A living trust can help you reduce your estate tax liability to Uncle Sam. To see how this tax reduction works, lets examine the following hypothetical case:

Client Family has an estate of $4 million. The husband dies in 2006, leaving his entire estate to his Wife.

Under the 2006 tax rate, each spouse is entitled to an exemption of $2 million (known as Unified Credit Amount), which is not subject to Federal Estate Tax. Any amount over $2 million is subject to taxation at a rate up to a maximum of 46%.

According to the current law, here is the likely scenario without a Living Trust. The husband is able to transfer his entire estate to his wife, and pay no taxes at his death. This transfer is referred to as the Unlimited Marital Deduction, and it allows the husband, upon his death, to transfer any amount to his wife, free from estate tax.

That sounds like a pretty good deal, until you learn why Uncle Sam supports it. Uncle Sam knows that he is not giving up his right to collect the Estate Tax, but merely postponing it. By postponing it, Uncle Sam can collect a higher rate of taxes than he can by taking it immediately because both spouses did not use their exemption.

The husband has transferred his entire estate to his wife, and she now has an estate of $4 million. When the wife dies, Uncle Sam will allow her to use her $2 million tax exemption, but the remainder is taxed up to a maximum rate of 46%.

The result is that the wife will pay nearly $900,000 in estate tax on the $2 million of her estate that is not excluded from the estate tax.

Why will the wife have to pay nearly a million dollars in estate taxes?

Remember that the $2 million exclusion is allocated to each spouse. When the husband died, he did not use his exemption, and therefore, it was not available to help his wife upon her death.

The Unified Credit is a use it or lose it tax exemption. If you fail to use it at the first spouses death, it is gone forever. Fortunately, this outcome can be avoided through some basic estate planning.

Lets examine what happens if Client Family has a Living Trust. At the husbands death, $2 million passes outright to his wife in the Marital trust. $2 million passes to a Bypass Trust. In this scenario, both Unified Credit exemptions are used. The wifes $2 million exemption is applied against the Marital trust, and her husbands $2 million exemption is applied against the Bypass Trust.

The result?

Client Family passes on $4 million to their children, and the children pay no estate tax. For the price of a Living Trust, Client Family saved nearly a million dollars in estate taxes.

Which result do you prefer for your family?

Erik Fraker, Esq., is an estate planning attorney and managing partner of Ainer & Fraker, L.L.P., a Silicon Valley-based law firm specializing in estate planning, small business law and tax. The firm's web site is at http://www.estatesattorney.com.

Featured by Resources For Attorneys

Intellectual Property (often just called IP) is a general term covering patents, trademarks, designs, copyrights, geographical indications and in some countries the concept of "unfair competition". It is, as the name suggests, the intangible personal property arising from intellectual creation. Since intangible, owner of intellectual property cannot build a fence around it as with real estate or place it in a bank locker as with valuables. To address the situation, governments have created a variety of forms of intellectual property protection. Types of Intellectual Property Protection Some of the more common types of intellectual property protection are Patents, Trade Marks, Designs, Copyrights and Geographical Indications.

Patents are by far the most technically demanding branches of intellectual property. In basic terms, a patent is a monopoly right granted by the government to a person who has invented a new useful articles or an improvement of an article or a new process of making an article. It is a negative right, granted to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention within a certain jurisdiction for a limited period of time. A patent granted by a patent office is applicable within the geographical boundaries of that country only. There is no International or World Patent. An inventor has to file an application in each country, where he seeks to protect his invention. There are regional and/or International treaties to facilitate the procedure to seek protection like the European Patent Organization (EPO) and the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT). Trade Marks popularly known as brand name, is an identification symbol which may be a word, a device, a label or numeral etc. or a combination of word and design, a slogan or even a distinctive sound, which identifies and distinguishes the goods or services of one party from those of another. Used to identify a service, it can be called a Service Mark. In general, the term trademark can be used to refer to both trademarks and service marks. Normally, a trademark for goods is the word or design that appears on the product or on its packaging, while a service mark is usually the word or design that is used in advertising to identify the source or provider of the services. Registration of a trademark is not mandatory, but does confer very substantial commercial benefits. When taking legal action against others, registered trademark users need only base their case on the registration, whereas users of unregistered trademarks must rely exclusively on passing off for protection. Suing for infringement of a trademark is much simpler than launching a common law action for passing off to protect any unregistered trade mark. The Concept of 'passing off ' is common law remedy and it is available for a trademark or a trade name on the basis of 'prior user' status. Designs means only features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament applied to any article by any industrial process or means, whether manual, mechanical or chemical, separate or combined, which in the finished article appeal to and are judged solely by the eye, but does not include any mode or principle of construction or anything with is in substance a mere mechanical device, and does include any trade mark. A design in order to be registrable must be new or original not previously published.

