Navigating Estate Planning, Wills, Trusts, and Getting Sued

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Wu Tang name generator will explain pound for pound the best attorneys will also get into estate planning. What do you do if you get sued?

And if you cause a chain reaction car accident? It sounds like chaos. We're going to clear it up for you. That's all coming up next on Judica County Radio. Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Again, located right next to the mower, apparently. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys each and every week. Gentlemen, as we always do, we start off with how was your week, Josh?

That's not a good sign. I feel I feel like I have the same answer. I feel you know, once you get to a certain age, every week, you know, unless something crazy happens, right? Every week's the same as the last week, right?

Kids are going to school. I'm going to work. Maybe something cool happened. You know, I went to the beach this weekend. That was cool. But the week's going just fine. I feel like it's what I say every time. Joseph, do you have anything to add that might be more exciting than that? I don't know. That was that was semi depressing, honestly.

Life is a redundant circle of nothingness. Josh, what beach do you go to when you go? We were down at we were visiting some friends down at Emerald Isles. So we were down at Emerald Isle, but I have no loyalty or allegiance to any one beach. So Emerald Isle is nice. I like it.

We do the beach down at Atlantic Beach, Emerald Isle area each summer. So it's nice. Yeah.

All right. Well, I did I did read I was about to say I read an article and that's not true. I read a tweet.

It just sounds better to say, hey, I read this article. But I didn't know. Joseph, you're you're you're more hip to what the kids listen to than I am. But I do know who the childish Gambino is. I presume you know who that is. Yeah, Donald Donald Glover. Yeah.

Childish Gambino. Yeah, I'm familiar. Do you know how he got his name? I'm not familiar with exactly how he got his name.

I'm not that hip. You didn't read the same scholarly article I read that discussed this. The tweet that you read. I missed that tweet. Well, according to this tweet, he went and you're also you may also be familiar with the Wu-Tang Clan. Yep. Yep. The Wu-Tang Clan, if you go to their fan page, their web page, whatever, they have a Wu-Tang name.

Generator. Ah, and so the tweet said that that's how he got his name. He went to the Wu-Tang name generator and it gave him the name Childish Gambino.

He's had that name for a long time, and I didn't realize the Wu-Tang name generator was that seasoned of a name generator, man. I have not I have not researched this issue past the tweet, but I'm just hoping the tweet is true because I like that story. Yeah, it's it. Yeah, it's true, man. It's got to be if it's not.

You can believe every tweet you read. That's what I know. All right. So my second my second question for you is how many members of the Wu-Tang Clan can you name without Googling it?

Ghostface Killah, ODB, Method Man, RZA, JZA, The Genius. I don't know, man. That's all I got.

Inspected Deck. Yeah. You're embarrassing me right now, man. So I just I'd get more than Morgan would. Yeah, Morgan.

Who are we missing, Morgan? I just I know I was just gonna say I threw my name in and wow. Wu-Tang is telling me Nasty Eagle Philosophical. Yeah, that's your name. Yeah.

Yeah, that's pretty nice. I maybe I maybe I would drop the the Philo. But the Nasty Eagle sounds pretty good.

Now, you're pretty philosophical, man. I can tell you behind that. What was yours, Joseph? It wasn't even worth it was like ghostly, ghostly inspector, something something like that.

It wasn't great. It was a childish Gambino. Like when I start my rap career, I'm not going to let that be my permanent rap name. I'll come up with something much better than that. I was really pumped.

I read that story and I went right to the Web page and I like put it and put it in. I got Rational Enforcer, which I think is the worst hip hop nickname ever given to anybody. I don't know if you're rational. Are you going to enforce anything? He's going to enforce it rationally. It's rationally.

I'm going to have the rational methods of enforcement, you know, and then I'm going to do it irrationally. And then I was thinking, that would be a good like if the Wu-Tang Clan had an attorney as a member, that might not be a bad name for an attorney. Yeah, so you could be the Wu-Tang Clan's attorney.

I like that. The official law firm of the Wu-Tang Clan. The unofficially official officially, Joe, what was your Wu-Tang name?

My official Wu-Tang name. Let me go back and look at it. It was not great. It was ghostly vigilante.

So cooler than Rational Enforcer. But, you know, I've seen better too, you know. I feel like I have to explain to my kids, you know, my kids are all high school. I got a high school, middle school, elementary school. And for some reason, for some reason, Snoop Dogg, for things that I grew up with that come up that aren't sports related, Snoop and the Wu-Tang Clan seem to come up the most and like they still, you know, are part of pop culture and still come up. And so I was trying to explain to my kids who the Wu-Tang Clan was because they don't understand the kung fu references.

And so I was having to, I feel like I have to spend a lot of time explaining. You know, we just accept the Wu-Tang Clan for what they do. You could just get new kids too, man.

I don't know if you thought about that. Just accept, trade them in. Just accept the awesomeness that is the Wu-Tang Clan. Wait, do you still have the tags? The tags still on the kids? Can you take that? My kids get Wu-Tang Clan pop quizzes and if they fail, they go to the dungeon, man.

