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Your Payroll Tax Obligations
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Take a moment to think back to the day you received your first real paycheck. If you're like many of us, you may recall experiencing some shock upon noticing that the check amount was much less than your actual salary.

A quick glance at the accompanying pay stub alerted you to the fact that your employer had reduced your pay by a number of deductions, the most significant of which were probably the amounts for federal and state taxes. As you're now aware, your employer was withholding from your check the various taxes that you, as a wage earner, had to pay.

Once you become an employer, you too will have to withhold taxes from your employees' pay and to deposit the withheld amounts with the appropriate tax agencies. Furthermore, as an employer, you yourself will also have to pay certain taxes based on the amounts you pay your workers.

Together, those taxes that you're required to withhold and those that you're directly required to pay comprise your payroll taxes. They may include federal, state, and perhaps local income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, federal and state unemployment taxes, and, in some states, disability insurance taxes. And, regardless of whether you employ others, you can also expect to owe some payroll-type taxes on income that you receive from your business.

The key to controlling your payroll tax obligations is making all your payments when they're due, so you avoid getting hit with costly penalties.

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Safety In Your Workplace
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Why worry about safety? Simply because workplace accidents can destroy your business.

Thousands of Americans are killed each year in on-the-job accidents, and many more suffer work-related disabilities or contract occupational illnesses. Besides the incalculable cost of pain and grief, there are high monetary costs attached to workplace accidents. These costs can include the inability to meet your obligations to customers, wages paid to sick and disabled workers, wages paid to substitute employees, damaged equipment repair costs, insurance claims, workers' compensation, and administrative and recordkeeping costs.

In addition, the monetary penalties for failing to comply with federally mandated safety requirements alone could destroy your business. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's minimum penalty for willful violations of safety rules that could result in death or serious physical harm is $5,000, with a maximum of $70,000. (OSHA is the federal agency that enforces federal safety requirements.)

Both humanitarian desires and economic good sense have encouraged employers to create and maintain safer and healthier working conditions. Where employers have not gone far enough, employees, unions, and government agencies have applied pressure for greater efforts.

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Massachusetts Mechanics Liens
by Francine Traiger-Poor, Esq.
Law Offices of Ernest H Hyde

When you hire a contractor to do work on your home, he or she typically purchases materials for the job and hires subcontractors to do some of the work. No one would dispute that a homeowner should pay for goods or services provided to improve their home. What most homeowners don't know is that, even if you pay the contractor, if the subcontractors, workers or suppliers your contractor hires aren't paid, they can file what is called a Mechanic's Lien on your home.

A Mechanic's Lien is a claim against real estate made by someone who contributed to improvements on the real estate. If there is no Homestead on the property, a Mechanics Lien allows the party who filed the claim to force a sale of the real estate to pay the claim. The lien is recorded with the Registry of Deeds and will appear whenever there is a title search done on the property, such as when the homeowner attempts to sell or refinance.

The main contractor has a direct contract with the homeowner, so if he isn't paid, he can sue on the contract and record a mechanic's lien. But subcontractors, workers and suppliers don't have a contract with the homeowner. A problem occurs when the homeowner pays the main contractor for all or some of the work, but the main contractor doesn't pay the workers, subcontractors and materials suppliers that were hired to do portions of the job. If they are not paid, their only recourse is to file a Mechanic's Lien on the home.

A lien can result in many different problems for the homeowner. If the homeowner doesn't have a Homestead on the property, the lien holder can force a foreclosure. To avoid foreclosure, the homeowner may find herself paying twice for the same job. Until the matter is resolved, there will be a cloud on the title of the property, which can affect the homeowner's ability to borrow against, refinance, or sell the property. In Massachusetts, for a Mechanic's Lien to be valid the person filing the Mechanic's Lien must file a law suit against the homeowner as well. This means legal fees and court time for the homeowner as well.

Fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself from these liens by carefully selecting your contractor and managing your construction project. The first step, as with avoiding most legal problems, is do your homework. Investigate your main contractor before you sign a contract. Check with the Attorney General's office, the Better Business Bureau, the Board of Building Regulations and Standards, the Office of Consumer Affairs and the Chamber of Commerce to see if there are any complaints on file. If you're building from scratch, make sure your contractor is licensed with the Board of Building regulations and Standards as a construction supervisor. Hire only licensed contractors and check the contractor's license status on the State Board of Building Regulations and Standards.

