Can I sue an Attorney for Fraud?
Posted August 27th, 2019.
Categories: Legal Malpractice, The Calculating Lawyer.
When you hire an attorney, you are trusting him or her with your financial and legal affairs. Attorneys must ensure all private information remains private, as well as speak with their clients in an open, honest manner. When an attorney abuses this trust and either lies or breaches his or her duty of care, there […]
Read MoreA Negotiating Tool for Your Divorce Case: The Debt-to-Asset Ratio
Posted August 23rd, 2016.
Categories: Divorce, Family Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
In considering a spouse’s entitlement to support or an award of counsel fees, courts generally examine a number of factors, such as the richer spouse’s ability to pay, the dependent spouse’s financial need, the parties’ access to other financial resources and liquid assets, and whether they each exercised good faith or bad faith in the […]
Read MoreI Can’t Pay My Bills! Which Spouse Is REALLY In the Better Financial Position?
Posted July 26th, 2016.
Categories: Family Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
Husband and Wife have split up. Now they’re living in two households. And each of them is complaining that they don’t have enough money to pay their bills. Molly, the wife, wants alimony because she cannot pay her rent or her credit card bills in order to sustain her marital lifestyle. Henry, her husband, says […]
Read MoreI’ve Been Rear-Ended! How Fast Was That Other Car Going? Here’s the Formula.
Posted July 25th, 2016.
Categories: Personal Injury, The Calculating Lawyer.
So you’re sitting there in your car at the stop sign, obeying the law, and then….whack! You’ve been rear-ended by another driver who was texting his friend about tonight’s important gathering at the local pub. Upon impact, your car careens across the intersection. How fast was the other driver going? Here’s how to figure that out. […]
Read MoreAlimony: How Much Can I Pay Now To Buy My Way Out of It Forever?
Posted July 20th, 2016.
Categories: Family Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
Oh no! The ugly “A” word —Alimony. It may be tax-deductible to the party paying it, and taxable to the party receiving it, but it’s controversial nevertheless. The spouse who is obligated to pay alimony often objects to the process of writing weekly or monthly checks to his ex-spouse, especially if his own financial situation […]
Read MoreDamages for Interfering With Your Real Property Rights. What’s It Worth?
Posted July 13th, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
When you’ve suffered damages to your real estate involving an income-producing property, it is sometimes difficult to determine exactly how much money you’ve lost. In fact, we often tend to under-estimate our losses by not considering how the timely payment of money goes to work for us. Today’s blog shows you some useful formulas for calculating the loss […]
Read MoreSo Your Tenant Screwed You. There’s a Formula for That!
Posted July 12th, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
If you’re unlucky enough to have rented property to a tenant who didn’t pay you or who destroyed the property, there’s a formula for calculating your actual losses. In fact, there are a number of handy formulas for the damages suffered by property owners due to the loss of rental income. These formulas can be applied whether the losses result […]
Read MoreIf You’ve Mastered the Magic of 72, You’re Ready to Seize the Secret of 70!
Posted July 6th, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
Yesterday I spoke about the Rule of 72, a convenient rule of thumb for calculating how long it will take to double your money (or your client’s money) invested in a particular project or purchase. If you missed yesterday’s blog, I encourage you to check it out. You’ll need to give yesterday’s blog a quick read […]
Read MoreHappy Financial Independence Day! How Long Will It Take to Double Your Money?
Posted July 5th, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
The 4th of July is a perfect day to think about your independence — your financial independence, that is! So, what if you wanted to double, or triple or even quadruple your money. How long would it take to do that? There’s a handy formula for figuring it out in a matter of seconds. All […]
Read MoreThe Unlucky Landlord! Everybody’s Moving Out, But It’s Not His Fault! Somebody Must Pay For This, and How Much….?
Posted June 24th, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
Your office building is falling apart. The elevators don’t work. The lights keep flickering, and last Thursday, a fire broke out in the mail room. It turns out the electrical contractor used substandard wiring, in violation of city codes, and now the building inspector is kicking out all of the tenants until the building is […]
Read MoreGuess What? You’re Buying Me a New House. How To Calculate Damages Using the Cost Approach.