That's my parenting style. Works pretty good. Well, I thought the Google, the actual, all the members, because I feel like we missed one or two. Anyway, so you asked me how my week went and that was part of my week was figuring out my Wu-Tang name. And then I was trying to think of a new ad for the law firm. I was trying to think of a new marketing gimmick for the law firm. And I was, I had this image of me and you, Joe, in a wrestling ring.

And the tagline was pound for pound, the best attorneys in the business. That was my, that was my thought process. But then I was like, would people just think we're fat, right?

That's what I was trying to say. That plays out. I like the idea. I like the idea.

And let me, let me play the ring announcer. All right. And in this corner, weighing in at six or how tall are you, Josh? I'm about six to seven. All right, Joe, how tall are you? I'm a healthy five foot 11. Exactly.

All right. In this corner, six to weighing in at 235 pounds. Rational enforcer at his tag team teammate, uh, coming in at five 11, two 20, ghostly vigilante, two 20. You gave us way too much, man. Two 20, man.

About two 65. Morgan, that was a good day. That was the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me. It's the best compliment I've gotten. Well, the beard, the beard takes the weight off.

You know what I'm saying? I need to get a beard over my whole body. At a muscular 195.

When I come back next week with his easy top beard that just wraps around my entire body, you'd be like, gee, what's your diet, man? So I'm gonna keep working on that. We had, uh, our friends at our friends down at graphics house said they could make us a heavyweight championship belts with the logo on it, with the firm logo coming to every console with it on. Yeah. And I think that's our promos. We'll go down to the bar, put the big TV, put a good backdrop and, uh, and, and do our new promos pound for pound. That's a compliment.

That one's the, he's the best wrestler pound for pound. It's across. Now, listen, when you do the promo, listen, when you do the promo, I mean, get close up on the camera, have the belt over one shoulder. You got to have just done something, uh, exhilarating.

You're sweaty and you got to do the flare. I mean, you've got to have, you got to have something. Yeah, we'll work on it.

We know we haven't. Yeah, we know to do promos, man. I think me and Joseph are more prepared. I would argue that to practice law, you might be onto something. If you showed up in court in wrestling tights, it might speed the case along a little bit. I predict in a hundred, I'll predict in a hundred years and a hundred years from now, cause everything's wrestling, everything's wrestling. Everything's going to be wrestling a hundred years from now. I predict attorneys. Judges, politicians, presidents will all have intros. Yeah.

I like themes, fireworks, walkout music, graphics. It's just, I think it's going to creep into, it's just going to happen. I think it started with Hogan, right?

Hogan this, this past year at Trump's thing where he ripped his shirt off. Yeah. That was the beginning of it. Anyway, that's just my protection a hundred years from now. We won't be here. You won't know if I'm right. Nah, I mean, you got a lot of years left, man. Medical advancements.

I think that there's a strong possibility that Josh Whitaker is going to live to be 200 years old. Get a pig heart or something. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

Go with your cadaver ACL. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, that was, that was the week. That was the week in a nutshell. Wu-Tang name generator. This promo I made up in my head.

That was my week. I like it. Yeah. But, but on the show, this is what we do. Me and Joe are going to talk law. We don't do it in the very beginning. We have to warm up in the intro.

That's what we just did. We've got listener questions. These are questions that people have asked me in my daily practice. We leave the names and all the identifying facts out, but we talk about the issue that it raised.

Cause I always figure if somebody's in my office asking me this question, other people have the same question and we do this so that you know who we are. And Morgan, we're doing the free consults. We're still focusing on estate planning, trust, wills, power of attorneys. Uh, your estate plan.

That's what me and Joe want to help you with this week. And so if you give us a call, we're going to give you a free estate planning consult. Tell you folks the, uh, again, the consult is complimentary with Whitaker and Hamer law firm. All you've got to do is call the number 9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000.

That's 9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000. And you can grab one of those consults estate planning. And again, having some fun today with the Wu Tang name generator. So for rational enforcer, ghostly vigilante, I'm nasty Eagle. We're back on the other side.

We'll start with estate planning. You're listening to Judica County radio. I'm Morgan Patrick. And as always a pleasure, uh, to jump right in and talk to you about what's going on in the state of North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick.

Thanks for having me. And we're going to jump on and talk legalese. And I believe Josh, we start with estate planning.

We are, we're going to start with a, a question. I get a lot, uh, at the end of an estate planning. Um, like when we're, we're finished and you just finished signing. The question I get is what do I do with my originals? What do I do with my copies?

Right? So we just finished signing your estate plan, your new trust, your new will. I've given you your originals, uh, to take home with you. And the first question I get is what do I do with my originals?

And the second question is, um, what do I need to do with my copies? But before we answer those questions and, um, Joe, I figured, you know, we got a pretty, we, we were very proud at the firm. We're very proud of our estate planning process. We've kind of, you know, worked on it for 20 plus years to make it as easy as possible for folks to get it done.

Cause it's something that no one wants to do, but yet everybody needs to do it. And so Joseph, I thought you could tell us a little bit about our process, how we get to this, this, the end of it. I get these questions at the end of the process, but I feel like we need to go over the process real quick.

Yeah. So, you know, one of the things, like you said, we're very, we're very proud of the work we've done there and we put a, there's a ton of thought and energy that went into creating our process. And basically we start from the starting point of, we want this to be as streamlined and easy and stress free as humanly possible for you. Again, it's a, it's already a process that's gonna, you know, just by its very nature is it's stressful. It's morbid.