Make sure your contractor hires only licensed subcontractors, and check their licenses, too. Check with your local courthouse to see if the main contractor has a history of litigation against him. Get a list of all subcontractors, laborers, and materials suppliers to be used by your main contractor and check with suppliers and workers about the payment history of the main contractor.

Always make sure to have a written contract and make sure it contains a schedule that demonstrates when specific construction activities will start and end, (such as the framing, sheet rock work, or painting) and the projected payments tied to the contract price of these activities. Make sure the contract identifies the subcontractors who will be performing these construction activities and the suppliers who are providing materials necessary for these activities.

One simple thing you can do to prevent a lien on your property is to issue joint checks. When the contractor presents a bill for materials or labor, compare it to the schedule of payments in your contract. Make sure that work was provided as described and then make out the check to both the contractor and the supplier, or the contractor and the subcontractor. Both parties will have to endorse the check, which will ensure that the subcontractors and suppliers get paid.

If a lien is placed on your home, consult an attorney immediately. There are a number of reasons a lien might be invalid; for example, the work was not completed or the supplies were not incorporated into the structure. Often, lien claims are invalid because the contractor, subcontractor or materials supplier has failed to meet the required time lines or rules for filing the claim. Remember, the best way to prevent a lien is to do your homework and carefully investigate the main contractor before the work begins.

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Carbon Monoxide Alarms
by Francine Traiger-Poor, Esq.
Law Offices of Ernest H Hyde

Another new law in Massachusetts requires the installation of a carbon monoxide alarm in every building wholly or partially occupied for residential purposes which burn fossil-fuel for heat or incorporate enclosed parking within its structure. Massachusetts General Law Chapter 148 defines the new requirements. 527 C.M.R. 31.00 et. seq. further defines the terms of the law. The law takes effect on March 31, 2006 for battery powered alarms and January 1, 2007 for hardwired alarms.

An inspection similar to that for smoke alarms will be required by the fire department prior to sale of any residence meeting that description after the dates mentioned above. Also, landlords a required to provide the alarms and make sure they are working on an annual basis by checking or replacing the batteries or checking the alarm, in the case of hardwired alarms.

The acceptable alarms must meet the following standard:
- Battery Powered NFPA 720, 5.2.3
- AC Plug-in w/Battery Backup NFPA 720, 5.2.2.6
- AC Primary Source w/ Battery Backup NFPA 720, 5.2.2
- Low Voltage or Wireless Systems NFPA 720, 5.2.4
NFPA is National Fire Protection Association.

Installation of Alarms
A single station must be installed on each level of each dwelling unit, including inhabitable portions of basements, cellars, and attics, but not including crawl spaces. When mounting a unit on a level with a sleeping area, the alarm must be within the immediate vicinity of the sleeping area, not to exceed 10 feet in any direction from any bedroom door. In the alternative to placing an alarm on each level, a unit must be placed in the area containing the fossilfuel burning equipment, and adjacent spaces, meeting the specs from UL 2034 and UL 2075 using an AC primary power source with battery backup that meets the requirements of NFPA 720, 5.2.2 or a low voltage or wireless system. Adjacent spaces are spaces immediately above or next to the area containing the fossil-fuel burning equipment.

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Melanie's Law
by Francine Traiger-Poor, Esq.
Law Offices of Ernest H Hyde

There is a new law in Massachusetts that you may have heard about but do not really understand its significance. Melanie's Law was publicized as being a law that gets tougher with repeat offenders of operating under the influence of liquor or drugs. If that is all the new law did, I could keep this article really short. Melanie's Law goes beyond the repeat offender and may even create new criminals among us, YOU!

Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 90, Section 12 has four new subsections. The first deals with the hiring of employees as motor vehicle operators who have no license to operate a motor vehicle. The operative word in the new addition is, "knowingly." The question becomes one of did you know the operator did not have a license. Further, this supposes that you check the license of an employee who is going to operate a motor vehicle, prior to hiring her. It would seem reasonable that one would check for a license in such a case. If you fail to do it now, you are facing a fine of up to $500 for the first violation and for the second violation up to $1,000 or up to 1 year in the house of correction.