Posted June 23rd, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
If the business next door is destroying your property, they may have to replace your property. One way to determine what they’ll actually pay you in damages is the “cost approach.” Instead of comparing the value of your property to other similar properties in the neighborhood — which is the sales comparison approach which I discussed […]
Read MorePresent Value: What if I could get tomorrow’s money today?
Posted June 20th, 2016.
Categories: Employment Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
Present value is the opposite of future value but can be calculated using the same formula. Instead of asking what value present-day money will have in the future, the calculation for present value asks what value future money will have today (if it were paid today). When calculating the present value of an amount due in […]
Read MoreThe Neighborhood’s Going to Hell! So Sue Your Neighbors For Destroying the Value of Your House!
Posted June 16th, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
Some people have the greatest neighbors. Not everybody. When your neighbor is a manufacturing plant, a fracking operation, or a poorly managed dog kennel, you may have a legal claim for nuisance, trespass, waste, or other claims. You may have a right to sue for damages — but how much? How do we determine the […]
Read MoreWhat’s My Reputation Worth? Fire Me and Find Out
Posted June 14th, 2016.
Categories: Employment Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
Can a victim of employment discrimination recover damages for her blemished reputation? That depends. If framed in terms of lost future earnings, a discharged worker may be able to recover even non-pecuniary losses — those kinds of damages that look more like “pain and suffering” or “loss of goodwill” than loss of front pay. The […]
Read MoreLottery Winner’s Dilemma: Lump Sum or Annuity? Calculating the Present Value of an Annuity.
Posted June 9th, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
What if you won the lottery tomorrow, and your jackpot was $60,000 a year for 15 years? That would come to $900,000! But, of course, you would have to wait 15 years to collect it all. What if you could take a smaller amount today in a single lump sum payment? What amount today would […]
Read MoreGrowing the Trust Fund: How much do you need today?
Posted June 8th, 2016.
Categories: The Calculating Lawyer.
So you want to stash away some money for your children — a trust fund. Or perhaps you need to fund a support trust for an elderly family member. If you want the fund to generate the same amount of money every year, year after year, then you need to consult the simple formula for the present value of […]
Read MoreRefresher Course 103: Rate of Return
Posted June 7th, 2016.
Categories: Employment Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
The Rate of Return (ROR) is a generic reference to the gain or profit derived from a certain decision, investment or action. There are, in fact, many different kinds of rates of return, and a variety of formulas for determining the benefit or profitability of decision, investment or action. Calculating rates of return is another […]
Read MoreRefresher Course 102: Determining Probability
Posted June 6th, 2016.
Categories: Employment Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
The probability of a single event happening is the number of desired outcomes divided by the number of possible outcomes. It is the number of ways in which an event can occur divided by the number of possible events. To determine a probability, we start with a fraction. So, for example, if we wished to determine the […]
Read MoreRefresher Course 101: Simple Interest
Posted June 3rd, 2016.
Categories: Employment Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
Before we dive into formulas, let’s review some basic calculations, including the equation for calculating simple interest. Because money has time value, we apply interest as the basic equalizer. Simple interest calculations account for the time value by raising the principal to a higher number. Calculating interest is a very basic and commonly understood process, […]
Read MoreFired but Not Forgotten: How To Calculate Back Pay
Posted June 2nd, 2016.
Categories: Employment Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
Fired! Aha, but not forgotten! You intend to collect all of the “back pay” that is rightfully yours. Back pay is the amount of compensation that would have been paid to the employee had he/she not been wrongfully terminated from employment – up to the point that front pay is calculated. In effect, back pay runs […]
Read MoreFinding the Value of Lost Fringe Benefits
Posted June 1st, 2016.
Categories: Employment Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
A party who has been wrongfully terminated from employment may not only be claiming lost wages but also a loss of fringe benefits. While fringe benefits are not always delivered in the form of monetary compensation, they may include quantifiable values for lost health insurance, including hospital, medical and disability plans, life insurance, pension plans […]
Read MoreTerminated..But Seeking Relief: How to Calculate Front Pay
Posted May 31st, 2016.
Categories: Employment Law, The Calculating Lawyer.
Front pay is compensation for future wage loss that results from present employment-related circumstances. In most scenarios, it serves as a form of future wage-based restitution for victims of job discrimination. However, front pay is only available where reinstatement is not possible or appropriate. Thus, if a job has been filled or no longer exists, […]
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