Like it's something that folks don't like to think about. So we came from the place of wanting to make it as easy as humanly possible. And we do that in a few ways. We give you flexible consult options. So if you want to come in and sit down in person, if that's your thing, we allow that. If you're the type that would prefer to just handle your consult over the phone, we allow that.

We do zoom basically any option you can think of to make it tailored to the way that you want to sit down with us. And we're also going to utilize technology, online forms to collect the information we need from you on the front end as efficiently as possible and to keep our consult focused on the things that really matter. So we don't have to rehash a lot of the information that we can just get from you.

You can do that right from your couch, on your phone, from your computer. So again, options, Josh, we wanted to give folks options and we wanted to give folks different ways, you know, that meet their needs to go about handling this process. And I think that's important to point out, you know, if you want to come sit down with us and meet us in one of our offices, you know, we're happy to do that.

You know, people got used to zoom, you know, during COVID. So we'll do that or just just an old fashioned phone call and we get a lot of information from you on the front end so that our time together is useful and not wasted. And we're not just, you know, getting the middle names of all your kids when we sit down. We've already got that information so we can talk to you about the legal issues that you have with your estate plan. But the nuts and bolts, Josh, that's what we call it. We want to get down to the nuts and bolts and brass tacks. And so we'll start off getting that information from you. We'll we'll get a questionnaire and we'll collect all the information we need to get the ball rolling and then we'll set your console up. And then, like you said, during the console, we're going to talk about, again, the things that that really matter. We're going to talk about the the real meat of what your estate plan is going to look like. And and that's what we're going to focus on there. And once we've we've had your console, we figure out which direction we want to go. We're going to send you an engagement agreement.

You're going to sign the engagement agreement. We're very another thing we wanted to be on this process was transparent, right? Because you hear a lot of times attorneys folks get kind of jaded by attorneys that surprise them with fees. They don't understand the fee structure.

They end up getting a bill for all of these hours of work that they didn't anticipate. So all of our estate planning work is done flat fee. We're going to disclose our price to you immediately at the very beginning of the process. So there's no surprises. And we're going to let you know this is what it's going to cost you. This is what it's going to look like.

This is the turnaround time for every piece of this. And again, we're just going to keep you as informed as humanly possible so you know what's going on. That's all good information, Joseph.

While you're saying that, though, I got bored and I googled I finally googled the members of the Wu-Tang Clan. And I think we only missed one. Yeah, we did. We miss you, God. Yeah, you, God.

Can't forget you, God. The Wikipedia entry also refers to Wu-Tang Clan as an American hip hop collective. Yeah, that's a pretty that's a pretty cool.

That's a pretty cool name. Yeah, these collectives, you know, a group is more a group is more, you know, one cohesive unit that doesn't you know, they just they're just that group. When you got these collectives, it's a lot of individual artists that do their own thing as well.

And as we well know, the Wu-Tang Clan does do its own thing. And I'm sure you're familiar with that, Josh. So the whole estate planning process at our firm is meant to take, you know, two to four weeks, depending on how quickly we can get you, you know, get how quickly we can fit into your schedule. And the very final event is you you come to us, one of our offices, to sit down and sign your estate plan. And so I'll sit down with a lot of folks and we'll go through and get everything signed and notarized and and you leave with your originals. And so the first part of our listener question is, what do we do with our original estate planning docs? And what I always tell people, Joe, is, well, you're going to want to store them somewhat somewhere safe. Some people do ask, you know, back in back in the 80s, you might go register your will down at the courthouse and they might keep the original will.

And the statute kind of change that really doesn't happen anymore. So what you do is you just keep it with your other important papers. Right. So that's a safe that that's a safety deposit box down at the bank, wherever that is. That's where you keep your original somewhere safe, where they're not going to get anything spilled on them or crumpled up, you know, somewhere safe. And then they ask, you know, usually they ask, well, what do I do with copies?

Because what we do is we email you PDF copies of everything after we finish signing. And I usually tell people to forward that email to your your backup fiduciaries. Right.

Your backup trustee, your your backup executor, basically anybody who's going to need a copy of it. Yeah. Yeah. That way, everybody knows that you've done your estate plan. Right. Because some people pass away and we don't know when the last time they did their estate plan.

It's not obvious. You know, we've had some clients who, you know, are, you know, are living alone. And when they pass away, it's you know, it's up to these the kids or the surviving family members to try to find this estate plan. And so we usually say, hey, forward this email with all of your copies to whoever.

I mean, it sounds kind of morbid. Right. But whoever would be looking for them if he passed away. And then in that email, tell them where your originals are. Right. So here's copies of everything I did.

Here's a law firm that did it. I'm putting my originals in my desk drawer where I keep my other important papers, you know. And so I don't know. That's what I usually tell people.

Joseph, do you tell people anything different? Well, you touched on something very important, man, that a lot of a lot of folks, it's important to understand your estate plan. You could spend fifteen thousand dollars on the most immaculate, incredible estate plan of all time. And it's worthless if the people who need to have access to it can't find it.

It has literally no value to you. So the best will in the world is only as good as someone can produce that will for you. So I think that's an important point to make. You know, it's very important that that someone can access and find these documents.