Another subsection provides penalties for allowing the operation of a motor vehicle you own or have under your control by someone who is unlicensed or who has had her license suspended. In this case, however, the penalty is $500 and 1 year in the house of correction, rather than up to $500 and not up to 1 year in the house of correction.

Other changes regarding operating a motor vehicle under the influence of liquor or drugs (OUI), involve enhanced license suspensions for breath test refusal and repeat OUI offenders. To start, the prior law allowed for a fifteen day temporary license when police took the driver's license after an OUI arrest. This no longer exists. Refusal of breath tests now carry significant suspensions. On your first refusal, a 180 day loss of license is imposed. Then things get tougher. A second offender’s refusal or a refusal by a driver under the age of 21, results in a 3 year suspension, a third offender's refusal gets a 5 year suspension and a fourth timer gets a lifetime suspension, this is not an error, it is truly a lifetime suspension.

The penalties for OUI also changed. A first offender penalty stayed the same. The second offender gets not less than 60 days and not more than 2 ½ years in the house of correction. Of the 60 days, 30 days must be served. She also gets a suspended license for 2 years. This suspension is stacked on top of the suspension for refusing a breath test, if applicable.

The third time offender gets 180 days, 150 to serve, fourth gets 2 years, mandatory 1 year to serve. All repeat offenders get a new device called a ignition interlocking device. In short, the car cannot be started unless the operator blows into this device and it registers .02 percent alcohol or less. This is the equivalent to roughly one drink. Anything more than that level and the car will not start. After the vehicle starts random rolling tests will be given. Failure of two or more of these tests in a 30 day period results in a lockout or engine not starting at the next attempt and can result in a 10 year loss of license up to a lifetime loss.

The legislature put real teeth in this law after many significant changes over the years. Beware!

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Basic Bankruptcy Overview
By Thomas A. Gibbons, Attorney at Law and Chamber Corporate Gold Sponsor

What do you think of when you hear the word bankruptcy? To some debtors who are burdened with such high debt that they have to choose between paying credit card debts and paying for food and rent, the word brings to mind a life preserver, to some lenders and collection agencies, bankruptcy is a dirty word that they hope not to hear,

In actuality, bankruptcy is something that can benefit both debtors and creditors in situations where a debtor is so far in debt, that only the order brought by the bankruptcy laws can put a defaulting debtor and a collecting creditor back on track to a final resolution of a bad situation. The catch phrase used to sum up the purpose and goal of bankruptcy is "fresh start".

For a number of reasons, including health, family or professional difficulties, and/or bad financial decision making, some people find themselves in such financial difficulty that there proceeding any further against the debtor on most matters, without first seeking relief from the Bankruptcy Court. In practice, this means creditors cannot start or continue collection activities, landlords cannot start or continue eviction proceedings, and mortgage holders cannot start or continue foreclosure proceedings, without seeking the permission of the Bankruptcy Court. The automatic stay brings the order mentioned earlier to the debtor's situation.

The debtor is given the breathing room he of she has been lacking for some time, and the creditors are given the comfort of knowing that if there is any money to be distributed to creditors, they will get a portion of it without trying to beat all other creditors to the funds. Creditors will be required, however, to file a proof of claim setting forth the amount owed to them and identifying whether the debt is secured, unsecured, or entitled to some priority.

Upon the filing of the petition, a Bankruptcy Trustee is appointed by the U.S. Trustee's office, and a meeting of creditors is scheduled. The Trustee is responsible for conducting the meeting of creditors, also referred to as the 341meeting, which is a reference to the section of the Bankruptcy Code, which provides for the meeting.

The Trustee is responsible for making a determination of whether or not there is property of the debtor available for distribution to the creditors. If there is any property the Trustee liquidates those assets and distributes the proceeds to creditors in accordance with the priorities set forth in the Bankruptcy Code. If there are any funds to be distributed amongst the unsecured creditors that distribution will be made in equal proportions to the amount owed each unsecured creditor.

Upon completion of the Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, the debtor receives a discharge of all dischargeable debts, and is allowed to keep all assets that were claimed exempt as allowed by the Bankruptcy Code. As to secured creditors, the debtor must either reaffirm the debt, redeem the secured proper, or surrender the secured property.

