If You Live in North Carolina AI Legal Questions Answered

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, we are going to center around North Carolina residents and stay tuned and see. Now these are legal questions for the state of North Carolina. You don't want to miss it because we don't know what the attorneys are going to say.

Stay tuned. Hello Sir Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

They placed offices convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys each and every week. And we also give you an opportunity if you've got a legal situation. We have complimentary consults. We'll tell you about those as we move through the program. But as always, we start off the show with Josh and Joe just telling us how the week was.

Josh. I haven't sat down with you guys in a while. Did you guys go see Pearl Jam when Pearl Jam was here? They did like two shows with a hockey game sandwiched in the middle, right?

Yeah, it was that crazy week where it was like I think Shane Gillis came, two Pearl Jam concerts, a couple of hockey games. Did you guys do any of that? I did not. I did not.

We don't live the same privileged life. We were spending time with our families and upholding our obligations there instead of just going to concerts. For sure. That's good. That's good to you. We went to the second Pearl Jam concert. Yeah, how was it? It was good.

It was good. Pearl Jam, they split up their hits, right? So if they have two dates, they play some of their hits at the first concert and they play some of their hits at the second concert. They play some of their not hits.

Is that what it was? Well, yeah, there's a lot of stuff. I like Pearl Jam, but I'm not president of their fan club or nothing. But we got Even Flow and Alive, which were two big hits they had. What did you miss out on then?

Well, big hits. We didn't hear Jeremy. We didn't hear Breathe. We didn't hear... There was a couple when I went back and looked because you go on YouTube.

I think you got the better ones, man. I wanted to make sure I heard Alive. That was their first big hit. I was in ninth grade when that came out?

Tenth grade? It was a long time ago when that came out. But I remember listening to that song, sitting in high school English class and thinking it was this big song of rebellion. I'm still alive.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. You were listening to it in English class? Were you dissecting the lyrics or were you actually just listening to it and not listening to the teacher? No, he had his Walkman. Yeah, back then it would have been a Walkman. It wouldn't even have been a CD Walkman. It would have been a... Oh, a regular Walkman. It would have been a cassette. The CDs were just coming out. Every time I tell my kids a story, it sounds like the most old timey story. But yeah, CDs were just coming out then, right?

Yeah, we'd go down to the CD store and we'd have to avoid the T-Racks just so we could get the music. But, so here's the point of this whole story is, I never really looked up the meaning behind the song Alive by Pearl Jam. And I finally did because I was like, because you can make out some of the words, but I was like, you know what? It's very disturbing.

It's changed the whole... He moans a lot and says, I'm still alive. Like pretty simple meaning, right?

Yeah, but if you Google, I'm telling you, man, if you Google it, if you Google the meaning of the lyrics for the song Alive by Pearl Jam, it is 100% not what you think it is. Okay. Okay. Now you've teased us. What is it? Yeah, we're intrigued, man.

I don't want to tell you. I want you guys to Google it and find out live on the radio. There's no chance.

Zero chance. So I think you owe us a duty to help us out and give us a hint at least. Well, when I, when I Googled it and you, you recognize the lyrics, but when I Googled it, it was, it started out as a, you guys know who Mother Love Bone is?

Josh, you keep saying things that make no sense to me. And so I'm not familiar with Mother Love Bone, unfortunately. Most of the group Pearl Jam came from Mother Love Bone. Mother Love Bone was like the bridge group between Hair Metal and Grunge. And a lot of the members, the lead singer of Mother Love Bone died before they got big and the remnants became Pearl Jam. So it was the old Mother Love Bone song, but Pearl Jam finished it. But the song is, the first verse is about, I don't even want to talk about it.

You just have to Google it. Okay. All right, man.

Well that, I feel like you wasted all of our time and all of our lives. All right, I got it right here. I got it right here. This is the, uh, the king of all show prep.

Here we go. Son, she said, have I got a little story for you? What you thought was your daddy was nothing but a while you were sitting home alone at age 13. Your real daddy was dying.

Sorry you didn't see him, but I'm glad we talked. So that first, that first verse is yeah. His first verse, the mom, his biological mom is telling him his stepdad was not his dad as he believed his real dad died. That's the first verse. That's not, that's not, that's the thing that happens, right?

It's not that disturbing. The second verse is where it gets weird. Second verse.

While she walks slowly across a young man's room, she said, I'm ready for you. Why I can't remember anything to this very day, except the look, the look. Oh, you know where. Now I can't see. I just stare.

Oh, so that verse is supposed to be about a fictitious encounter between the biological mom and the biological son because he looks like his dad. Okay. Okay. Which is disturbing. I said that the most least disturbing way I could say it. Yeah.

For radio. Okay. All right. So I'm reading the lyrics. It's pretty disturbing.

And the reason we are now just, it's just now dawning upon us. If you, if you hear Eddie Vedder sing, he doesn't say the words. It's all one big slur. Yeah.