And yeah, I tell folks the same thing, man. You know, copies of the vast majority of the documents we're going to do for you are going to be sufficient. Most of the things that we're going to give you, you can work off an electronic copy even.

So there's only a few things that are going to it's going to be super important to have the original when the time comes. But yeah, I give folks the exact same speech. Josh, it's a great speech. Ten out of ten. A plus.

Wu-Tang Clan would be proud. Right. You know, back in the day, you know, we've been doing this for 20 plus years. And so there was a time period where we will put all your copies on a CD and we give you the CD and be like, hey, here's a CD. We can still do that if you want.

We'll figure it out. We'll find the technology if you're a CD guy these days. We'll even make you a mixtape of our favorite Wu-Tang Clan songs free of charge. That'll be track one and it'll be like a hidden track eleven. Every client gets a free Josh Whittaker curated Wu-Tang Clan mixtape. That's going to be a good that's going to be a good mixtape. You're going to want that. That's going to be that's going to be more popular than the free consoles, man.

Folks are going to come for the Wu-Tang mix. But, you know, just just, you know, I was cleaning out some room or something, you know, and I found a box of I still have all my like I didn't get rid of my CDs. Right. I still got all my CDs, like millions and millions of CDs down in the basement. I don't know what to do with them, but I'm not getting rid of them. Yeah, but I had a box of non music CDs. They weren't like gaming. It was just like photos and and and documents.

And I was like, what? Either way, man, you'd get your your we started off with you'd get your actual pictures and then it transitioned to you'd go in and get your CD. Can you even get a CD-ROM drive on the computer now? Yeah, they got them. They got them.

You just USB plug them in the very few, if any, come with a actual disk drive built into them. But you can still get one, man, if you need one. I've got a hookup. I've got an underground black market connection. I can put a really old it's a really old guy who comes out with a cane and gives you a CD.

He nursed back the help. Yeah, I like that. All right.

So that was our that was our first listener question. Your state plan. What do you do with the originals? What do you do with the copies?

That's what I tell people. A state planning. Again, we have complementary consults with Whitaker and Hamer.

That means no charge. Call this number nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand and leave your contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch for that complementary consult in and around a state planning nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. We've got more Judica County radio coming up again.

These are listener questions this week. Again, Whitaker and Hamer law firm pricing attorneys here in North Carolina are Josh and Joe. They have offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City.

We're back right after the break. Welcome back in Judica County radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

The pricing attorneys here in North Carolina offices are located Morehead City, Gastonia, Fuquay, Verina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland and in Raleigh for your convenience. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys on legal questions. And also we have some fun on the program. If you would like to submit a question, you can certainly do that. Questions at Judica County radio dot com. That's questions at Judica County radio dot com. Where are we going next, Josh? Well, we've got another listener question.

But before we get there, what? So the PNC Center is now the Lenovo Center, correct? That's right. And are we all in agreement? Are we all calling it the Lenny now? Is that what we're calling it? The Lenny?

Who said that? I think a lot of people are. I call it the Lengeman. More formal. Yeah. You like to use their first name? Yeah. I think we're calling it Lenny as a as a as a group. I haven't heard that. But if you wanted to start that trend, go ahead.

I mean, I'm fine with me. I don't think I can take credit for it, but I think they're calling it the Lenny. But I will tell you, they just we've talked about Wu-Tang a couple of times today.

The Wu-Tang clan is coming to the Lenny. Do you see that, Joseph? Oh, no, I didn't see that. It's awesome, though, man. That's great. And you know, you know, you probably don't know the answer to this question, but do you know who's opening for them?

Is it Nasty? What was it? I already forgot Morgan's name, Nasty Genius, something like that. It was the Eagle. Josh, is it the Nasty Eagle that's opening for them?

I don't think so. It's Run the Jewels. Oh, really? Yeah, we saw Run the Jewels. Yeah, when they opened for Rage Against the Machine. Yeah, that was a good COVID concert, man. That was a good COVID concert. That's probably the highlight of COVID, honestly.

I'm still glad we were able. Anyway, don't get me talking about COVID. We're talking about the concert. So, you know, if this Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang has not paid me to do this. But if you enjoy the Wu-Tang, they're coming to the Lenny soon, this summer. Sounds good, man.

It sounds like we should do a show, a radio show from the Wu-Tang show. All right. So this this is our second listener question. And this we get this question all kinds of ways. But I boiled it down to this one question.

What to do if you get sued? Right. So I had people show up for a consultation and they've been served with a complaint. It can be all kinds of different things.

Right. You breached a contract. You owe money to a credit card company. You're in default on a note disagreement over what to pay a contractor. All kinds of different reasons that you could be sued. You were, you know, in a car accident, you know. So but that's how you get sued.

Right. You get served by certified mail, by a sheriff dropping it off. But you get a complaint. And that's where whoever's suing you has kind of detailed the facts of the case, their claims, what they're seeking to get compensated for. And so I get that a lot, Joe.

Just people come in. Here's a complaint. I got served. What is the first thing you would tell somebody if when they come into your office and say, hey, I got sued?