To reaffirm the debt, the debtor and the secured creditor must file a reaffirmation agreement with the Bankruptcy Court. The reaffirmation agreement sets forth either the terms of the contract prior to the bankruptcy filing, or new terms, either of which will obligate the debtor to repayment terms which mil be enforceable after the discharge is granted.

The debtor also has the right to redeem the property by making a lump sum payment to the creditor and thereby is able to keep the secured property. Lastly, the debtor may surrender the secured property to the secured creditor and receive a discharge for any deficiency remaining after the secured creditor liquidates the property. Chapter 13 is used where the debtor has sufficient income to pay creditors some, but not all that is owed over a period of time not to exceed 60 months.

There are many similarities between the process of a Chapter 13 and a Chapter 7. A Chapter 13 is commenced by the filing of a petition by the debtor, which once filed activates the automatic stay provisions discussed earlier. A Chapter 13 Trustee is appointed and a 341 meeting is held. As in a Chapter 7 case, creditors in a Chapter 13 case must file a proof of claim. The biggest difference between the two chapters however, is that in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, a plan for repayment is established, which, if followed through to completion, will result in the creditors receiving a portion of the debt owed to them, and the debtor receiving a discharge for the remainder of the debt. In addition, the debtor generally gets to keep all of his or her assets.

Having set forth this very general and brief overview of Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy, it is hoped that what mil be gained from the reading of this article is that the filing of a bankruptcy is not necessarily the worst thing that can happen to either a debtor or his or her creditors. It is very important, however, that whether you are a debtor or a creditor, your interests are represented in the bankruptcy proceeding by legal counsel familiar with the Bankruptcy Code and procedure.

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Practical Pitfalls
By Attorney Nancy Catalini Chew, Law Offices of Nancy Catalini Chew

As an estate planning attorney, I counsel my clients about how best to protect their assets and achieve their goals in the event of the incapacity or death of themselves or a loved one. For my elder law clientele, we add the layer of discussing how long-term care needs will impact those assets and estate goals. In virtually every consultation I have, certain issues invariably arise which provide my clients with what Oprah Winfrey likes to call "A-ha moments". I have come to call them "practical pitfalls" because they are relevant and obvious for most people in normal circumstances, but remain dormant unless and until legal or financial professionals specializing in these areas are consulted. I would like to share a few key examples with you, but please keep in mind that these are very general in their explanation herein below and do not attempt to provide specific legal advice for any individual scenarios:

Most people with minor children (i.e., under age 18 in Massachusetts) do not realize how easily their children could fall into the DSS system. Specifically, if you are in an accident or you die, rendering you incapable of the daily care of those children, they could very easily be placed in DSS, even if you have a Guardian nominated in your Will. Why? Well, if you are only injured, your Will is not invoked, and if you are not competent to name a temporary guardian due to your impairment, the Court will not infer an agent into that situation. Accordingly, the children would become part of the DSS system. Even if you do pass away, invoking your Will, the Guardians named therein take approximately 60 days to be made permanent by the Court-assuming no other family members contest, which would lengthen that timeframe-during which time someone needs to have care and custody. How do you eliminate this possible interference by DSS? Execute a "Massachusetts Emergency Guardianship Proxy" with your attorney to name temporary guardians, thereby providing you with the peace-of-mind of knowing that an agent of your personal choosing will have custody of your minor children in these situations.

Another "practical pitfall" arises when married couples assume that by holding their assets jointly they have avoided all future legal issues. Although it is true that your spouse's death would render you the sole legal owner of a jointly-held asset (such as your home) without probate, which is advantageous, incapacity of your spouse leaves you owning one-half of a house. The other one-half is legally "frozen" by the inability of your spouse to act in his or her own behalf. The easiest and most effective way to avoid this problem is to execute a comprehensive, detailed, and well-drafted "General Durable Power of Attorney". This document allows you to name agents (including your spouse) to manage your assets in the event of your incapacity. To overlook this document leaves you exposed to Court action, which is not to your advantage. Once executed, it should be updated every three or four years to avoid it being rejected as too old.