It's a lot of money. It's a lot of, you know, I, when this song first came out, I'm in the ninth grade, you know, or whatever. And you know, I'm listening to a lot of rage against the machine and ice tea and these songs that are supposed to, I just interpret as like a rebellious, you know, rebellious anthems, right. That you listen to when you're, when you're young and as a 48 year old man, I just figured out what the song actually means and it's changed it.

It's hard now. There's no real point to the story, except there's no legal twist on this story. This is just the story of how I was recently disturbed, discovering this, figuring all this out. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

There's not more. I really enjoyed that story. I think that was great. And, uh, and I want to thank you for sharing Josh.

And the last guys, the last part of this song is more of what I'm familiar with as far as Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam. It's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah. Ooh. Ooh. Oh yeah. You know what that part?

Yeah. That part means Josh, the deep meaning. What's the deeper meaning? I haven't, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't made a deep dive.

I haven't made a deep dive. So if you count the number of yes and ohs, uh, there's a mathematical equation. Anyway, the point of this, I'm telling every, I've told like 92 people this story now because I want other people to have the same pain that I had having to realize what the song is actually about as opposed to what I thought it was about for the past. Yeah. Sure.

Sure. That share your pain with us, man. So it was the, did you, did you even say if the concert was good, did you like it? Concert was good.

Oh yeah. Concert was good. We had good seats. It was a, we had good seats. It was a good show.

Give it a, give it a approximate ranking in all of the shows we've seen at PNC because we've seen a number of them and some pretty bad ones. We have seen some bad ones. We've seen some bad ones. We've seen some good ones.

I've seen some really bad concerts. Um, I don't know. I'd probably put it. Top, top percent, top. Yeah. Top. Yeah. Top, top 20% easily.

Maybe top 10. I like that. They're, they're, they're all in there. They're getting to be 60. They're all springy and you know, good to see them.

But all right. Today, the serious stuff that we're going to do, I haven't used our friend chat GPT in a while. And so I decided to ask chat GPT if it lived and worked in North Carolina.

Chat GPT asked, if you were a real person, you lived and worked in North Carolina, I want a list of questions you'd want to ask a North Carolina attorney. And it spit out a big list and some of them were good questions. Some of them were not good questions, but I figured we'd take a stab at the good questions. And I haven't told you, Joe, or you, Morgan, what the questions are. Okay.

Just how we like it. Yep. So I'm just going to surprise you with these questions. And, uh, I don't know. I think it'll be fun.

Okay. Uh, it is going to be a Whitaker and Hamer roulette when it comes to chat GPT questions. So we're going AI right here on Judah County. Josh, before we take our first break, the consults, uh, they're complimentary. What are we centering on this week?

Yeah, we're going to keep the, we're going to keep the theme going. Cause I've sat down with a lot of people. I sat down with somebody yesterday who, who listens to the show. Um, but estate planning, you know, we like to do those free consoles to give you, uh, the momentum, the, the push you might need to get your estate planning done. And, uh, so I think that's a good use of our free consults on the, on the show.

All right. Well, direct line is 9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000. That's 9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000 for one of those complimentary consults. Again, 9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000. Leave your name and contact information. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch about that complimentary consult.

9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000. We've got more of Judica County coming up on the other side. Again, we're going AI chat, GBT questions coming at you next, right here on Judica County radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm located right here in the great state of North Carolina. That's where they practice.

They've got offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead city. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys. And we've got a little bit of a surprise, not only for you, but also for Joe and myself.

We have no idea what's coming from chat GPT. We also know that we have complimentary consults. You can call at any time during the show. It's on in and around estate planning. 9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000.

That's 9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000. If you've got a question you'd like to submit to the attorneys and have them answer on a future program, you can email us questions at Judica County radio.com. That's questions at Judica County radio.com. All right, Josh baited breath. We're waiting.

What do you got? So just by way of review chat GPT, I asked it, I said, chat GPT, if you lived and worked in North Carolina, what, what questions would you have for a North Carolina attorney? So it, it spit out a bunch of questions. Some of these are when you use chat GPT, sometimes it's just going to give you some nonsensical nothing. You know, there's been a lot of attorneys across the country that have been disbarred because they have used chat GPT to do their, to try to do their legal writing for like a complaint or like a brief. We would never, we would only use it to make our radio show easier. That's the number one use for it. I can't imagine being a professional and dumping, you know, having chat GPT produce something for you and you don't, you don't even look at it.

You file it. And then the judge figures out like, Hey, this case doesn't exist. And this is nonsense. And this isn't, you know, like that might work for some things like generating rando questions for a radio show.

I was going to say, cause we definitely haven't looked at those, but I haven't looked at this bar for doing that on the radio brother. But there's been a lot of attorneys who are getting professional discipline because they've just tried to use chat GPT to write their whole. Professional discipline sounds so much more serious than just discipline too. You know? It does.

Yeah. It sounds more accomplished. It does.

It really does, man. I was disciplined professionally. All right. So anyway, so it generated a lot of these questions. Some of these questions again are nonsensical, so I'm just going to move around. Joseph has not seen these.