What do I do? Man, you give me these open ended questions. And really, the answer to that question is it depends on the nature of of your suit. Right. So we're going to have to I think step one is we're going to do some fact finding.

We're going to have to do some fact finding and understand the nature of your complaint, which which with our process, we're generally going to have done that before you walk in. Right. So we'll know. So the next step is just going to be it's a twofold process. Right. It's it's a it's an understanding, helping our client understand what to expect from the process.

Right. Informing them about what it's going to look like, what litigation looks like. And then just giving them an outlook as to how their particular case, from our experience, is likely to play out. And a lot of times that involves telling folks some pretty hard truths.

Right. You know, we we're going to represent people to the best of our ability, for sure. But there are times when the facts just aren't on your side and that's the reality of of of what we do. So we're going to give you we're going to give you all angles of the situation. We're going to tell you the good, the bad and what arguments you can make.

And and again, it may not be a great outlook for you, but I think the goal is to to help you leave armed with knowledge and understanding a path forward. Yeah, absolutely. You know, but what I would say is, you know, the first thing you're going to have to do is you're going to have to answer that complaint. And you would you meet you meet with us first, like Joe said, and we're going to give you the good, bad, the good, the bad and ugly. And and you don't you know, if you've retained us as your attorney, don't don't lie to your attorney.

Right. So give you tell us we're going to give you the good, the bad and ugly. You're going to give us the good, bad and ugly, you know, and we're going to try to help you get through it the best way you can. You know, some people come in, they're getting sued. And we're like, we we could we can work with this.

You know, we you know, this is there's some some of these facts are debatable. This isn't exactly how it happened. But the first thing you're going to do, you get sued. And that starts as soon as you get served, a clock starts ticking. And in most scenarios, you're going to have 30 days to answer that complaint. That means you have to you have to answer you have to go through the facts that they've laid out in that complaint. You have to answer them. You've got to assert your affirmative defenses.

Right. You may have some defenses that you need to assert and you may have some counterclaims. And that's what you do in your answer to this complaint, which hopefully, you know, most of the times you're going to want an attorney to help you. We call this civil, you know, civil litigation. But step one is you're going to have to answer the complaint. And that's the big thing, because you can really you can really make a lot of errors if you don't take the time to consult an attorney and assert all of your defenses. Get all of your counterclaims in and answer that complaint, because that's the next step.

And some people aren't. You know, the biggest thing that I would want you to take away from from the radio show today is you're on the clock. It's taken and you doing doing nothing is a terrible you lose if you do nothing. You know, you can't put your head in the sand because you're going to have a default judgment entered against you, which means that they're not even going to judge the case on the merits.

They're just going to take what the plaintiff bring in the suit says at face value and they're going to award them a judgment. That's it. So you've got to do something.

You can't just you can't decide. No big deal. You know, you have to do something. Yeah, because even if it's the most frivolous claim ever, if you don't like Joe said, if you don't answer it and say, hey, this is frivolous and here's why. You're going to lose and you're going to have a default judgment against you. They can use that to try to collect against your belongings, your assets.

It's it's not good and it's much harder to defend you after the fight answer you want. You want that done. And then I would add, you know, if this is something you have insurance coverage for. So I'll say you were you caused a car accident and the people that got hurt in the car accident or suffered damage or suing you.

Well, you probably have hopefully right. You have car insurance. You have you have you have insurance and that insurance company is going to defend you. Yeah, you're going to want to get them involved.

You're going to tell them about it because they're going to you know, there's some negotiation that could happen. But anytime an insurance company where you have insurance and for that situation, you want to get them involved because they have their own attorneys. And if you don't tell them about it, they may not cover you.

Right. So if in our example, if you get a complaint, you don't answer it, you don't tell your insurance company they get a default judgment against you. Your insurance company is not going to just pay that out. They're like, hey, you have an obligation to make your insurance company aware of it so they can defend you defend themselves.

Same thing similar to our state planning example. They can't help you if they don't know about it. You got it. You got to inform them. Well, and again, just being the, you know, Joe Public over here.

No offense, Joe. You know, if I'm in a if I'm in a fender bender and I've been in a couple, we do exchange insurance information. And one of the first things I do is call my insurance company to let them know that something has happened. And that kind of gets the process started. So, yeah, that that that initial contact is huge because, you know, their insurance company is going to be contacting the opposing insurance company to get the ball rolling. So I'm sure they don't want to be surprised. So, you know, make that communication.

It's a great point, Nasty Eagle. And all I'm doing now is just picturing you out here on the road, just smashing everybody, just fender bender city every day. And when I say when I say fender bender, little thing, little Morgan's just going to come up behind you and tap you. That's how he meets people. That's how you know, I'm Morgan from the Judica County.

Everybody's trying to think of new angles to network, you know, and here Morgan's already figured it out. No, it's the new age dating app, just smashing somebody in traffic. You don't want that insurance claim connection.

No. So, Judica County Radio, we are up against our next break. We want to remind you, we do have complimentary consults in around estate planning. Call the number 919-772-7000.

That's 919-772-7000. So far, we've talked about estate planning. Also, what happens if you get sued? And again, if you've got any questions, get in touch with the firm, 919-772-7000.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about. An attorney with Whitaker & Hamer will be in touch and, of course, line up that complimentary consult. And again, it is on estate planning this week.