Copyrights protect the tangible expression of ideas. Copyright protection attaches when the creator puts pen to paper and creates a tangible expression of the idea. A copyright can be used to protect original works of authorship that are fixed in any tangible medium of expression. Thus, literary works, music, sound recordings, architectural and engineering drawings, pictures, photographs, paintings, and computer software are amenable to copyright protection. A copyright protects how the subject matter is expressed, not the idea itself or how the described subject matter functions. The subject matter must be "novel" to the extent that it must not have already been placed in the public domain and, thus, dedicated to the public.

Geographical Indications is a sign used which refers to goods emanating from a specific country or to a place situated therein as being the place of origin of those goods. Typically, such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness that is essentially attributable to the original place of production. Geographical Indications are similar to trademarks in that they function as source indicators. However, there is clear distinction lies in the fact that while a trademark identifies a good or service as originating from a particular producer, a geographical indication identifies the specific place from where the goods originates.

By: P.M.George Kutty
Registered Patent attorney www.pmgip.com. Has 15 combined years of experience in the fields of Intellectual Property and Commercial Law.

Furnished by legal resources from Resources For Attorneys.

If you are ever arrested for drunk driving also called DUI for "driving under the influence" or DWI for "driving while intoxicated", your experience will begin with an officer stopping you because of some questionable driving pattern, or possibly because you encountered a DUI "sobriety checkpoint" or you were involved in an accident. The officer will approach your car and ask some questions. You will then be asked to perform "field sobriety tests". He may also ask you to breath into a handheld device, technically called a PBT or "preliminary breath test". You will then be arrested. On the way to the police station, you will be asked to submit to a breath or blood test -- and told that if you don't, your driver's license will be suspended.

What should you do and say during all of this to minimize the risk of a criminal conviction and a license suspension?

1. Politely decline to answer any questions without an attorney present. It is a cardinal rule in legal circles that only incriminating statements are included in police reports and later testified to in court; statements pointing to innocence are invariably ignored, forgotten or misinterpreted. Bluntly put, whatever you say will almost never help you and can only hurt you.

2. Decline to take any so-called field sobriety tests. These are theoretically intended to determine impairment, but in fact are designed for failure. In most cases, the officer has already made the decision to arrest and is simply going through the motions and gathering further evidence to bolster his case he is the one who decides whether you "pass" or "fail". In almost all states, you are not required to submit to this "testing". It's unlikely that taking it will change the officer's decision to arrest.

3. Decline to take a "PBT" (preliminary breath test). These handheld units are carried by officers in the field to help decide whether to arrest or not and are notoriously inaccurate. In most states, drivers are not required to submit to these tests (in some they are required if you are under 21). Although most states admit the results of these tests into evidence only to show the presence of alcohol, some permit them to prove the actual blood-alcohol level.

4. Do you choose blood, breath -- or refuse to take any chemical test? This is a case-by-case decision, and involves a number of considerations. First, although blood tests are subject to many possible errors, they are generally more accurate than so-called "breathalyzers"; if you feel your blood-alcohol level is below .08%, then you might want to choose the blood test. Secondly, whether to submit to testing at all requires some knowledge of your state's laws -- specifically, the consequences of refusing. If the increased criminal penalty and license suspension do not outweigh the possible benefit of depriving the prosecution of blood-alcohol evidence, then you may wish to refuse. Bear in mind that the prosecution will charge you with two offenses, DUI and driving with over .08% blood-alcohol; without a blood or breath test, he cannot prove the .08% charge, and there will be no chemical evidence to corroborate the officer's testimony. You should also realize that in many states chemical evidence of a very high blood-alcohol level, say over .15%, can trigger more severe penalties.

5. In almost all states, your driver's license will be immediately suspended if either (1) the chemical tests results are .08% or higher, or (2) you refuse to submit to testing. You have a right to a hearing to contest this administrative suspension, and there are many possible defenses, many of them technical in nature. This hearing is usually separate from the criminal proceedings, and involve different procedures and issues than in court; it is not uncommon to lose the criminal case but win the suspension hearing. However, as most motor vehicle departments do not really want the time and expense of providing these hearings, they tend to provide notice of the right buried in fine print given to arrestees. The critical information is the requirement that an actual demand for the hearing must be made by the arrestee -- usually within ten calendar days. If you do not contact the DMV within ten days, you lose all rights to a hearing -- no matter how good a defense you may have. Tip #5: Get an attorney right away, or make the call yourself -- and make sure you can later prove you made the call within the ten day window!

Lawrence Taylor is a former prosecutor, Fulbright professor of law, and author of the standard legal textbook, "Drunk Driving Defense, 5th Edition". He heads an 8-attorney DUI defense law firm in Los Angeles.

Lawrence Taylor is a former prosecutor, Fulbright professor of law, and author of the standard legal textbook, "Drunk Driving Defense, 5th Edition". He heads an 8-attorney Los Angeles DUI defense law firm.

Courtesy of Resources For Attorneys, a legal resources and lifestyles directory.