Morgan has not seen these. But the first one I was going to throw out here, chat GPT put this under employment law. But, um, the question it posed is, can I be fired? Can I be fired for something I post on social media? And this is a hot topic here lately. Um, and, uh, so Joseph, I, without any preparation, I would just pose you that general question.

So pose it to me, man, pose it to me. That's the question. Can I be fired for something I post on social media? Uh, that depends, Josh.

And again, that's, that's my goal for a lot of these. That depends. And, uh, you know, North Carolina is, is by its nature and at will employment state, which, which essentially means you can, in the absence of a contractual agreement that governs the, the, and dictates the parameters of your employment, you can be fired for any reason whatsoever. That's not in contravention of public policy. So like there's certain protected reasons that you can't be fired for a religious basis. There's, there's a whole laundry list of those, but in the, but, but outside of that and outside of a contract dictating, otherwise you can, you can be fired for essentially any reason. So in, in just a regular at will employment situation, the answer to that question is, yeah, sure. You could be fired for that. Um, again, as long as it doesn't, doesn't involve some kind of public policy issue tangentially. Um, but, but other than that, you know, if you've got, there, there's also the contractual situation.

If you've got a, a contract that governs your employment and, and that's, there's some kind of parameters that dictate social media, then you can also be fired in that situation. So very much so yes, that, that is a possibility for sure. Yeah. The, yeah, I agree with you.

So North Carolina at the bed, it's bare bones as an at will state. And so if you're an at will employee, as long as it's not an illegal reason, right? There's plenty of those, like Joe said, there's reasons, you know, there's protected, uh, there's things that are protected, but, uh, for something like this, this wouldn't be protected. This doesn't trample on your first amendment rights.

Um, you know, you post how much, what are the stories that are coming out, right? So you post how much you don't like Trump on social media or how much you do like Trump on social media. Your boss doesn't like it.

They can 100% just let you go. If you post a six page analysis of Pearl jam songs on social media, you just, you disturb your high school English class, then you wax poetic on Pearl jam. I thought Pearl jam was just about the moaning sounds. Now I'm having an existential crisis. I thought it was a condiment. You know, I thought it was, you know, Hey, it's Pearl jam, Pearl jam.

It does sound delicious now that you mentioned it, but there can be all different, right? You might have a contract, you might be a 10 99, you might have an employment contract and that contract may govern how you're, uh, let go. And under what conditions you may be in a union where there's, where the, the default at will status has changed. But yeah, you're a normal at will attorney as most of us, uh, are these days you can be terminated for anything. That's not illegal, including whatever you happen to throw there, throw out there on social media. Um, it's crazy what some people put on social media.

It is man. It's also kind of entertaining too. So I appreciate the ones that do it and, uh, and make the sacrifice of getting fired for their jobs for the, uh, for the enjoyment of, you know, the view of the public. I think we all have, um, acquaintances slash friends that have, you know, different thoughts on different, different, different issues. And I love the, um, um, the social media platforms that you can, uh, unfollow but stay friends. So you don't, you know, you don't, you're not exiting, you're not saying, see ya and they'll figure out that you're no longer their quote unquote friend, but you don't have to see what they're posting. And, um, I tell ya, I, the more and more people you talk to, uh, the, the people that are really disturbing them are their family members.

I mean, these are people that they're closest to and all of a sudden it's like, holy cow, they're off the chain going some other direction. And you're like, I can't, I don't need to see this every day. So I like that aspect.

It's always uncomfortable when you see like the family members fighting on a Facebook post, you know, uh, I always hate to, I always hate to see that. I'll read it. I'll look at it. It's fun to look at. Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. It's it's exact. That's exactly right, man. So if you're a fan of soap operas, then you go looking for that kind of stuff out there. That's what you live for. Every, every family's got dirt, man, every family.

And, but only a few of them willingly post about it on social media and air it out for, for the world to see if you're into that kind of thing. Um, all right. So that was, that was our first, I think we got time for another one. So the, I'm going to jump to another. I'm gonna jump to another category here.

I'm gonna go back to a more familiar one for us. Good old estate planning. And so chat GPT asked me a question, Joseph, that I'll pose to you. Do I really need a will if I don't have, it says many might be better to say any, but I don't have many assets. Well, Josh, I'm going to shock you with my answer when I say it depends.

Uh, it really depends, you know? So yeah, if there's, there's a well-crafted estate plan, one of the goals is going to be to avoid probate. And there are plenty of ways that you can avoid probate without having a will. So, you know, you don't absolutely have to have a will to have an estate plan that functions and works appropriately. And so, you know, one of those situations would obviously be, we've talked about a lot on the show, having a trust.