Now, coming up, what happens if you are in a chain reaction car accident? We will talk about that. We also want to remind you that we've gotten into the Wu-Tang name generator.

And so far, Josh is rational enforcer. We've got Joe as the ghostly vigilante. I, myself, the nasty eagle, and I did type in Lenny and Lenovo and came up with Lenny was mastermind intellectual and Lenovo, crooked alligator.

Yeah, I like the crooked alligator. There you go. So those are the, again, if we're going to nickname the Lenovo Center. Judica County Radio going to roll on on the other side again. If you cause a chain reaction car accident, what's going to happen?

You don't want to miss it. Again, we're back right after this. Judica County Radio hosted by Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whittaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Offices located Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. And we go back and forth on different legal topics here on the program. And so far today, we've talked about estate planning, what to do if you get sued. And also coming up, what if you cause a chain reaction car accident?

We could probably add to that. What if you're in this same car accident? You didn't cause it, but we'll get into that. Josh, you're up.

We talked a couple of weeks ago. I meant to bring this up earlier and I forgot, but we talked a couple of weeks ago about the Mandela effect. And we talked about an example of that. And it was the Sinbad. Sinbad.

Right. We talked about Sinbad. We talked about how a lot of people seem to remember Sinbad being in a movie where he was a genie. And Kazaam, what did we decide it was called? Kazaam? Yeah, it was Shaq.

Shaq was Kazaam. We didn't have the Sinbad movie doesn't exist, apparently. So we did not. That's what they would have you believe, right?

That's what the internet would have you believe. And I asked people to call in, like, hey, if you saw the Sinbad movie, I asked people to call in and tell us. So I didn't feel crazy because I felt like I saw that movie.

Internet says it doesn't exist. I think I saw that movie. We had more than one, less than five people, a handful call in and they did, in fact, tell us we saw that movie.

So it's not just me. Other people have seen that movie. It's our seasoned, very, very intelligent, very reliable listener base that also saw the movie. All right.

All right. I can get behind that, man. So I just wanted, I wanted people to know that, that, that is, uh, anyway, I want to bring that up. I think our listeners like you, Josh, they didn't want you to be alone. Yeah, they just feel bad for you. That's what it is.

I don't want my friend Josh to feel like a crazy person. That's basically what it is. So this listener question that, that, that Morgan was setting us up for, it comes about, it's basically whether you cause the accident or you didn't. But you have a situation where you're out on the road and somebody hits one person and then maybe they careen off and hit another person, but they, they cause multiple collisions.

Right. And some people call it a chain reaction car accident. But just there's more than one, one, one, one person calls it and there's multiple cars involved. And, and the way that works and the reason I'm bringing it up is because it's all going to go back to the person who caused the accident. That's the liable party, right?

That's the defendant in the lawsuit. It's their insurance that has to step up and try to cover it. And as you guys probably all know, when you get car insurance, you have limits on liability. And the minimum is the minimum in North Carolina is still 30.

I didn't look it up before, but I'm sure you look more than myself and nasty Eagle did. So we're going to go with that. There's a, there's, you've got to have a minimum amount of liability insurance. If, if you, just in case you cause an accident, assuming, you know, there's a lot of people out there driving without insurance, that's not good for anybody.

But you can have a very low, you know, it's hard, it's easy to cost $30,000 of damage. And if you hit multiple people, all those people are going to be looking to your insurance company to satisfy, to make them whole, to pay for their damages. And if you've only got the minimum liability, then you might be, you know, after that, they would be suing you, right? And, and, and I don't sell insurance, you know, we're attorneys.

I just, I think this is helpful for people to think about because you might not think about this otherwise. But you want to make sure you have, as a driver, you want to make sure you have sufficient liability coverage so that if you cause an accident, you're not going to be paying it with your personal assets. You want coverage. And, and you also want to protect yourself because there are people out there driving without insurance, right? If somebody hits you and they don't have insurance and, you know, we've talked before about people being judgment proof, right?

They don't, you know, if the person who hits you doesn't have insurance and they don't have assets, it's going to be very hard for you to recover for your damages. And so that's why when you go to get your insurance put in place, they're always going to ask you about uninsured, underinsured coverage. And so that's your insurance stepping in to cover you and your damages when someone else causes the damage.

And we just, we see that come up a lot. And so if you don't have that talk with your insurance agent, that's something you just need, you need to think about, you need to be aware of. I had someone come in the other day and they're like, oh, we'll just sue, we'll sue the guy that hit us. He didn't have coverage, but you know, I've been damaged to the tune of $50,000.

I need to recover it. And then we look at the person that caused the accident. Spoiler alert, if they don't have insurance on their vehicle, chances are they're not going to be a very good person to sue. They're going to be a very judgment proof individual, which just basically means a judgment's only as good as the assets that the person you get it against have. So in the absence of any assets, it's no good.

You know, you're never going to collect or recover anything. And we do this a lot. You know, we have different areas of practice and we deal with a lot of different folks and different legal arenas. But one of the things that I always try to preach to my clients is, is to protect yourself at any time where you can protect yourself against a loss. And it makes financial sense to do so.

