About Andrew Brandt
Andrew Brandt is the associate editor on Super Lawyers‘ staff. He serves as the editor for the Missouri-Kansas, Mountain States, Oklahoma, and Texas Rising Stars magazines, and he additionally writes, fact-checks and proofreads for numerous other Super Lawyers issues (and for the website). He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with degrees in English literature and environmental studies, and his byline has appeared in a variety of places, both online and in print.
Articles written by Andrew Brandt
What Is the Cost of Divorce Mediation?
Your divorce doesn’t have to be completely contentious. Uswah Khan, a Connecticut divorce law attorney, is showing more and more clients that mediation may be the best way to separate. “I’m all for mediation,” she says, “especially having a litigation background and seeing how ugly it can get. Mediation is great because it’s leading to preserving the relationship within the families. The solutions in the settlement come from within; it’s not a person in a robe deciding what …
Crosscourt Shot
Family lawyer and U.S. Open mainstay Richard Kent has written three tennis booksRichard Kent is no average tennis fan. He has attended the U.S. Open—the annual hardcourt tournament held in New York each August—for 40 consecutive years. He does more than spectate. He’s commentated the event for Bloomberg News and has even written a book about it. “I know it inside and out—all the nooks and crannies,” Kent says. “In my book, I describe it as ‘Disney World for a tennis fan.’ You could go and never watch a match and still have a full day.” Kent wrote the …
Do I Have To Reach a Collective Bargaining Agreement?
In Connecticut, just about every three years, public school district employees have to renegotiate their contracts. This means teachers, administrators, bus drivers, custodians, nurses, substitute teachers and more will meet with their local school boards to hammer out updated collective bargaining agreements. For legal input on contract negotiation, reach out to an experienced schools and education lawyer. Negotiating Contracts with School Districts Anne Littlefield, an attorney at Shipman …
Do I Have To Tell the Father About My Adoption Plan?
A mother has been raising her child for five years. Her husband, who isn’t the biological father, has been helping raise the child for two years. The biological father hasn’t been in the picture since birth, and hasn’t been paying child support. The mother is looking to terminate the biological father’s rights, so the husband can become the legal father. Or, say an expecting mother has an unplanned pregnancy. She knows who the father is, but doesn’t want to raise the child herself, …
Why You Should Work With an Attorney on Surrogacy
In gestational surrogacy, a woman goes through pregnancy for another person or couple. The surrogate carries an embryo from donors or the intended parents. After pregnancy, the intended parents become the legal parents of the child. It's important to know the laws of your state, as well as those of the state where an intended gestational carrier lives and where the baby will be born — each of these will play a role in how the process takes place. This is part of what makes the legal aspects …
What Is Mediation?
If you’ve never been involved in a legal dispute before, but you’ve been injured in an accident and are now seeking legal action, the mediation process may be the best way to resolve your claim. “It’s a kinder and gentler way,” says Stephen Gealy, an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) expert at Baylor Evnen Wolfe & Tannehill in Lincoln, Nebraska. ”In a very real sense, it gives these people their day in court.” Benefits of Mediation: Cheaper and Faster Mediation is often …
How Long Will My Personal Injury Trial Take?
When Nebraska attorney Stephen Gealy represents plaintiffs in a trial, he always tells them the trial process is going to take longer than they think it should. “It almost always does,” he says. The Stages of a Lawsuit To start your personal injury lawsuit, you’ll have to exchange discoveries, in which you request information from the other party, with the defendant and his or her defense lawyer. “Once those initial discovery requests have been responded to, you’re typically 60 to 90 …
Purchasing a Contaminated Property in Arizona
Phoenix is booming. And Patrick Paul, an environmental litigation attorney at Snell & Wilmer in Phoenix, says development has been rapid. So rapid, in fact, that more and more, he’s seeing investors interested in land that’s been contaminated—or, in other words, contains a recognized environmental condition (REC). “Phoenix is interesting,” Paul says. “Most of downtown or metropolitan Phoenix is in or bordering upon either a federal or state Superfund area... We have properties …
How Much Does a Patent Cost?
Most inventors believe that if they receive a patent, interested investors will flock to them with offers to buy it. Unfortunately for inventors, “only about 5 percent of patents are ever commercialized,” says Deborah Peacock, an intellectual property attorney at law firm Peacock Law in Albuquerque, “which means that 95 percent aren’t.” So, most likely, you won’t get rich off your idea. “I tell people they may make a new car—that could be a good result,” Peacock says. …
What's the Difference Between a Trust and a Will?
Deciding between a will and a trust is one of the earliest key decisions you’ll have to make when putting together your estate plan. Generally, a will determines who gets what when you die, and a will goes into effect after you’ve passed. While similar in many ways, a trust has one enormous difference: It goes into effect immediately after you’ve created it — meaning it needs to be actively administered by a trustee. Trusts Let Your Heirs Avoid Probate Trusts also allow your heirs to …
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