The only time you need a lawyer is when you're being criminally prosecuted or you're on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Someone may boil your blood causing you to want a lawyer, but going after somebody is generally cost prohibitive. Those contingency fees you hear about? That's only for personal injury cases. For everything else, the lawyers want cash up front.
A retainer for a state-law criminal defence attorney is about $1,500, while a retainer for a federal-law criminal defence attorney is about $15,000 (based on mid-west costs; your mileage may vary). Everything at the federal level generally costs about 10 times more.
A retainer is PER-CASE and does not reflect the total costs of a case. Think of it as a down-payment that is necessary to get the lawyer to take the case. Lawyers try to price a retainer so it will take you from the start of the case to your first meeting with the DA, which could cover the cost of your case assuming you reach a plea agreement in that meeting.
If you go to court, expect costs of $5,000 - $10,000 at state-level, and 10 times the amount at the federal level (again, based upon mid-west costs). Why? There is an incredible amount of prep work that must be done, such as researching prior case law, evidence (including how evidence was procured), and witnesses. Don't forget you're going to need expert witnesses in order to refute the DA's expert witnesses, and they generally cost 4 times more than the lawyer. As much of an expert you may be, it is doubtful you will be allowed to testify as one, plus juries will be more likely to believe an independent expert witness.
Civil cases? Oh those are all over the place, but in my humble opinion, the biggest cost factor there depends on how much of an @$$hole the other guy's lawyer is, i.e. if he's representing himself bunker down.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, but I have been victimized by one.
Optical voting machines, which read or scan a paper ballot, have no internal security mechanisms on the memory cards. The memory cards are inserted into the machines and used to store the total number of votes. These memory cards are vulnerable to tampering both before and after use. Many people remember the importance of ensuring the memory cards aren't tampered with after use (someone can change the numbers). However, it is equally important to prevent tampering before the memory card gets to the ballot machine. Someone could put a negative number on the memory card before it is inserted into the ballot machine so that a candidate will be "in-the-red" before the first ballot is even cast. This is the digital equivalent of ballot stuffing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_stuffing).
The central tabulation software is also highly vulnerable to tampering.
Please keep in mind that these attack vectors come from election officials. Fraud from voters can be stopped by the people who check the name and registration at the door.
To protect against these attack venues, I recommend that no one person be left alone with any memory cards or with the central tabulation computer. In other words:
Two people are present when the memory cards are blanked out and made ready for use by the ballot machines.
Two people physically transport the memory cards to the ballot machines and supervise them until they are inserted.
Two people supervise the removal of the memory cards and the transportation back to the central tabulator.
Two people are present when the results are loaded from the memory cards into the central tabulator.
Two people are watching the central tabulator software/computer at all times.
In short, even thought these machines are highly vulnerable to tampering, I think having a two-person system supervise both the memory cards and the central tabulator should put most minds at ease.
The vendor that supplies our company's billing system runs their software on a zSeries mainframe. They take 3-4 weeks for the more critical fixes and about 3 months for the low priority bugs.
You're already in line with industry standards. The best you might be able to do is shave off another week.
Slashdot Mirror
Therefore, either we're really good at identifying people...
That's right. We're just too damn good.
The only time you need a lawyer is when you're being criminally prosecuted or you're on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Someone may boil your blood causing you to want a lawyer, but going after somebody is generally cost prohibitive. Those contingency fees you hear about? That's only for personal injury cases. For everything else, the lawyers want cash up front.
A retainer for a state-law criminal defence attorney is about $1,500, while a retainer for a federal-law criminal defence attorney is about $15,000 (based on mid-west costs; your mileage may vary). Everything at the federal level generally costs about 10 times more.
A retainer is PER-CASE and does not reflect the total costs of a case. Think of it as a down-payment that is necessary to get the lawyer to take the case. Lawyers try to price a retainer so it will take you from the start of the case to your first meeting with the DA, which could cover the cost of your case assuming you reach a plea agreement in that meeting.
If you go to court, expect costs of $5,000 - $10,000 at state-level, and 10 times the amount at the federal level (again, based upon mid-west costs). Why? There is an incredible amount of prep work that must be done, such as researching prior case law, evidence (including how evidence was procured), and witnesses. Don't forget you're going to need expert witnesses in order to refute the DA's expert witnesses, and they generally cost 4 times more than the lawyer. As much of an expert you may be, it is doubtful you will be allowed to testify as one, plus juries will be more likely to believe an independent expert witness.
Civil cases? Oh those are all over the place, but in my humble opinion, the biggest cost factor there depends on how much of an @$$hole the other guy's lawyer is, i.e. if he's representing himself bunker down.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, but I have been victimized by one.
This show is some of the best investigative journalism I have ever seen.
Hacking Democracy
http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/
I would highly recommend that you and your counterpart from the other party watch it.
In case you aren't able to get a hold of it or watch it, I'll summarize it for you here.
Please keep in mind that these attack vectors come from election officials. Fraud from voters can be stopped by the people who check the name and registration at the door.
To protect against these attack venues, I recommend that no one person be left alone with any memory cards or with the central tabulation computer. In other words:
In short, even thought these machines are highly vulnerable to tampering, I think having a two-person system supervise both the memory cards and the central tabulator should put most minds at ease.
You may also want to check out:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
I hope this helps.
I'd redirect all the adult domain names to websites about Jesus.
The vendor that supplies our company's billing system runs their software on a zSeries mainframe. They take 3-4 weeks for the more critical fixes and about 3 months for the low priority bugs.
You're already in line with industry standards. The best you might be able to do is shave off another week.