That's a possibility for sure. But even in the absence of a trust or will, you know, there's, you could not have enough assets or you could have joint ownership of enough assets to where you're not going to get any benefit from the will. Now where the will is relevant is the fact that situations change, right? And so your situation, you could be in a situation where you're all good and you don't have any need for a will. And then something happens, you acquire some property, there's a relationship change, whatever it may be. And you get to a point where that will is very beneficial to you. So.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was going to say too, Joe. You know, let's say someone comes into the office and they, let's say they lease a car, right? They don't own a vehicle, they rent, they don't own real property. All their life insurance and investment accounts are all tied up with beneficiaries. And so you come to us and you have very few assets that will actually be in your estate. And the first thing I would tell you is, well, you still need a will because you might inherit something. Like you might, you might pre-decease somebody else, inherit something. You know, after you die, that's going to go down to your line and we want to know who, who that is. And so you could, if you don't have a will establishing who your heirs are, it's going to be wherever the law takes it.

You know, we, we've talked about that. And so, and, and the second part of that I would say is the second part of that is most attorneys, when you sit down with them to talk about a will, you're going to talk about other things. You're going to talk about healthcare power of attorneys and power of attorneys and living wills. And you're going to talk about other things as part of your estate plan that those, those things don't, it doesn't really matter what your assets are for those things. Those are things that can help you, you know, if you, if you become, you know, if you get dementia or you, you get some physical affliction, those will, those will keep you moving. And so I would argue you do, you know, most everybody needs a will. That, that would be my argument.

There's very few people where you come into the office and I'm like, you know what, you're wasting your time here, you know? And, uh, you know, basic will is not very expensive. Um, and I think that's the benefit of the way we do things too.

I think you touched on it. We're going to, we're going to give you an estate planning package, right? So there's going to be elements of your estate plan that are not will-based that are very important to you. So, uh, still coming in to have that conversation, especially at the incredibly reasonable price of $0 is, uh, is highly recommended for everybody. All right. We are going to take a short break and we'll come back on the other side and more chat GPT questions. Uh, again, um, the, uh, the premise is this, uh, Josh got on chat GPT asking, you know, questions, uh, for North Carolina attorneys.

Uh, and we've got some good ones. Uh, we will continue that discussion coming up on the other side. Want to remind you very quickly, there are complimentary consults in and around estate planning. If you've got any questions, just call this number 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000.

Leave your contact information. Uh, obviously we know it's going to be about estate planning. Grab one of those complimentary consults, 919-772-7000. Again, we've got more chat GPT questions directed at North Carolina attorneys. It's all coming up next on Judica County radio. We are back on Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys right here in North Carolina. And they placed offices convenient for you all over the state. Morehead city on the coast.

You got Gastonia down near Charlotte, Fuquay, Varina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Raleigh, Cleveland. I mean, we've got offices again to help you if you've got any legal situation. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys. And this week, uh, we got into chat GPT. I should say Josh has because he's not sharing any of the questions until he actually goes over them on the air. But these are questions, uh, directed at chat GPT.

What to ask a North Carolina attorney. Uh, and then again, we'll get the answers back. So Josh, uh, let's go ahead and recap real quickly what we've hit so far and let's hit the next question. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll hit the next, we'll hit the next question. You know, I was just thinking, you know, I feel like some of these questions, so that that's what I did. Uh, Morgan, I prompted chat GPT. Chat GPT, if you lived and worked in North Carolina, what questions would you ask a North Carolina attorney? And so we bounced around between employment law and employment law question. We had an estate planning question. I'm gonna keep bouncing around that has a real estate and housing section. Chat GPT had some, some questions about real estate. And, uh, Joseph, it's another question I'm going to pose to you.

I guess all these are getting posed to you. Morgan's not an attorney, so I can't ask Morgan. But Morgan's a smart guy, man.

He is a smart guy. I'm just here for Schneider. I'm here for Schneider comments. I'm here for Schneider comments. That's what I'm here for. I like Morgan's Morgan's non attorney perspective. It means honestly a lot more to me than yours does.

Joe. I like the fact that you're a smart ass. I mean, it really makes the show.

I really, I try to keep my humor, the driest that can possibly be even on this rainy day, man. So we ended up talking about estate planning a lot on the radio. Cause that's that we just get a lot of estate planning questions. The firm does a lot of it. The firm also does a lot of real estate closings, right? Real estate transactions, escrow settlement, wherever you call it, wherever you're from. You know, we've handled 60, 70,000 real estate closings during our firm's 20 plus year history. Chat GPT wants to ask us a real estate question.

It's more real estate litigation based, Joseph. But the question it posed is what are my rights if I'm buying a home and something goes wrong before closing? And so I'm going to interpret something goes wrong as meaning you find something wrong with the house, right?

You're doing your you make an offer. Your sellers accept it. Maybe you're in your due diligence period. You have the home inspected and you figure out one of the AC units is bad or you figure out there's some mold. You figure out something. We will call it a latent defect, something that wasn't disclosed to you by the sellers.

Perhaps they didn't even know about it. Something that wasn't obvious when you did your walkthrough or when you first saw the house. And so you're under contract and now you've got, you know, something something big has come up. So what are my what and what are my rights if I'm buying the home and something goes wrong before closing? That's the question to you, Joseph.