A final example for thought and edification is for non-married couples (co-habitating opposite and same-sex couples) as well as relationships involving non-mutual children. To fail to execute and keep current legal documents in these situations is utter folly for all involved. If there are children involved with non-married parents or where only one of the couple is the legal parent, custody and financial obligations are inherently problematic. In addition, there are no imputed legal rights between non-married couples, and none of the protections offered thereby are in place unless specifically invoked by legal documents. Medical decision-making, financial authority, burial plans, organ donation post-mortem, taxes and benefits…the list is lengthy and extensive in scope and magnitude. It is absolutely imperative that if you are in one of these situations you review with counsel all of the possible ramifications and plan for them. Too many people ignore these issues until they begin to play-out, at which time it is too late for proactive steps and there are always unpleasant surprises.

In short, if you are operating under the all-too-common misconception that the law somehow will provide for your family's needs in resolving the above-mentioned issues when they arise, and that you need not be proactive to protect and preserve your goals and desires, please know that this is NOT the case. The law is there to protect you, but where it remains silent-such as with respect to the examples listed above-no clear and easy answer surfaces to magically capture your wishes. In fact, it really foretells lengthy and expensive legal action in civil court. The best way to avoid all of this is to educate yourself, meet with a competent specialist, and (à la the famous slogan) just do it!

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A Long Ride To Court
By Attorney Christopher T. Lilly
President, Northern Middlesex Bar Association

The ability of our local residents to access the Probate Court in Middlesex County has become more limited. Recently, the Middlesex Probate and Family Court announced that it will cut back on sessions it will be holding in its satellite locations in Concord, Marlborough and Lowell. Henceforth, only eight sessions per month will be held in Concord and in Marlborough; the Probate Court in Lowell will be sitting every other Friday. Many local attorneys look at this development as a major step toward an eventual closing of the satellite sessions.

Traditionally, the satellite sessions have provided a convenient venue for litigants and attorneys to have matters heard closer to home. All matters are filed at the main courthouse in Cambridge. However, hearings and other aspects of a case would be scheduled in Concord, or Lowell or Marlborough by request or based upon the residence of the litigant. For residents in northern and western Middlesex County, the satellite sessions provided meaningful and expedient access to the Probate Court, enabling such residents to redress grievances in the morning and still salvage a portion of their workday.

By contrast, the Cambridge Probate Courthouse has been compared to the emergency ward of a major hospital. Litigants appearing to seek resolution of an issue will normally find themselves spending the majority of the day in court by the time they check in, see family services, draft the appropriate documents and finally get before the judge. The waiting around is usually the worst part.

Cambridge sits at the far eastern end of Middlesex County in the midst of a more concentrated population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Middlesex County has a total area of 848 square miles. As of the year 2000, the county had a population of 1,465,396 people, 561,220 households, and 360,864 families. The County government was abolished in 1997.

According to Mapquest.com, a trip to the Cambridge Courthouse from the town hall in Ashby will run about one hour and seventeen minutes. However, anyone negotiating route 2 (and the Concord Rotary) during morning rush hour, in order to be in Cambridge for 9:00 a.m., knows to add at least another hour to that time for traffic.

Historically, Judge Edward M. Ginsburg sat almost exclusively in Concord. During his tenure, the Concord Probate Court calendar was run efficiently and effectively. As a single judge presiding over the entirety (frequently) of the numerous cases that went through the system, Judge Ginsburg was able to keep track of the cases, litigants and lawyers. Deadlines and rules were enforced, and justice was administered consistently. The consistency and predictability of the Judge's decisions were a benefit to attorneys practicing before him. Judge Ginsburg retired in the fall of 2002. Although judges filled the position left by his vacancy, the Ginsburg System was ultimately undone by the individual calendar System.

In January 2004, the Middlesex Probate Court implemented the individual calendar system, as a means of enabling judges to keep better track of the cases and litigants appearing before them. Too frequently, under the old system, parties to a complex divorce would appear before one judge for one aspect of a case (usually in Cambridge) and, at a subsequent appearance, would have to reorient another judge to the intricacies of the situation or the complexities of some of the issues. The individual calendar system, it was believed, would create accountability between the judges and the parties and their attorneys. A judge would be assigned the case as soon as it was filed; that judge would then hear every aspect of the case. As a consequence, the judge would be better able to track the progress of the case and the situation of the parties. Forum shopping would be discouraged, and the parties could expect the consistency and predictability of a single judge handling all aspects of their case. Ironically, this was the kind of accountability with cases that had been practiced in Concord with the Ginsburg System.

