The fact is, no matter how complicated a case, clients will consider an attorney’s fees to be too high. (This helps account for why we lawyers are the butts of so many jokes.) The majority of people in Texas don’t understand all of the costs, skills, or time investments that go into being a practicing attorney—and which you are entitled for them to reimburse you for. Most of the time, this just results in biting...
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With very few limited exceptions, every Texas licensing board or commission that chooses to pursue complaints against its licensees is required to notify the license-holder of the complaint—particularly after the board or commission has determined that the complaint alleged is within its competence to investigate and discipline. When you are given such notification, it is paramount that you do nothing that may harm your defense against the complaint. The ways in which you respond at...
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The Texas Real Estate Commission is the regulatory body that oversees licensure and disciplinary actions for Real Estate Professionals—including Real Estate Sales Agents, Brokers, Real Estate Inspectors, Easement and Right-of-Way Agents, Residential Service Companies, Real Estate Education Providers, and so on. When someone—whether a former client or a third party—feels that a Real Estate Professional has somehow violated the Real Estate License Act or the TREC Rules, they may file a complaint before the Commission....
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A dentist who has achieved licensure will have gone through a great deal of education and qualification to earn their right to practice their chosen profession. Having earned that license, you should do nothing that can put your livelihood in jeopardy. In the normal course of doing business, a practitioner will be required to interact with insurance carriers so that patients can have their dental care covered. In general, an insurance company will provide a...
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A real estate broker in the state of Texas has done a great deal of work to not only be licensed to buy or sell real estate on behalf of clients, but to own their own firm that is worked by other licensees. In fact, real estate licensees cannot sell or buy real estate on their own—they must be sponsored by a licensed broker. In the state of Texas, real estate licenses—both for brokers and...
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When you have worked hard to earn your real estate license, a rewarding career is in the offing. The last thing you want to do is to endanger your livelihood by putting that license at risk of being revoked. Any accusation against your license should be met with a vigorous defense. That includes when someone has complained that you have engaged in misrepresentation by failing to disclose important facts about a property. A real estate...
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Mistakes in any profession can proceed from becoming overworked—and those in professions with “crunch times,” many of whom perhaps make the bulk of their yearly income during a certain time of year, are at particular risk for accidentally violating best practices or for being wrongfully accused of doing so. For some CPAs, this season is tax season—harvest time for the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy. While there are a number of breaches of best...
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Student loan debt has been in the news a lot for the past few years, as the cost of getting a higher education has skyrocketed well beyond the rate of salary inflation. Unfortunately, for quite a while a number of states—including Texas—have had laws on the books that permit licensing agencies to strip professionals of their licenses if they fall behind on payments of their student loans. Our state’s Sunset Advisory Commission back in 1988...
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As an attorney, you have put in a considerable amount of time and energy toward becoming a licensed professional, including law school and passing the Texas Bar Exam. Being accused of a crime risks losing all that you have worked so hard for. Yet when an attorney has been charged with a crime, particularly a crime that the State Bar has determined to be one whose commission is germane to a lawyer’s fitness to practice...
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It’s a hot topic in society at the moment: the over-prescription of medications. With deaths due to abuse of prescription painkillers occurring at a troubling rate—and even attributed in popular media to the death of the television character Roseanne Connors—it makes sense for our governments to keep an eye on what’s going on. But, as so often happens with any high-profile issue of grave public concern, it is far too easy for things to fall...
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