So you touched on the most important piece of that question, right? Which is your contract. You're under contract. You have a contract for a reason. The contract's going to dictate that that's what the contract's purpose is, right?

It's going to dictate the rights and responsibilities of each party. So, you know, and a lot of a lot of what your options are at that point are going to depend on what part of the process you're in. So the vast majority of real estate contracts are going to have an imposed due diligence period during which you are going to conduct your due diligence, meaning you're going to look into all these issues.

You're going to get your inspections. You're going to do your your your preliminary work to see if any of these such issues exist. And so if you're within that due diligence period, which what a lot of times you're going to see happen is a buyer is going to pay a due diligence fee, which is essentially a good faith fee that's that that for the seller taking that property off of the market. And, you know, if you're in that due diligence period, a standard North Carolina offer to purchase is going to give you the right to terminate that contract without really any penalty whatsoever to you, as long as you're within that that prescribed window.

Now, if you get after that, that period of time, it's going to depend on what the issue is, right? There's still going to be some issues for which you can terminate that contract without penalty. But there's going to be other things that where if you want to terminate that that contract, you may still be able to do it. But you might be looking at a situation where, you know, you're you're facing some legal consequences for doing so.

Yeah. So if you, you know, and most people do, you know, due diligence is still relatively new North Carolina. But most people, when you go under contract for a house, you're going to pay a due diligence fee, like Joe said. And you're gonna have a period where you could walk away for any reason and still get your your earnest money back.

And so that's that's one route you may go. And then, like Joe said, if it's a big enough issue, there's another, you know, you know, there's another kind of way of thinking about it. And a lot of times the buyer and seller will just negotiate, you know, hey, this is going to be a twenty thousand dollar fix that we didn't know about when we made the offer. And so sometimes your seller will come down on the purchase price twenty thousand or or or give you some other concessions to try to make it work. So in the end, you know, it's all a negotiation. But, you know, if it's if it's done right, you'd be able to walk away.

If something like that, you find something in the house that that scares you. But yeah, that happens a lot. That happens a lot. It is, man.

It's a super common thing. And I'll tell you, we you know, we work with a lot of real estate agents as well in our practice. And the best real estate agents are the ones that can navigate those issues and keep the peace and work towards an amicable resolution, not get everybody fired up. But instead, try to bring everybody to the table.

And like you said, negotiate a solution that's fair, that works for everyone, that keeps the deal together. So, yeah, man, it's it's that I hope I answered the robots question well enough there and it seems pleased. Yeah, I gave it my all.

I always try to answer these robot questions really well, because when the ultimate takeover happens, I want them to look upon me favorably. All right. This next this next question is, you know, it's to me, you know, having practiced law for a long time, sometimes we get a little jaded and sometimes I don't think we do a good job of explaining legal things to people who don't live their lives in the legal world.

Right. You know, so this one this one someone asked me the other day point blank and and I was trying to explain it as best I could. And I wasn't doing a good job.

I wasn't doing a good job of explaining it. So I'll pose this question to you, Joseph. I've said pose too much. I'll ask you this question.

Every time you say I do pose, I'll stand up and pose at my desk. For your consideration, what is the difference between a will and a trust? So a will is going to be a will is going to be something that's going to explicitly govern what happens with your property upon your death. The disposition of any property that you own. It's going to handle that after the fact.

Right. So once you've passed away, someone's going to take that will. They're going to probate it down in the county that the estate's being administered.

And that's how it's going to going to be handled. A trust is is essentially its own separate entity that you're going to. Most of the time you're going to put your property into prior to your death. And that trust will still potentially govern the disposition of what's in that trust after your death. But it's also its own entity that exists independently during your lifetime. So, you know, like same things can be accomplished by both, but very different mechanisms of action. And that's good. That's good, man. That's I think a lot of people get confused because they they both can do the same thing.

The trust can do more things. Right. So, you know, when I when I was explaining it to this person who was asking me the question, I kind of did the same thing you did there. I like your your designating that it is a separate entity.

It's not yourself. I think that's helpful. But but I told her, well, this is what a will does and this is what a trust does. And she was like, well, that's the same thing.

I was like, oh, yeah, I guess it could be right. It definitely can be. But the trust, you know, and here we're we're kind of talking there's all kinds of different trust. We're kind of just talking about a generic, revocable living trust versus a will.

And yeah. So a trust is not you. Right.

So a trust is it's kind of like setting up an LLC, setting up a company, setting up this different entity that's going to hold your property. And, you know, me and Joe and Morgan, we're all going to die one day. But our trust will survive us. And when it survives us, it can do different things.

Right. It can it can dispose of all your property similar to a will without going through probate and get everything where you need it to go. It can survive you and and manage things. And you can have a trustee kind of manage stuff. So it it can do the exact same thing a will does outside of probate. You know, avoiding probate is a big deal. We talk about it a lot.

We'll talk about it again. Avoiding probate is is huge, in my opinion. So trust is that's the big difference. They can both do the same thing. A trust can just do a lot more things.

