While there are law firms and lawyers around that can help you to deal with any legal issues you might run into, it still helps to have a working understanding of certain basic legal terms and services. This article aims to highlight some of the most basic and important aspects of legal information that you will probably need to know.
Why You Should Consider Hiring A Law Firm
The law is incredibly complicated and the legal system even more so, which means that understanding either is going to be an incredibly difficult and involved task. Fortunately, individuals like lawyers have gone through the effort to learn exactly how the legal system works so that you don’t have to. By hiring the services of a legal firm, you can benefit from years of experience with the legal system without having to actually dedicate that time to it.
Legal Terms to Know
If you are still on the fence about hiring a legal firm to help you understand what you need to about the law, then there are some legal terms that you should probably know so that you aren’t completely clueless about the law.
Bail. This is the amount of money set to release a defendant from jail in the lead-up to their court date. The payment of bail constitutes a promise that the defendant will return to court when called to, and if the defendant fails to reappear, they lose their right to request a refund for their bail.
Misdemeanor. This is a lesser crime that is usually punishable by fines or jail time.
Felony. This is a severe crime that is usually met with extreme punishment. Most felonies involve violence in some capacity, and they are broken into four levels of severity, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, and capital. Although, capital felonies are only received in certain states.
Plea. Your plea refers to whether or not you claim responsibility for a charge against you. There are three ways you can respond: guilty, not guilty, and no contest.
Legal Services and Processes to Understand
Finally, much like the legal terms outlined, several legal services and processes are useful to know about, a handful of which are outlined for you here.
Probate. This is the process of caring for and distributing an individual’s belongings after they die. You might wonder, given the existence of a will, what is the purpose of probate? Primarily, probating a will serves to protect an individual’s belonging until their will can be found or their belonging appropriately distributed.
State Laws. These are laws that have been signed into law by the state governor and refer to laws that apply specifically to that state and that state only. These do not supersede the authority of federal law but serve to implement additional caveats to a law that are not included specifically in federal law.
Federal Law. On the other hand, federal law refers to laws that blanket the entire USA. These cannot be overwritten by state laws and must be followed.