In civil court matters, a process server is someone who serves or delivers legal documents, ie. subpeonas, summonses, court orders, various legal notices and in some cases writs. Process servers normally fall into one of four (4) categories:

1. Registered or licensed process servers: In most states, process servers are registered by their county. In some states, like California a process server, once registered in one county can serve papers in any other county within that state. In some other states a process server can only serve papers in the county in which he or she is registered. Most, but not all counties, when registering a process server require the applicant to be bonded or insured.

2. Private detectives and investigators: In most states private detectives and investigators are licensed by the state and exempt from registering as process servers. They and anyone in their employ can serve legal process and when doing so are considered officers of the court.

3. Sheriffs, Marshals and Constables: Sworn peace officers.

4. Non registered or licensed individuals: Friends, relatives and others.

In many states as in California a non registered individual may serve up to ten (10) legal documents each year provided that individual is not a party to the action at hand. ie: a plaintiff or defendant, etc.. When the service of the paper has been completed the server must sign an affidavit that the paper was served properly. That affidavit must usually be signed under penalty of perjury.

It is not usually a good idea to have a non professional serve process. They do not normally know the laws and rules involved in process serving nor do they usually know how to fill out a proper proof of service. Either of these can cause a service to be declared invalid and possibly cause you to lose the case or at the least force you to start over. Additionally many people attempt to evade service and a professional has a better chance of completing service. Finally, process serving can be very dangerous. Many people get very angry when served and attempt to take it out on the process server. Over the years I have had many servers beat up and attacked with knives or clubs or hit with thrown rocks. I have had several servers that were non fatal victims of vehicular attacks and three servers that were shot, several more were shot at but not hit.

At one time, Sheriffs, Marshals and Constables were considered good choices for serving papers, however that is not now usually the case. Most Marshals no longer serve papers and many Sheriffs and Constables are so busy doing other things that your papers may sit for weeks or longer before or if they are taken out for service. Additionally, many people, when the see a Marshal's or Sheriff's uniform, just do not answer their door. The Sheriff or Marshal walks away and the papers are returned unserved.

Licensed private detectives and investigators can sometimes make the best servers, however not all of them serve papers and many believe that since they are "big shot" investigators they should charge far more than registered process servers. Others serve so few papers that they sometimes "make a mountain out of a molehill" and turn a fairly easy service into a difficult one. Other investigators turn every service into an investigation in order to run up billable hours. Then again, if you find a good detective agency, they will have numerous service assignments and investigators that can serve papers fast and efficiently for a reasonable fee.

Most licensed investigators can be trusted to be honest about the papers they serve. It is not easy to obtain a license and if they get caught commiting perjury by saying they served a paper when they did not or if they get caught billing a client for work that was not done, they can lose their license. If they lose their license they are out of business as they usually can not get a license reinstated. Additionally, in most states, complaints can be filed against a licensee and those complaints are investigated. Prospective clients can contact the state licensing board and obtain a record of adjudicated complaints.

Registered process servers usually know the laws and rules and for the most part are honest and hard workers. In most counties it is, however, easy to register and there is usually no licensing body to keep an eye on them. Therefore, if the registration is revoked the server can usually get a friend or relative to register and then the server can list himself or herself as an independant contractor working for the new registrant. Also there is no experience required in order to register. Finally there is usually no place where a prospective client can check for or file a complaint against a registrant. The only recourse a client usually has against a registered process server is to file a law suit against the party and then if a judgment is obtained to go against the registrants bond. Note, however that not all registering counties or states require a bond and those that do usually require a bond of $2000.00 or less.

When searching for a process server take care. Do not choose just anyone. Never use a friend or relative. If you find a server over the internet do not just go by the looks of the web site. A person can be a poor web site designer and a good server or vice versa. Call the server and ask questions based on the foregoing information in this article. If the server refuses to speak with you do not use his or her services. If the server is a licensed investigator check out the license. Contact the Better Business Bureau and see if they have any information. Try not to use a one person operation as he or she may not be able to keep up with the workload or may be forced to charge high fees in order to make up for a lack of steady business.

When making your choice do not go by price. Expensive servers are not necessarily the best just as inexpensive servers are not necessarily the worst. Hallstrom Detective Agency was considered to have one of the best process serving divisions in the United States, yet we charged less than almost any other service in the country. Ask about addirtional fees. Many companies quote a low initial fee and then tack on a fortune in incidental fees.

For links to directories listing process servers, private investigators, detective agencies, court reporters, people finders and more, offered for attorneys and other legal practitioners visit http://services.resourcesforattorneys.com a directory of directories listing links to services of use to the legal profession.

The foregoing information is not given as legal advice. It is instead given as information and opinion gathered and developed through experience over the last thirty years. David G. Hallstrom, Sr. is the owner of Hallstrom Detective Agency and although the agency no longer offers process serving services, it has, through it's servers, completed service of several hundred thousand legal documents. Although the author believes the information to be accurate no guarantee is made or implied.

David G. Hallstrom, Sr.
Legal resources from Resources For Attorneys.