Yeah. And maybe that's true. Yeah, that's a good point. And when we speak to those a lot more things, you can get a lot of benefits during your life from a trust that you can't from a will. You know, a will is going to will is only going to be relevant once you're gone. But a trust can give you lifetime benefits.

It can do a lot for you while you're alive. And then it can also step in once you're gone. And and and still, you know, has a lot more functionality than just a standard simple will is going to have. So when you when you have a trust, so a trust is going to be more of an it's kind of an additional add on.

Right. So it's going to if you have an estate plan that has a trust in there, your estate plan is going to cost you more in legal fees because there's more drafting, there's more things that have to be done. But the will you have had people ask me that, too. Well, if I have a trust, why do I have this will? Well, the will is still important to catch things that are not in the trust. Yeah, that's right.

And so and it's the same thing we talked about earlier when we talked about it. I don't really have a lot of assets. Do I need a will? Well, you don't have a lot of assets now. You know, you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. You never know what you're going to how your situation is going to change. And so a lot of times the will is going to serve as that catchall so that if you do acquire some property after the fact that you didn't anticipate having, you know, you're still going to have what's called a residuary clause in your will that's going to dispose of any of your residual property, anything that you anything that you did not specifically provide for.

So always still a good idea to have that. Judica County radio, we are in the middle of question and answer, but we're using A.I. and these are questions directed at attorneys for the state of North Carolina.

And we're seeing how the gentleman will answer them. And again, this is all Josh's. I mean, he cooked this up. I like a great job, man. Yeah, he did that. Great job.

Really? All the yeah. All the all the prep that went into. No, I'm kidding.

I mean, it is really interesting to see what A.I. is coming up with. We've got more questions coming up on the other side. We want to remind you very quickly that we have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. So if you've got any questions, take advantage of this. Call this number 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 line up one of those complimentary consults in and around estate planning. You can ask your questions. We have more questions coming up on the other side. Want to remind you that Whitaker and Hamer is the power behind this program. They placed offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City for your convenience.

Again, we've got more questions coming up on the other side. You're listening to Judica County Radio. Welcome back into Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm right here in North Carolina. That's where they practice law. They've got offices located in Garner, Raleigh, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City covering the state for you. And we are in the middle of a program dedicated to questions that are directed at North Carolina attorneys.

But we asked AI to do it for us. Josh is all over this. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys and add some snide comments from time to time, even if it's about Pearl Jam. But listen, I love this this tact on this program. What is our next question, Josh?

Before I get there, Morgan, I want to ask Joe a question. Joe, so we were talking about Pearl Jam earlier. Yep. They were a big band when I was in, they were a big band when I was in ninth grade. Still a big band. Still a big band.

Still a big band. What was the biggest act or some of the biggest acts when you were in ninth grade? When I was in ninth grade, man. So I came, this is the thing, man. I came up during the weird time where TRL was real big. You remember that?

You probably on MTV for you. Yeah. Yeah.

It was real big. Well, they just changed the names on every day. It was dial MTV when I was a kid. And they changed. They just changed it as a different. This is different.

This is way guys. I hate to break this to you, but I was an MTV MTV fan when they actually played music. Well, they did. They had the videos on. Yeah, they did that during my day. And now they have talking. I'm literally this is what I'm talking about.

Total. They have the old, they have the old MTV and they have the new MTV. So they've got two channels for you.

You can watch the music or you can watch whatever else they're putting out there. So anyways, man, answer your question. I came up during the weird time when boy bands were really big, like real big. I can see like that.

It was like instinct in the Backstreet Boys were probably like the biggest. At that point in time, man, and you like them. No, no, no, no, no. I didn't say that influence your wardrobe at all. I got it.

No, no, absolutely not. And if anything, I did address the opposite of that. I wasn't it wasn't cool for me.

Like that wasn't a cool thing for guys then. But you asked the question. That's the answer to your question. Like that is the biggest. The biggest acts at the time. So I had to answer your question. Honestly, you know, it was real big back then.

They're not TRL time. Limp Bizkit was real big. They were real. They had a real popular run there. So I saw I swear I used to go to all the Ozzfest and I swear I've seen Limp Bizkit at an Ozzfest, but they weren't good. Really?

Really? They're pretty. I think they do all right live. If you're into it, if you're not into the new metal, then you're not going to be a fan of Limp Bizkit. But again, man, it's a weird nostalgic feeling that they that they'll create. And yeah, it's similar to your sad Pearl Jam from English class. You know, I feel like I feel like when I was a kid, so when I was coming up in the early 90s, I feel like a lot of those acts are still with us. And they're still cool because you got like Snoop, right? You got Dre Pearl Jam still around trying to think of some other ones that still tour.

But I feel like we had acts that were just, you know, they're still OK. We don't look back in hindsight and like, you know. You don't still listen to the Backstreet Boys, is that what you're telling me? But I felt like, you know, I was looking at like the top chart. The charts are different now because, you know, you're streaming and you're not buying stuff. But, you know, I was looking at like the charts in like the early 90s and versus what the charts look like now.

