Weiss & Associates eLawLines newsletterThe attorneys at Weiss & Associates, P.C. publish e-LawLines, an online newsletter with articles addressing legal (and some non-legal!) issues.

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Here are some recent articles of interest from e-LawLines:

Cocktail Party Small Talk, or What Happens if I Don't Have a Will?
Attorneys and other professionals regularly get asked questions within their areas of practice. And as attorneys, everyone expects us to answer a myriad of questions about estate planning and probate matters. Unfortunately, the area of estate planning is quite complex, but no one forces you to elect a complicated estate plan. If you do nothing, in fact, your state of domicile at the time of death will have the terms already in place.
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Restrictive Covenants in Employment Agreements
Employment agreements have become a popular tool in the business world, in both big and small business. Employment agreements establish vital terms and avoid misunderstandings such as “at-will” or other termination provisions. Most employment agreements will contain at least one type of restrictive covenant, such as a covenant not to disclose confidential information.
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E-Verify: The Electronic Border Patrol for Employee Eligibility
E-Verify, the Internet-based system used to electronically verify the employment eligibility of newly hired and current employees, is now a mandatory requirement for companies to obtain contracts with the federal government and the State of Missouri. E-Verify is operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration.
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Gentlemen Farming and Other Side Businesses;
Issues in Passive Activity and Self-Employment Taxation
Ted and John are friends from the same town. Each is successful in his professional career (Ted as a dentist, John as an insurance salesman). Ted decides to invest in and do some part-time work at a chicken farm in town, and John, thinking that that sounds like a good way to make a little extra money, invests in and does parttime work at an ostrich farm across the road from Ted's chicken farm. Each, along with a handful of other investors, works about 400 hours a year on his respective farm.
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Adverse Possession: When Your Property Isn't Yours Anymore
One of our attorneys' neighbors, who purchased land from the lawyer to build a home, recently put up a fence in the back yard between the properties. (Just an aside: the fence was not put up because the attorney's family makes a bad neighbor, but was put up because the neighbor had a baby last year and wanted to keep the child safe while playing in the back yard.) The spouse of the lawyer insists that the fence encroaches the lawyer's property by about one foot and that the lawyer needs to tell the neighbor (who, by the way has an in-ground swimming pool, which the neighbor lets the lawyer's family use) that the neighbor needs to move the fence. The spouse, like many individuals, has heard of the concept of "squatter's rights," or adverse possession, and this article attempts to explain the concept in lay terms.
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Browse more articles in the following Weiss & Associates, P.C. practice areas:


Weiss & Associates, P.C. occasionally takes the liberty of writing a more personal "Aside" for e-LawLines. Here are some of our non-legal reflections:

Baseball's Perfect Warrior; Baseball's Perfect Knight
Fifty years ago today, on a sunny day on Chicago’s North Side, Stan “The Man” Musial was called upon to pinch hit. Although Musial was supposed to wait for this moment until the team returned to Sportsman’s Park for a home stand, the team was behind 3-1 in the sixth inning against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, and Cardinals manager Fred Hutchinson decided he needed Musial.
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Reflections - Independence Day
Each of us has ideas of what Independence Day means, and memories of how we have celebrated, and commemorated, the greatest of America’s national holidays.
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>>> Browse all of our "Asides."