Phones and laptops mean work can follow people home every night. A quick message from a manager at 9pm can feel hard to ignore. For years there was no clear rule on if you had to answer.
That changed with the right to disconnect. It is now part of the Fair Work Act 2009 and applies to most employees in the national system. This guide explains what the right covers, how reasonableness is judged and what to do if a dispute comes up.
Being paid less than you are owed is a problem many Australian workers face. It can happen through a wrong pay rate, missing penalty rates or unpaid leave. Sometimes it is an honest mistake. Sometimes it is not.
The good news is that workers have clear legal options to get that money back. Most claims never need a lawyer or a long court case. This guide explains how to check your pay, raise the problem and use the small claims process if you need to.
For anyone reading this who owns or manages a landscaping business, we trust that one of your core principles is to deliver for your clients what you agreed to in the service agreement or contract you made with them.
In addition, we assume further that you honour any guarantees that form part of that commitment.
One of the most prominent and important roles within a company is a director, and the appointing of new directors to any company must be conducted lawfully, which is why commercial lawyers should be approached to ensure that the correct legal process is followed.
A change of director can occur for several reasons such as retirement, relocation, new shareholders and thus control of the business changing, or the business expanding and therefore a need for more directors to help manage it.
Whatever the reasons might be, the removal or appointment of any director must be done within ASIC regulations as well as commercial and company law. Read on to find out all you need to know if your company has any imminent director changes.
Whether as a private citizen or as a business owner who runs a wills lawyer business, there is always the possibility that someone may decide to take legal action against you. Conversely, you have the right to do likewise against someone else whom you feel has wronged you in some way. If we focus on the latter scenario of your business facing legal action, it can be a stressful situation for all concerned.
Obviously, as the business’s owner, you are at the forefront in terms of having to defend any legal action against your business, but for those whom you work with, including any employees, it can never be pleasant knowing that someone wishes to sue the company you work for.
This is magnified when you consider that some businesses have actually had to close down due to them losing legal cases where the level of compensation awarded was significant.
Whilst family lawyers may spend many hours working for clients with children under 18 concerning maintenance payments, it often comes as a shock to some clients when they are told by their family lawyers that maintenance payments can also be ordered by the Family Court for children over 18 years of age.
It is an assumption, not just in Australia, but in most countries that, when a child turns 18 they are considered an adult, and thus any child support or maintenance payments by the absent parent are no longer required to be paid. In fact, in Australia, they can end before a child turns 18 if, for example, the child marries, is adopted, or becomes financially self-sufficient.
However, as family law currently exists, an application can be made for “adult child maintenance”, and this is contained in the Family Law Act, Section 661. We must state at the outset that applications cannot be made simply because an adult child continues to live with one of their parents who happens to be divorced, but instead only when one of several specific circumstances exists.
Most businesses require personal information and data from their clients and customers, and for dentists, this will apply to your patients.
Not only will that data include the information that patients provide, such as their name, address and date of birth, but the subsequent information you add to their files regarding their oral health and treatments, many of which they will have paid for, so you may also have credit cards or bank details stored.
LASIK eye surgery has become a popular choice for those seeking to reduce their dependence on glasses or contact lenses. While the procedure is generally safe and effective, complications can occur. This article explores the legal aspects of LASIK surgery and what options may be available if something goes wrong.
The Success Rate of LASIK
It’s important to note that LASIK surgery has a high success rate. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, over 90% of LASIK patients achieve 20/20 vision or better. However, like any medical procedure, there are inherent risks and potential complications.
Legal Grounds for a LASIK Lawsuit
If you experience complications after LASIK surgery, you may wonder if you have grounds for a lawsuit. The ability to sue successfully typically depends on proving three key elements:
Being taken to court is not a pleasant experience but when it is landscapers who are subject to legal action it can have ramifications that go as far as threatening the very existence of their landscaping business. The thought that the other party could be awarded a substantial financial settlement that could wipe out all their assets is enough to give most landscapers sleepless nights.
Before any landscaper reading this starts to panic, let us point out first of all that it is extremely rare for a landscaping business to be taken to court. Thankfully, in most cases, a resolution to a dispute can be made without the courts having to step in, and there are also mediation services that can help.
