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Practicing law or good business sense.

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gstaley

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California.

I am looking for some reference, resource around determining the actually implicaitons of the situation below:

Perhaps I am taking up a fools argument here, however I become quite frustrated when discussing documents with my father who is 71 and owns a number of residential and commercial properties which he manages. With the recent passing of my mother he has needed me to type up most of his contracts and documents on the computer. He has never and never wants to learn how to use a computer.

A few times he has asked me to put something together with little or no guidance - such as a general release of liability. Well the way I approached it was to get examples of a few different forms addressing similar releases (in this case he was giving away numerous Dogs) By piecing together sections from multiple documents came up with something which ultimately was about 1/2 page text. His perspective is it sounded too legal and therefore would be deemed as practicing law by a court, creating greater liability for him after several back and forths we finally settled on the following being the breadth of the content: (("My Fathers name" has no understanding or expertise with “German Shepherd Dogs” or the business and, therefore, he is “held harmless” and fully indemnified, by the assignee against any claim(s) or legal action in respect to the aforementioned German Shepherd Dog.)) While i believe this ultimately got to where we needed to be and simple might be good - He indicated even the way that is written sounds to much like an attorney was involved in respect to the words: "Aforementioned", "Fully Indemnified", "Held Harmless" - I have never had my own business and sell software for a living so have dealt with business negotiations of contracts - I don't beleive it is true however he insists in the eyes of a judge that this language will cause the entire agreement to be held to a higher standard as if prepared by an attorney rather than a layman.

It's driving me crazy as he keeps berating me for creating liability for him due to my writting style and words i use based on my own life experiences.

I JUST NEED TO KNOW - DO I NEED TO DUMB DOWN MY LANGUAGE IN RESPECT TO DOCUMENTS AND CONTRACTS WHICH I PREPARE FOR HIM? Am I truly creating liability? There are so many form letters out there - however he states that every one is unque to the situation so templates don't work. He has often had an attorney prepare a contract for $1000+ which appears to mostly be form-based with some customized content.

Furthermore my father is getting very absentminded and it causes me great concern as his sole heir, that should something happen i am going to be thrown into something that I can't understand based on the way it is setup. The problem is we have the technology gap between us - he is paper-based through and through - in fact every day starts with a 4x6 sheet of scrap paper with tasks for the day written down. (which works for him) I am trying to bridge this gap by working and interacting with him regularly however he doesn't want to get me fully up to speed and that concerns me in the long run that i only have bits and pieces - afterall he is the one that told me 99.9% of everything a person says is a lie designed to premote their own interests.

If you have suggestions around this/these topic(s) please let me know.
 


tranquility

Senior Member
You are already practicing law without a license. Your actions don't cause an increase in his risk to dad beyond the competence or incompetence of the documents prepared. To you? You are liable for your acts as though you were an attorney.

One thing to be aware of for dad is there is often a presumption against the drafter of a document when there is an error. Having an inexperienced drafter will increase the risk of that presumption. Not because he uses big words, but because of the error.
 

quincy

Senior Member
My suggestion for you is to remove yourself from the equation entirely and have a third-party attorney step in to handle your father's legal affairs, if this is at all financially feasible.

If money is an issue, there are senior advocate centers in many cities with low or no-cost help available for just what you are having to deal with now.

This can preserve your relationship with your father and protect you from legal liability.
 

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