Do it. And one of those is, you know, underinsured, uninsured coverage. We see that help a lot of people that don't sell that coverage. Again, we're not insurance salesmen. We're attorneys. But something I preach to my clients is, you know, same thing with life insurance. If life insurance makes sense in your estate plan, you know, if something happens to you, you want your family to be able to continue enjoying whatever level of lifestyle that they have. You can you can do that with insurance.

And so that's something that's something to just keep in mind, because these things get really messy. If somebody causes an accident and there's five cars involved and they have the minimum amount of coverage allowed by law, there's going to be a lot of people stuck with their own damages if you haven't made plans ahead of time. And again, we handle a lot of personal injury.

We handle a lot of car accidents. Me and Joe. We're not yet. We're not on TV doing our wrestling promo to try to call us. It's definitely coming. We're going to work on it.

We're going to fast track it. I'm gonna get those belts made. You see that you see the people at the at the games, right? You'll see the people at football games and stuff.

They'll be at like a Panthers game. And there's a guy that has the belt. I know that guy's logo.

Very familiar. But we'll we'll make them for the firm. And you can hold you can hold it right and get a picture with it. Yeah, I like that, man. It's a great idea.

Josh, you've really had some winning Grade A ideas today, man. You're on your game for sure. We thought you were depressed at the beginning. You're definitely. I think everybody thinks I'm depressed at the beginning, but it's better. This is the source of joy for your life.

You start you start off as Eeyore and you finish up as Mighty Mouse. I love it. But that's that's what we do. Our clients. I had a you know, I've got a client coming in now who's working on a project. And that's what we're doing.

You know, we played Deadpool's Advocate. All right. Well, if this all works out, great. But if it doesn't, how are you going to collect? How are you going to get your money back?

If this person doesn't pay you, what are you going to do? And so we try to get in on the front end and say, look, if this happens, how can you prevent your loss? Right. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. But it's kind of always the way attorneys, you know, law school and the practice of law kind of reprograms your mind a little bit for the better. But we we try to look for issues and problems ahead of time and kind of try to plan how to how to deal with those. And that's, you know, in the estate planning and business planning, you know, across the board. And it's kind of what we do here.

But that's why it's good to have. You know, again, that's how we've kind of designed our law firm. You know, we always have that tagline, you know, your law firm for life. We are set up to help most people with the things that the legal needs that they would encounter in their day to day life. And so that's we spend a lot of time doing that, Joseph, trying to counsel people on what to do if something happens, but also maybe how to prevent that from happening, how to prevent a loss. And and and that's the that's that's at the heart of our mission, man, as the law firm for the community is is not only assisting you when things have gone wrong, but also helping you prevent things from going wrong.

Yeah. Be a legal partner and someone that you can lean into the opportunity to get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. And again, a complementary consult. Let's start with estate planning. That's what we're doing today. All you got to do is call nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.

That's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Leave your contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to set up that complementary consult on estate planning. We've got more Judica County radio. Our final segment coming up. Where will we go? That is a great question.

It's hard to go any higher than the Wu-Tang name generator, but we're going to try. That's coming up next on Judica County radio. Welcome back in Judica County radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in our great state of North Carolina office is located convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City this week.

It is complementary consults on estate planning. Got any questions? Jump on this number right now. Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. That'll get you in touch with the firm.

Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Leave your contact information. And again, you will get one of those complementary consults on estate planning. Ask your questions and get those answers again. No charge.

Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Again, we started off the program. We've talked about estate planning.

We've talked about what do you do if you get sued. We've also discussed you're in a chain reaction car accident. Maybe you caused it. Maybe you're in the middle of it.

What do you do? And of course, we had some fun with the Wu-Tang name generator. Rational enforcer is Josh. Ghostly vigilante is Joe.

I'm the nasty eagle. And if we were going to nickname the Lenovo Center, they came up with the Lenny, which means mastermind intellectual. And if it's Lenovo, you type it into the generator and it's crooked alligator. I think later today, maybe during my lunch break, I think I'm gonna put like everybody I've ever known.

His name in and then reach out to them and don't dress them as that. Yeah. Right. I'm right. I'm a little hand.

No one does anymore. Right. A little handwritten note. You know, I haven't seen you in a while, but I put your name in the Wu-Tang generator in your nasty eagle. You know, have a good life. That's your friend, Josh. That's friendly. That's good friendship. That's the type of things that friends do for people, man.

That's why you're a great friend. Yeah. So I'll put that I'll put that on my schedule today. You know, work, work, be darned.

I got to get to this project. You know, that's one of the things, man, you get these ideas. No one has time to do that.

You can't stop Josh's brain. It just keeps going, man. You've got time.

You're a master of efficient time use. We got we got this great idea for a personal injury attorney promo. Somebody's going to steal it like my other ideas that I'm putting out for free on the radio. Get our belts made.

Do our wrestling promo for for our commercial or stereotypical attorney commercial. Well, let me tell you, brother, what what execution? I won't get to it.

I'll be talking to too many people about listener questions and I'll never get to it. So I think the enforcer you're the enforcer. We've got ghostly vigilante over there.

I mean, come on. Those are wrestling names. Yeah, those are great. They're lawyer names, actually. Morgan, they could also be wrestling names. But, you know, I'm going I think we thought about this one day.

