What We Do
As a general practice, the Firm can help you with a variety of your legal needs, including Business Services, Estate and Estate Planning Services, Family Services, Litigation/Lawsuit Services and Real Estate Services:
- Creating your Business Entity: we can help you decide the best legal vehicle for your business, whether it is full incorporation here in New York or elsewhere (including Delaware), a limited partnership or a limited liability company (LLC).
- Small Business Advice: We can also help you with basic business advice, from addressing day-to-day relationships with customers and other businesses, reviewing contracts and suggesting sound business strategies to referrals to other professionals needed to support your business and make it grow. We can also help you defend the business and to assert your legal rights in mediation, negotiation or, if needed, in prosecuting and defending lawsuits.
ESTATE AND ESTATE PLANNING SERVICES
- Wills: we can help you draft your will, create a trust to manage assets for your children or grandchildren, as well as reviewing your assets to help you create a legal framework for your long-term goals. We can even prepare a will in cooperation with your brokers, accountants or other financial advisors.
- Estate Administration: we can help you be an executor or administrator for the estate of a deceased loved one.
- Powers of Attorney: need help writing checks or need to execute legal business at a distance? We can help you appoint a trusted person as an "attorney-in-fact" with the necessary form.
- Living Wills (or more properly "Health Care Proxies"): Do you want to make sure that you receive only the kinds of medical treatment you want? Do you want to avoid certain painful means of prolonging a disease or condition? We can help you describe your wishes and appoint a trusted person to speak for you when you cannot.
FAMILY SERVICES - to learn more about your options to resolve family disputes, read this item on Resolution Options
- Custody/Visitation: we can help you bring an action to get a Court order giving you custody and/or visitation rights, or defend you against such an action.
- Support: we can counsel you about child support and spousal support and how to go about making applications either to receive or to modify such awards
- Separation and Divorce: Sometimes parties need to separate from their spouses; sometimes the parties need a divorce. We can help you in either situation. If you want a separation, we can help you discuss appropriate terms with your spouse. If you want a divorce, we can help you by preparing the necessary court papers and guiding you through a divorce litigation. In either situation, we can help you negotiate with your spouse to divide your property, safeguard your assets and ensure a safe environment for your children.
- Collaborative Law: In collaboration, the parties each hire their own lawyer and discuss their interests in a series of four-way meetings between the two parties and each of their lawyers. The lawyers: 1) help the parties accumulate the information needed to resolve their situation so that everyone has a solid information base, 2) help the parties both set the rules for their discussion and plan the topics to be discussed and then 3) help guide the parties’ discussion of their interests all in an effort to find a mutually agreeable resolution. For more information on this less confrontational alternative to litigation, visit: http://www.collab-law.com/, the website for the Ithaca Area Collaborative Professsionals.
- General Litigation (or lawsuits): whether it is a broken contract or some wrong you cannot right on your own, we can help you pursue your legal rights in Court if needed, either bringing a lawsuit or defending you from a lawsuit as needed.
- Criminal Matters: we can help you criminal matters, including drunken driving charges and traffic tickets.
- Family Litigation: we can help with custody, visitation and divorce matters—see the “Family Services” heading on this page.
- Homes and Commercial Real Estate): we can help you negotiate and close the purchase or sale of a home or a piece of property.
- Landlord/Tenant: we can help you understand your rights as a landlord or as a tenant under your lease and either file or defend an eviction action if needed.
Ward &
Murphy
170 Main Street
Groton, New York 13073
Main Office Phone: 607-898-3190
Main Office Fax: 607-898-3765
Ithaca Office Phone: 607-272-2816
Toll Free: 877-212-4722
Ithaca Office Alternate Line: 607-280-4954
Liam.Murphy@clarityconnect.com
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