And now it's all whatever you like is fine. But you were saying like when you were when you were a kid, like the boy bands were big. Right. And now, like when my boys growing up, it's like all bro country.

Right. That's like that's all the charts are. That's their boy bands. That's their boy bands. Not the same, man. Not the same. So who's going to be touring 10 years from now?

Right. Who are you going to go see on tour 10 years from now? Who are your kids going to go see?

Bro country, obviously. No, I don't think they are. Yeah, that's what your boys are into, man. I'm still waiting. I'm still waiting for Metallica to come back and do another.

Like I still want to see the band. Aren't they coming? Aren't they going to be here like soon? I think they're coming to Charlotte. Aren't you going?

No, no, no. We ain't got tickets yet. OK.

They're very expensive. OK. And you got to find a place to stay. You don't want to get out of a Metallica concert.

Is that what it was? You don't want to go to a Metallica concert and then have to drive back to Raleigh, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, just there's there's lodging in Charlotte, man.

It's like there are places you can go and stay. I don't know if you knew that. All right.

We asked chat GPT if you lived and worked, if you were a real human human person and you lived and worked in North Carolina, what are some questions you'd ask an attorney? Versus what? Versus a fake person? I don't understand the qualifier there. But yeah. And so we we. This one and this one comes up a lot. This one comes a lot.

So this is a chat GPT. It had a business law section of questions it would ask if it lived in North Carolina. It said, what do I need to start an LLC in North Carolina?

And I get this question a lot. I think people there's a difference between what is what is the bare bones that you need to do to have an LLC versus what do you actually need to have an LLC that can borrow money and carry out carry out business with third parties? And so there's a difference there. And Joe, I'll ask you just what just the bare bones, what chat GPT asked, what do I need to start an LLC in North Carolina? Yeah.

So just to answer the bare bones version of that question, like the bare minimum of what you need is you need to file organizing documents with the North Carolina secretary of state. So that's going to get you registered officially. And that's a fairly easy process that anybody could do. You know, that's not something that's complex or that really requires a ton of knowledge. But but I think if you go to the really absolute barest of bare bones answers, then that's the that's the answer for. Yeah.

Yeah. You can download for an LLC. It's the document that you have to file. It's called the articles of organization. You organize an LLC and it's going to ask you some bare bone questions, basically what the secretary of state needs to know to recognize your LLC. And that's going to be, you know, who who's filing these?

You know, what is the name? Right. You got to check and make sure whatever name you want to name your LLC is available in North Carolina. So it's going to be your name. You know, it'll ask you, you know, are you organizing this as a member or an organizer? It'll want to know who your North Carolina registered agent is.

Right. So who if somebody wants to sue your LLC, where do they send the summons and the complaint? Who is your your registered agent? And that's all a registered agent does. Registered agents, not the president's, not the owner. Just somebody who takes service if somebody was going to sue you.

And and that's about it. That's all the secretary of state needs in your articles of organization to say, hey, here's your here's your LLC. But there's a lot of things you haven't there's a lot of information that hasn't been filled in in your articles of organization.

So we'll we'll meet with people all the time. And, you know, they want to the LLC wants to borrow money to build a building. Or the LLC needs to get approved through North Carolina to do something or to get licensed and are selling property. And I'm always like, hey, where's your where's your operating agreement?

Right. And so especially if there's multiple owners of an LLC, multiple members, that's what we call owners. The operating agreements where all the meat is right. How do you share profits? How do you share losses?

How many members have to vote for certain things? If you're disposing of real estate, who signs? And and a lot of times these people who, you know, form their LLC, they pulled their EIN from the IRS, they got going. But usually banks want to see an operating agreement. Attorneys want to see operating agreements. If something goes wrong in your LLC, what you'll litigate over is the operating agreement. And so a lot of people just skip that step in the beginning, whether you're cutting costs, you don't want to pay an attorney. You haven't thought about it. No one's asked you for it.

A lot of people get pretty far down the line and then something will happen. I'm like, well, what is your operating agreement? What did you guys how did you guys agree to run this LLC? And so and there's other associated documents too, but not enough importance is placed on the operating agreement early. And we see that all the time where multiple owners will have a disagreement five years in. One of the owners will contact me because they want to litigate it. And I'll be like, what does the operating agreement say? And they're like, what's an operating agreement? Yeah, I don't think we have one. And I was like, well, that's not that's that's that's what we call bad.

Yeah, that's simply we don't like that, you know. And and you can do one after the fact. Right. If all of your if all the owners are still in the agreement or you're the sole owner, it's easy then. Right.

But you can still put one together. But there's certain things you need to address. And so that's I get that a lot.

You know, I'll just because we have a fee that's associated with starting an LLC and I'll quote it to people. And they're like, well, we'll just do it on our own. I'm like, well, that's fine. But don't forget these things, you know. But I like that question. That comes up a lot.