A problem quickly surfaced, particularly for those of us at this end of the county: the parties had to chase after the assigned judge to have the matter heard. Although judges rotated through the satellite sessions, their appearances in those sessions were few and far between, approximately one week out of every eight weeks in a given session. More likely than not, the parties would have to schedule a matter in Cambridge to have the matter heard more expeditiously. As a result, the satellite sessions have become underutilized. They have been labeled "inefficient," in that those matters which are scheduled in the satellites are sometimes insufficient to occupy the Court for the entire day. The cutting back of those sessions is the result.

Judge Robert W. Langlois was appointed Acting First Justice of the Middlesex Probate and Family Court in late 2004. Judge Langlois has made it his mission to make the Probate Court more efficient. The Judge has identified certain problems within the Court's operation and has endeavored to correct, or at least address those problems. He has begun work with Register of Probate, John R. Buonomo, to make the court more user-friendly and to address such issues as missing files and lost mail.

Further, the Court has instituted other changes designed to move cases more quickly through the system. Scheduling will become more efficient with the appointment of scheduling clerks for each judge. Every case coming before a judge on a motion or a review will receive a return date. The intent is to move the case more quickly to trial and, consequently, to foster speedier resolutions. Pretrial conferences will be staggered at different times throughout the day, rather than scheduled all together at 9 a.m., allowing more individualized attention to each case and easing the scheduling demands of the parties and lawyers.

However, one of the problems identified by Judge Langlois is the inefficiency perceived in the satellite sessions. According to Judge Langlois, the satellite sessions are being grossly underutilized and judges have not had enough work to provide a full daily workload. This is a waste of judicial resources. Consequently, on January 31, 2005, Judge Langlois published a reduced schedule for the Concord and Marlborough sessions, cutting back each session to eight days per month. During each of those dates, a different judge will sit in that session. Original complaints for contempt will be returnable to Cambridge only, but subsequent dates, such as review dates or continuances, can be scheduled in the satellite sessions. Further, certain uncontested matters can be scheduled before any judge in any session upon request.

For those of us in the northern and western part of the county, this amounts to a great curtailing of access to the Court. A good deal of the fault, everyone seems to agree, lies with the individual calendar system. In fact, the cutbacks can be said to formalize what has already come to exist as a natural consequence of the individual calendar system: fewer matters are being scheduled in the satellite sessions. Because a particular judge would not be scheduled to sit in Concord or Marlborough for a significant time and an earlier date would be available in Cambridge, parties frequently chose the earlier date. As a consequence, the Concord and Marlborough sessions had already become less accessible.

However, if we want the satellite sessions to continue, we need to use them. The use of these sessions is clearly being monitored, and we cannot let our access to these sessions slip further away. We have an opportunity to show that we truly want these sessions to continue by requesting that our matters be heard there whenever possible. We need to utilize the sessions now more than ever.

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FMLA and Maternity Leave
By Scott A Lathrop
Scott A Lathrop & Associates, Groton

A few years ago Congress, with much fanfare, passed a law called the Family and Medical Leave Act. This law was touted as guaranteeing to certain employee leaves of absences for the birth or placement of a child, or because of the serious health condition of the employee, the employee's spouse, child or parent. This law was envisioned as a break-through law. However, from the employee point of view, it has its limitations, including the fact that it only applies to employers with 50 or more employees.

Massachusetts on the other hand, being the state that it is, has uniquely provided for maternity leaves for many years. Massachusetts employers with six or more employees must provide an eight week maternity leave to female employees for the purpose of giving birth or adopting a child under the age of 18 (or under the age of 23 if the child is mentally or physically disabled.)

To be eligible for the leave the employee must:

1. have completed her probationary period, or if there is no probationary period, must have worked full time for at least three consecutive months;
2. must give at least two weeks' notice to her employer of her anticipated date of departure and intention to return.