However, we are sure you would still like to avoid your landscaping business being involved in a lawsuit. Not only are there potential financial repercussions but a court case can generate negative publicity that is not helpful to your business in maintaining its reputation. So, if you would like to avoid legal action being taken against your landscaping business, here are some ways that can be achieved.
For many landscapers, like those from martincuthbert.com.au who also have responsibility for running their business, there will be many financial and legal necessities that you would much rather not concern yourself with, but the sound running of your business requires you to. Thankfully, much of it can be passed to your accountant or commercial lawyer to deal with, nevertheless, you must still have a reasonable understanding of it all.
One aspect of the legal framework within which you operate is the contract between a client and your landscaping business. Again, this is best left to a legal expert to create the main template and then for you to enter the specifics you have agreed with your client relating to the landscaping work they require.
Within that contract, there must be terms and conditions which apply to any landscaping agreement you have with a client. As for what those terms and conditions should cover, we have outlined the main ones below which should appear on every contract for landscaping work you undertake.
Services
This will outline the landscaping services which you are going to be providing to the client under the contract agreed to. We recommend that you have these as specific as possible and in crystal clear language to prevent any chance of misunderstanding, especially given the fact that not all clients will be cognisant of all landscaping terminology.
Your divorce law business likely operates within a specific location or area. As such it naturally classed as a local business. That is not to suggest it is necessarily a small business as there are huge companies that only operate within a specific city or state.
Being a local small business also signifies that your marketing needs to be localised. In other words, the way you market, the people you market to, and the locations you target are all clearly defined. That applies as much to small business online marketing as it does to offline marketing, such as advertising in local newspapers.
With the internet playing such a huge role in everyone’s lives, if your divorce lawyers business does not market online it is depriving itself of a huge opportunity to generate clients. Specifically, we are talking about local marketing online, as the internet provides many opportunities to target a local audience.
For divorce lawyers and other legal practices in Perth specifically, SLINKY’s guide to law firm marketing in Perth covers the strategies that are generating real enquiries for Perth law firms right now.
To help expand the client base of your family law firm via the internet, your website must attract visitors who in turn reach out to you for advice, and ultimately ask you to represent them. If you were to ask for advice from the SEO experts at Perth SEO they will tell you that the most effective way of achieving that aim is to have your website rank high on search engines, especially Google.
The whole point of wanting your website to rank high on Google is that the closer it is to the #1 position for any given search, the more traffic it is going to receive. Presuming that it is ranking for highly relevant keyword searches relating to family law, the more chances there are of that traffic including people looking for a family lawyer.
The point we make about ranking for a relevant keyword is crucial because there is little point in ranking for keywords that are of no relevance to your business, nor which attract traffic not specifically looking for a family lawyer. For example, you might rank for the term, ‘cheap lawyer’, but unless your fees are low and you take on clients for all legal work, then it is of no real benefit to you.
Of the traffic that you receive from that keyword only a fraction of it will be needing a family lawyer, and the rest will be looking for a corporate, criminal, copyright, or employment lawyer, and when they land on your website and realize your law firm is none of these, they will click away immediately, which creates another problem in relation to your ranking.
For anyone who has started a drug rehab program or is about to start, it might be too late to convince your ex-spouse or partner that you are a fit and proper parent who should be allowed visitation or even the opportunity to co-parent. The truth is that it is not up to any parent to decide the legalities or otherwise of whether the other parent should have contact with their children; it is for the family courts to decide.
When the matter of who can or cannot see their children comes before a family court judge, it will be what is in the best interests of the child they will use to determine their decision. This is when your use of drugs, whether it is current or in the past, will likely be brought up in court by the child’s other parent or their family lawyer.
To do so formally, they, or their legal representative, will submit specific documents to the court indicating that they believe the child is at risk with regards to your alleged drug taking. This could include accusations that you leave drugs around your home or that you take drugs in full view of the child.
In the dynamic world of law and finance, actuarial certificates play a vital role in ensuring smooth transactions and safeguarding interests. These certificates, provided by professional actuarial services, have implications across a wide range of legal applications and scenarios.
What are Actuarial Services?
Before delving into the specifics of actuarial certificates, let’s clarify what actuarial services are. In a nutshell, actuaries use mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to study uncertain future events, especially those pertaining to insurance and pensions.
