuclear project
Law Firm Business | 2023/03/06 11:52
A former executive utility who gave rosy projections on the progress of two nuclear power plants in South Carolina while they were hopelessly behind will spend 15 months in prison for the doomed project that cost ratepayers billions of dollars.

Ex-SCANA Corp. Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne apologized in court Wednesday, saying he thinks about how he let down customers, shareholders, employees, taxpayers and his family almost every day.

The two nuclear plants, which never generated a watt of power despite $9 billion of investment, were supposed to be “the crowning achievement of my life,” Byrne said. “But I failed.”

Byrne is the second SCANA executive to head to prison for the nuclear debacle. Former CEO Kevin Marsh was sentenced to two years in prison in October 2021 and released earlier in March after serving about 17 months.

Two executives at Westinghouse, which was contracted to build the reactors, are also charged. Carl Churchman, who was the company’s top official at the Fairfield County construction site at V.C. Summer, pleaded guilty to perjury and is awaiting sentencing. Former Westinghouse senior vice president Jeff Benjamin faces 16 charges. His trial is scheduled for October.

Both defense lawyers and prosecutors agreed to delay Byrne’s prison sentence until he testifies at Benjamin’s trial to make sure he is honest and helpful.

But that isn’t in doubt. Prosecutors said Byrne was the first executive to come to investigators after the project was abandoned in July 2017. His careful notes taken in every meeting of who spoke and what was said saved the government years of work unraveling the lies, prosecutor Winston Holliday said.



Mexican president lashes out at Supreme Court chief justice
Headline News | 2023/03/01 18:33
Mexico’s president lashed out Wednesday at the chief justice of the country’s Supreme Court, accusing her of promoting rulings favorable to criminal suspects.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s comments opened a new debate over the separation of powers in Mexico, at a time when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the president’s controversial cuts to election agency funding.

López Obrador has already attacked independent regulatory agencies, slammed the judiciary and cut funding for the National Electoral Institute.

The electoral dispute has led the president to feud with the press, demonstrators and the U.S. State Department. Opponents say the electoral cuts threaten Mexico’s democracy, and have appealed them to the Supreme Court.

López Obrador’s comments Wednesday opened a head-on conflict between the administration and Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña, the first woman to hold that post.

The president was angered after a judge issued an injunction striking down an arrest warrant against Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, a former governor of the northern border state of Tamaulipas, who had been accused of corruption.


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