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Dividing Marital Property
By Francine Traiger Poor
Borrowed from Ernest H. Hyde,
Law Offices of Ernest H. Hyde, Shirley

Almost everything you and your spouse acquire during and, perhaps, before your marriage, is marital property. This includes the family home, cars, and furnishings as well as retirement accounts, pension and profit sharing plans. Since Massachusetts is an “equitable distribution” state, property acquired during the marriage is jointly owned by both spouses and, instead of a strict fifty-fifty split of the marital property, the courts will look at the financial situation that each spouse will be in after the marriage ends. This means that the judge can do whatever he or she thinks is fair. For example, the judge can order that the home not be sold so a spouse and children may live there for a period of time or that the home (or other property) be sold and the cash divided between the parties.

There are certain factors the court must consider when dividing marital assets. These are:

• The length of the marriage
• The conduct of the parties (such as adultery or abuse).
• The age, health, status, occupation, and amount and sources of income of both parties.
• The skills and employability of each party.
• The amount of assets and debts of each party.
• The needs of each party
• The opportunities of each party for future income or inheritances
• The needs of the children.

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Holiday Shopping - What You Should Know

By Francine Traiger Poor
Borrowed from Ernest H. Hyde,
Law Offices of Ernest H. Hyde, Shirley

You may contact Attorney Hyde at 978-425-0005 or ehyde@erniehyde.com.

If you do your shopping in Massachusetts for the holidays, you should be aware of some simple but important rights you have as a consumer. It may go without saying that items you purchase should be clearly marked with their price. The price need not necessarily be on the item itself, but should be near it or should in some other clear way indicate its price. Whether the price is on the item or not, be sure to check your cash register tapes after buying the gift but before leaving the store. The computerized registers are not always updated with the proper pricing information which can cost you more than you expected to pay.

Know what your rights are relative to returns, refunds and cancellations. When shopping for Christmas gifts, be sure that you understand the store’s return and refund policy. By law, the store must clearly and conspicuously disclose to you, prior to consummation of a transaction, the exact nature and extent of the store’s refund, return or cancellation policy. If they fail to so inform you or they do not perform any promises made to you regarding their policy or they misrepresent their policy in some way, they are subject to three times the amount of your damages under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 93A, since the attorney general has determined these failures to be deceptive practices.

You will typically find that the store has posted a large sign at their sale register or their customer service desk or some other conspicuous place in the store, stating their return and refund policy. If you do not see such a poster, ask the clerk to explain the policy to you prior to purchasing the goods. It could save you time and money in the future should you want to return the goods for a refund. It is best to know the policy rather than be surprised at a later date or be required to file a small claims complaint to get your refund.

Lastly, manage your credit cards. Some credit card companies are charging as much a 26.99% interest on outstanding balances. Using this kind of credit sort of defeats the purpose of all your efforts in finding a bargain. If you find a bargain of, say, 20% off the regular price and then pay the minimum payment each month on the credit card, you may pay a lot more for the gift than you intended.

Generally speaking, if you cannot pay the full balance of your credit card each month when you receive it, you probably cannot afford the gifts you are buying. Save yourself the trouble of filing for bankruptcy or putting up with annoying phone calls from the credit card company or collection agencies by spending only what you can afford.

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Hiring a Lawyer: Remember to do your homework

by Beth Gaudio
NFIB Legal Foundation

Although no one likes to think about it, in the course of your business, there probably will come a time when you will need the assistance of a lawyer. Whether it is for a complex contract or a real estate deal, hiring a lawyer can be a complicated process that leads to many questions. The answers to the questions below will assist you in hiring a lawyer that best represents your needs.

Question:
Where can I find a lawyer?

Answer:
There are several places you can look to find legal counsel to help you with your problem.

• State and county bar associations are good places to look for a lawyer. They can help you identify the names of lawyers who specialize in the area of law in which you need assistance. They can also let you know if the lawyer has been the subject of an ethical complaint or inquiry. A listing of state bar associations may be found at bestcase.com/statebar.htm.
• The Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory lists lawyers by state and city and provides summaries of their education and areas of practice.
• Lawyer referral services are another commonly used resource. These services will connect you with a lawyer who specializes in your problem for a small fee, usually around $30. You can find these services in the yellow pages under “Attorney Referral Services,” “Attorneys” or “Lawyers.”
• Word of mouth is also a valuable resource. Some of the best referrals come from friends, fellow business owners, colleagues or family. Talk to people who have used lawyers recently, and if you know any lawyers, talk to them also.