Actuarial services encompass this data analysis to assess risk and predict financial outcomes. This expertise is sought after in a variety of sectors, including insurance, pensions, finance, investments, and even health care.
When you have a business, commercial lawyers are needed to ensure everything you do is legal and watertight, from setting up your business structure through to leases and contracts. But once your business is up and running, it may be that you decide that more growth is necessary to achieve your business goals. Again, legal help may be necessary to ensure everything is done properly and in a way that helps ensure the business has a solid base.
Most businesses, such as web designers need to achieve a certain amount of growth in order to remain successful, and one of the most important ways to do this is to expand your customer base. Even if you have many customers on your books, there will still be some attrition as people move, their needs change or they may decide to try out the competition. So it’s important to spend at least some time in getting more customers.
Here are some tips to help grow your customer base
If you’ve been reading about a few different Botox legal issues in the media, you might be scared about trying these cosmetic injectables for yourself.
While it’s true that some people have had issues with it before, there are often circumstances leading to problems, such as inexperience, no qualifications, and fake products. If you want to reduce the risk of any health and legal issues with Botox, consider doing the following things.
Go to a Consultation
Going to a consultation for Botox is one of the best ways to know if the person you are getting Botox from is legitimate. The authorised nurse practitioner or medical doctor should explain the entire procedure to you in a consultation before you go ahead with it. This can be face to face or via video conference.
Before this consultation happens, write down any questions you have and ask about risks and complications. The more you know, the more confident you can be.
Look For Registration Information
For someone to legally give Botox injections, they have to be registered. Check out the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s website to determine if the person administering it is legally allowed to do so.
Once you’ve identified the registration information you’re looking for, you can ask about their experience levels. Most medical professionals won’t be offended if you ask them how many years they have been performing cosmetic injections.
Whether you are starting up a new digital marketing or running one that is well-established, you will need the assistance of commercial lawyers for a great many things. For one thing, your business must be compliant in all ways with the law for tax and other purposes or you risk heavy fines or even being shut down. And if you don’t heed the law in every business matter you risk compromising your business which can easily mean facing a lawsuit of some kind from employees or clients.
Here is how lawyers can help people in business: –
No small business wants to have its reputation dragged through the mud due to an unfair dismissal claim against it, whether or not it has employment lawyers on hand. However, for example, when you have a business, there will always be employees who don’t do the work you expect of them or who fail to give the value you wanted for your business in some other regard. What can you do?
Rather than risk putting your business at risk of a lawsuit for unfair dismissal, it is wise to protect it in the following ways: –
Working through a divorce can be a long, complicated, and emotional process, especially if you’re separating from a long-term partner due to a broken-down relationship. Court proceedings often involve asset separation and child custody disputes, which can have major financial implications.
Because of this, we highly recommend hiring experienced family lawyers to help you work through your divorce. They can advise you on various legal matters, helping ensure the best possible outcome for you and your family.
Below are our top five benefits of hiring a family lawyer to help you work through your divorce.
If you work with a reliable, highly-experienced family lawyer, you can harness the law to your benefit. Things like court proceedings and asset separation can be difficult and more complicated, and having a lawyer by your side will help ensure you’re doing the right thing.
On top of this, a good lawyer can help you when you’re preparing your divorce case. Things as simple as keeping basic records can have huge implications if you end up in court, and your lawyer will ensure you’ve got your bases covered.
Australian employees receive a high level of protection from employment laws. These include protection against unlawful, wrongful and unfair dismissal. And, although you might not realise it, these are quite different.
Before you make a dismissal case against a former employer, you need to determine what sort of case you need to make. This can be difficult without legal advice, so we’d recommend speaking with an employment lawyer if you need more information. As well as this, we’ve provided a quick outline of the main types of illegal dismissal, with the aim of giving you a solid knowledge base to start with.
What Is Unfair Dismissal?
To start with, let’s look at unfair dismissal. To keep things simple, unfair dismissal refers to the termination of employment without good reason or in an unfair or harsh manner. This could include:
As you can imagine, the scope of unfair dismissals is wide, and each case is therefore treated on an individual basis by the Australian Fair Work Commission.
In Australia, divorces and serious separations are governed by a comprehensive selection of laws. In general, the courts will strive to deliver a fair deliberation on divorce cases, which can sometimes involve one partner being responsible for the support of the other.
