The Smith Law Firm, LLC

01/24/2021

Do we have a constitutional right to appear in court in person (as opposed to a video appearance)?

Answer: no.

“There is no constitutional right to appear in person at a civil trial. ... There is also no statutory right.”

In an action to terminate appellant’s parental rights, appellant appeared for an evidentiary hearing from jail by video connection, because Supreme Court directives barred an appearance in person during the coronavirus pandemic.

Failure to raise problems with the connection, and seek corrections to the transcript, waived any error on that basis.

IN THE INTEREST OF: C.I.G., C.M.D.G., and M.I.G., Minor children under seventeen years of age GREENE COUNTY JUVENILE OFFICE, Petitioner-Respondent v. M.D.G., Respondent-Appellant
Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District - SD36771, SD36772 and SD36773

09/26/2020

Looking forward to listening a NYU School of Law Professor, who helped draft FRCP23 (the primary class action statute/rule), describe the circumstances that led to the creation of the rule. American Bar Association

Agenda for Class Actions Virtual 2020 National Institute

06/07/2020

Tip for pro se filers: consider your font. Anecdotally 99% of lawyers in St. Louis use Times New Roman, even though the 7th Circuit discouraged it. A font from Century family is required by the US Supreme Court. Don't go with anything creative for your font though 🤮🤮🤮

06/03/2020

Probably one of the most common questions I get is how old does a child need to be before he or she is able to make a custody decision.

The short answer is that an unemancipated child never gets to be the sole decision-maker. The longer answer is more nuanced:

What is a parenting plan and how do I get a parenting plan? A parenting plan sets out the custodial arrangements of the parties and the financial aspects of raising the children.  Custodial arrangements include the weekly schedule, holiday schedule, and vacation schedule.  It includes information...

03/16/2020

Almost every type of court date and court appearance in Missouri state court has been cancelled until April 6, 2020, at the earliest. Some exceptions apply for things like emergency custody orders, orders of protection, jury trials already underway. Here is the Missouri Supreme Court Order dated today:

02/13/2020

Melissa Gragg is a phenomenal business valuation expert...highly recommend her videos!

01/16/2020

Consider seizing 401k or pension benefits to collect unpaid child support and maintenance. Generally speaking, a person's retirement savings are beyond the reach of creditors. However, there is an exception when you're dealing with a child support or maintenance debt. If the person who owes the child support or maintenance (obligor) also owns a 401k, pension, or other retirement account, the person owed the support/maintenance (obligee) can sometimes collect the amounts owed through a support QDRO. This can work with a pension even if the obligor has not yet started receiving pension benefits.

01/07/2020

https://youtu.be/AOeXrJJlJQ8

The minimum wage increase in Missouri will have a major impact child support calculations for some people. Specifically, in situations where one parent is vo...

12/23/2019

https://youtu.be/LnWr3y0oIak

It is possible to recover RETROACTIVE child support and maintenance in a dissolution of marriage, divorce, paternity (support only), custody (support only) o...

07/29/2019

What happens if you're under a federal criminal investigation and tell a witness to act like Frank Pentangeli, non-cooperating witness in The Godfather Part II? The U.S. Attorney is probably going to file a Motion to Admit Movie Clip, so the jury can watch four-minute clip of the movie. Here's a link to a copy of the motion if you're interested:

07/08/2019

Between 2013 and 2018 Harvard Law School Library and startup Ravel Law created a case law library by digitizing 6.7 million cases, making the database free to the public. Here is an article describing the project (https://lil.law.harvard.edu/projects/caselaw-access-project/) and here is a link to the search page (https://case.law/search/ #/cases).

The Caselaw Access Project is making all U.S. case law freely accessible online. With the Caselaw Access Project API (CAPAPI) and bulk data service, we can share 40 million pages of published U.S. court cases.

08/16/2018

Too busy to write a blog post so here's a Vice article about a legal advice reddit forum:

The LegalAdvice subreddit may not be the worst place to turn when you're in a crisis.