I think me and Joseph are sitting around one day, but there's never been a good you go back. You watch all the wrestling you can think of. There's never been an attorney themed tag team. Wrestling, right. There's never been a tag team.

We even got to an attorney wrestler. Erwin R. Scheister. That's what I was thinking. I.R.S. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was and and people didn't like him. He was a bad guy. Right.

He was the IRS agent who was a rustling. Yeah. I like the idea of a bad guy. Yeah. I like the idea of the lawyer wrestler that just pulls out the rule book and just manipulates the rules.

Like there is no wins. I'm just coming out every every single time. I really like that. Oh, man. I feel like we should do something with that. Yeah, I'm not in that kind of shape, Joe.

But you're still a young man. Yeah. Yeah, I could do it, man. I could do it. Wait a minute.

Pound for pound. That's all. And you just go in. You're in a suit.

That would be uncomfortable, right? You got to wear a suit. You got to have a suit.

You got to go. You get introduced. You walk in and then your back pockets a little like, you know, WWE. You keep rolling out of the rule. You roll out of the ring and just read the rules constantly. And you just you go to the ref and you keep you just keep getting advantages based on technicalities. And that's right. You lose via disqualification. The ref just keeps shaking his head like doing a little I don't know. There's nothing I can do about it.

It's in the book. You sue for the championship. I think it's a good gimmick, man. I've been holding that one back. So, yeah, if you're if you're an indie wrestler, you should call us and we'll we'll give you all of our ideas that we're too old to to execute for free. Just like our consultations for wrestling advice. But, yeah, so that's what we're doing this week. Free estate planning consoles.

We do that a lot. It's a good way to get people in the door. It's a good, good way to get people to to to look at their estate plan.

You know, I talked to a lot of people who've got an estate plan, but they did it in 1988. You know, they did it in 1998. And so they're coming back. Their kids are grown. Now they got grandkids. You know, we talk to people a lot like how how, you know, they want to provide for their kids. They want to provide for their grandkids. We talk to them about trust and what a revocable living trust can do for them.

And I've never sat down and talked with somebody about estate planning and not not have them move forward. Yeah. Right.

You know, we get people we get people moving. Everybody knows you got to do it. And it's not as painful as maybe it used to be or the last time you did it.

It doesn't have to be a painful experience. Well, and you've said this since we started the show, it's important to have the estate plan, but certainly get that. But you're also, as you just mentioned and Joe, you said this, too, before. Make sure you're updating. It's not a set it and forget it. You've got to update it. That's right.

And it's just like it's just like anything else. You know, you get your life insurance in place and then you take a look back a year or two from now and you may need more. You may need less.

You know, same thing when you sit down with your home insurance guy or your auto insurance guy. You may need more. You may need less. There's kids that you may have kids or dependents that need more from your estate plan than than others. Or, you know, we've talked about, you know, if you have the dependents who maybe don't make the best financial decisions, kind of getting them set up so that when you pass away, they're not getting a lump sum. So all kind of things we can fine tune in your estate plan.

But you'll feel I'm telling you, you'll feel a lot better having that done. Kind of things out there. You may have a law partner that you want to cut into your estate because your kids don't know enough about the Wu-Tang Clan. I'll put my death.

I want my trustee to give my kids a rap quiz from early 90s rap early 90s rap quiz. And if they don't pass it, they get nothing. And I get to cash in. You got to pass this. Yeah. You got to get like three out of five questions.

Right. You know, some Pete Rock seal, smooth trivia, some far side trivia, Wu-Tang Clan. You got to you got to be the Simpsons. Come on. The Simpsons. I need you know, I need to I need to I haven't talked about the Simpsons in a long time. I haven't been watching it lately. I got to get back into it.

All right. I've got one final question for both of you as we wrap up this show heading into a big weekend. A lot of people make family plans. They take some short trips, maybe long trips.

But what is on the docket for let's start with ghostly vigilante. Joe, what's what's what's up with you this weekend? This weekend. I'm not doing any trips, man. I'm going to be sitting probably watching a little bit of sports that we have left and just taking it easy, man. You know, just taking it easy. Enjoying vacation.

Stay a little staycation. That's right. I like it. What about you, Joe?

You are you smoking a cigar in the lake somewhere? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's what we're coming up on Memorial Day weekend, right?

This will be this. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to try to keep the holiday out of it, but that's OK. I mean, yeah.

Yeah. It is a big holiday weekend. So go ahead. What are you gonna be doing? I'll be at the lake smoking a cigar half naked in an inner tube for anybody who wants to take a look.

Give them a give. Give them the latitude and longitude, Josh, if they want to join you. We're in the studio during the week. And so, well, this will this will be playing on the weekend. But yes, if you're listening to me talk, I will be in the lake smoking a cigar and some bluegills. If you're if you're jamming to Judica County and you're on the lake and you're cruising by, Josh, just give me the the hang loose sign and say rational enforcer. We love your show. We love your show.

All right. Another edition of Judica County Radio is in the books for Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer managing partners. Whittaker and Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They have offices located Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. Again, complimentary consult available for you on estate planning. Call 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000 for rational enforcer and ghostly vigilante.

I'm Nasty Eagle. We'll see on the radio next week. Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at JMW at MWH Law Lawyer.