This is called spousal maintenance, and it’s something you absolutely need to understand if you’re working through a separation. In the rest of this article, we’re going to look at everything you need to know about this complicated legal topic.
What Is Spousal Maintenance?
To keep things simple, spousal maintenance is designed to ensure both parties are able to maintain a comfortable living situation following a divorce. It can be paid in a number of forms, including:
As you can imagine, spousal maintenance cases can become extremely complicated. Because of this, it’s best to talk to a family lawyer about the subject if you’re unsure about anything or need long-term legal advice.
For a lot of people, tax time is the most stressful time of the year. Although professional accountants can make tax time easier, a lot of people see them as too expensive to use. But are they really?
In reality, accountants will probably end up saving you money, especially if they are good ones. They will be able to draw on their experience to maximise your tax return by maximising your tax deductions and minimising your taxable income. If you used to think that accountants were too expensive to use, then keep reading. Below are just a few of the ways that a decent accountant can help you save money, making sure you don’t pay more tax than you have to:
They will save you time:
It doesn’t matter whether you only use an accountant once per year, to lodge your tax return, or if you use them throughout the year – in both cases, they will save you a lot of time. Most accountants will be able to work faster than you can when it comes to sorting out your finances. Although they may charge a relatively high hourly rate, they will probably save you a lot more hours than they actually take.
This will free you up to spend more time on the day to day running of your business. It will help lower your stress levels, which can make you more productive in your daily life. Using a decent accountant will indirectly save you money by saving you time.
Ensure that you have a Well-Structured Business Agreement in Place
Proper documentation and can detailed business contracts are extremely helpful when the business runs into trouble or when disputes arise. Seeking legal advice from experienced commercial lawyers right at the beginning of the process paves the way for efficient and methodical dispute resolution. Commercial dispute resolution often involves consideration of multiple factors such as documentation, consideration of rights and responsibilities of all parties and a sound knowledge of the Australian commercial law.
Corporate lawyers are trained to examine various aspects of the problem and offer solutions that are legally valid.
It’s important to understand that everything that the business does by way of transactions should fall within the framework of the terms and conditions contained in the agreement. Poorly worded, vulnerable or legally invalid business agreements can put your business at risk and expose to increased risk of litigation. A detailed and comprehensive business contract helps reduce the likelihood of risks and liability and also provides for improved evaluation of the facts. In the absence of a business agreement, the facts are open to misinterpretation thus leading to subsequent confusion, delay and prolonged stress.
Competent Experts can help you Dispute the Fine or Explore legal Alternatives
An infringement notice is sent to the offender through post, email or by means of a ticket issued to the individual. Seeking the advice of experienced criminal lawyers can help you dispute the fine or penalty imposed by the court. An infringement notice will usually be sent to the person under whose name the vehicle is registered. In case the vehicle is under joint ownership, the notice will be sent to the person listed first on the registration form. Infringement notices are usually issued for traffic offences that include illegal parking, speeding or toll evasion.
An infringement notice will typically contain a number of details including date and time of the offence, location of the offence, the legal speed limit as well as the detected speed limit of your vehicle (in case of speeding violations) and the number of licence demerits expected to be added to your driving history.
Read on for some important facts about traffic infringement notices issued under Australian law:
Insolvency in a business can happen for many reasons – a downturn in the economy, poor management or fraud being just some of them. Some of the signs that financial difficulties are lurking in your business are poor cash flow, ongoing losses and creditors still being unpaid outside of normal trading terms. If you even suspect your business is losing ground financially it is imperative to act quickly in order to save it, and first call of action should be to find some legal advice and a lawyer.
To do this, Lawyers Perth advise that the first thing that should be done is to consult with competent commercial lawyers to make sure your company is indeed, heading towards financial disaster. It is wise to take business advice from business experts and implement it as quickly as possible in order to save your business. This advice could be anything from cost cutting measures through to restructuring the business, all depending on the state of the finances and type of business structure already in place.
But what happens if this is not enough and your business becomes insolvent?
An administrator will work in the company to see if it can be saved in any way. If it can, well and good. If it cannot be saved, an administrator’s job is to see that the creditors get a better deal that they would if the company went straight into liquidation.