Law

When my mother passed away suddenly about 6 years ago, my father (they were divorced but he helped to deal with the estate) arranged for Mum's cousin, to store her cherished 1964 Morris Mini panel van (dereged) in one of the sheds on his small farm nearby. At the time he reassured us there was no pressure and it could stay there as long as needed.

About a year ago we found out he had given the car to a painter/decorator as payment for some work, claiming he was unable to get hold of anybody and decided we didn't care about the car. My father was initially incensed and took charge of trying to get it back, but has now lost interest, and so it falls to me to take up the cause. (I beleive there is a case file number with the authority, NZTA?)

My question before I embark is, do I have a leg to stand on? Apart from sentimental value, it does have dollar value, my estimate $5-7k.

My Fiancé inherited a property with some old growth forest on it in Southern Oregon and a tear down dwelling on site. Her neighbors have requested an easement on the southern portion of it to accommodate fire codes for a new structure they’re building.

“The easement will be solely for pedestrian access to manage vegetation for fire safety in a 65’ wide strip of land. A fire safety area shall be cleared and maintained. It is defined as follows: An area in which the vegetation shall be limited to mowed grasses, low shrubs (less than two feet high) and trees that are spaced with more than fifteen feet between the crowns and pruned to remove dead and low branches.”

I’m just wondering if this basically gives them the right to chop down the majority of the trees within the easement or not. We retain rights to use the easement for all lawful purposes, including building structures, etc. We have a good relationship with the neighbors and would like to maintain it but don’t want the forest leveled. We have no issues with some brush clearing/smaller trees being removed but want to preserve the old growth. Thanks for reading and any advice is appreciated.

Edit: The fire dept got back to me and it raised all sorts of red flags about this. I’m pretty sure these neighbors are pulling off an unpermitted job and trying to pull some scheisty shit with this easement stuff. Thanks for your feedback everyone. Was a big help.

I worked for a small family law firm of 3 attorneys (including me). I had been with the firm since the beginning (3+ years), including most of law school and my first year of practice. I was told I was second in the chain of command and thought I was valued. When my boss's dad was dying, I took over all of her cases for 2+ months (giving me as an attorney who had been licensed for less than a year a caseload of 129) and I had been struggling since. My boss knew I had been unhappy for awhile and that there were major issues that needed to be resolved.

Well, my grandparents' health isn't great, I'm burned out, had been majorly disrespected by the office manager and my boss and multiple occasions (likely due to being burnt out and exhausted themselves but still), and I had been feeling like family law was way too much drama for far too little fulfillment. I decided that I needed a change and to move back to my home state on the other coast to be with family and to pursue something less dramatic. It was a difficult decision that took months to make, but it's what I needed to do for me.

My firm has never lost an attorney, so there wasn't a policy or procedure in place for this. I also knew I would have to give notice to my landlord and coordinate a cross country move, so I wanted to give everyone enough time to do this smoothly. I gave 6 weeks notice with an additional 2 weeks of remote availability to answer lingering questions about cases. That would've be enough to wrap up cases, avoid nearly all continuances due to overlapping calendars, and have time to make sure the people taking over my cases had what they needed.

24 hours after sending my notice, I was told that my resignation was effective immediately and to turn in my keys.

After I cleaned out my office today, I got an email asking for case summaries and to sort through my 2k+ emails and forward relevant ones to the other employees that are taking things over.

Am I wrong for thinking this is bullshit? I gave 3+ years to this Firm going back to when it was just a solo needing help and gave 6+ weeks notice specifically so we could have a smooth transition. But now that they've essentially spat in my face and fired me, they're asking me to work for free to mitigate the consequences of their decision... Please tell me this isn't the standard in the legal profession.