That was a good chat GPT question. Yeah, the easy the easy way is not always going to be the right way. Right.

And so, you know, you can take these shortcuts at the beginning, but we can attest to the fact that so often that's going to cause you so much more headache down the line. And when things go wrong, you know, it's different if it's just you. Right. If it's just if it's a single we call it a single member LLC. If you're if you're the sole owner, it's still important for third parties that deal with you. But it's not as important as if you have multiple members, because when something goes wrong, that's that's like the Bible of the LLC. That's what you're going to go back to to figure out what everybody's rights are. What do you do in this situation? What do you do if this person's not, you know, paying a cash call? And so operating agreements can get as pretty detail oriented, depending on the sophistication of the of the members.

But that's a that's a good question you don't get every day. Judica County radio, we are in the middle of chat GPT questions directed at North Carolina attorneys, and we've got a pair of them to answer those questions. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts here on Judica County radio. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, the power behind this program. Again, offices located in Raleigh, Cleveland, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City.

So stretch in that state. We've got complimentary consults in and around the state planning. All you've got to do is call 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000. Leave your contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to line up that complimentary consult in and around estate planning.

919-772-7000. Got one more segment. Stay tuned.

Coming up on the other side of the break. We are back on Judica County radio final segment. Your hosts, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer. They are the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Offices all around the state, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, Morehead City, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland and Raleigh for your convenience. And here on the program we do offer up complimentary consults and this is around estate planning this week. You can call 919-772-7000 if you've got any questions about estate planning. Maybe you haven't started one. Maybe you've got some questions about your current one. You can certainly grab a complimentary consult.

919-772-7000. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth. And Josh, you posed the question earlier about musical, I don't know, influences, things that were popular at certain times of our life. And I believe it was boy bands for Joe. And what was it for you?

Did you offer that up? Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam, Pearl Jammy. Yeah, I came up, hair metal was just dying out. Grunge, Seattle, Nirvana. You had Biggie Smalls and Snoop and Dre. So I feel like I had a lot of real classy, classy influences. They were all over the board too. I mean that's grunge, rap, that's cool.

Very well balanced. What about you Morgan? Well, sad to say, you know, I was a mid 80s college kid and we had some great music. A lot of one hit wonders, a lot of great movie soundtracks. But we also were fortunate enough to have WAM, which is George Michael and his, I guess his co-band member. And they were kind of the predecessor to all the boy bands that came along.

But they came out of England and it was just kind of a dance club vibe. But they wore these large oversized t-shirts with these big messages on them like Choose Life and all this other stuff. And the amount of grown college men that were walking around campus at North Carolina, NC State and probably Duke wearing these shirts, it was disturbing.

It was very disturbing. Did you actually see it? You didn't go to NC State. So did you actually see it at NC State?

I can't, I just, I'm just going ahead and saying college life in the area, probably the three big schools, well represented in the WAM cycle. Listen, I was ACDC, I was Rolling Stones, I was more classic rock. It just, I didn't understand the WAM, but apparently it was huge. I had, it was a long time ago, but I had that first George Michael tape. I'm not ashamed. WAM was a little bit before me, but I had a tape of George Michael, whatever that was.

Was that Faith? What did they call that first George Michael tape? You know what, you're the one who had the tape, man.

We didn't ever claim to be George Michael guys. I've never told my friends, I never told my friends growing up, they had no one, no one knew this is new. This is new information. I would never have told anybody before now. I know they're huge fans of the show. If they, if they are, they know a huge secret that I've kept for a long time, but it's, it's what it is. It's out of the bag now.

It is what it is. Do you guys, did you guys see the hurricanes break the curse? They broke the curse, man.

You know, we're, no matter what happens, the curse is no more. And I think that, that means a lot. It means a whole lot. Big.

Yeah. I, I just, it was just, it was nice to see them, um, you know, we've, we've kind of broken it down before they had, they just have a certain style of game and Florida has the exact same style. They're just a heavier skating team. And for the first, you know, three games of this series, it was, they took, they took Carolina out physically and it was like they were looking for the next hit, totally took them out of their game. And then they were able to break the curse by just, you know, look, throwing caution to the wind. We've got to win this game. There was desperation and some of the, uh, you know, the younger role players are becoming the big offensive stars because they're not getting, they're not getting the same attention that the Ahos are getting.

Um, that, uh, the stalls are getting, uh, when they're out on the ice. And, and again, I'm not taking anything away from Stan Coven. He's absolutely fantastic. Oh, he's huge, man. He's great. And he's five, seven, five, seven. He's right at maybe five, 10 on skates. I mean, he had a lot of, he looks like a water bug out there, different, different set of speed for him. But anyway, really, really cool to see them.

Um, you know, obviously when this show airs, uh, the series is either continuing or it's over. Uh, but, uh, again, uh, nice to see him notch the win and, uh, real quickly to put it in, rewind a little bit. Faith was his first album. Uh, and again, uh, it was a huge seller. And, uh, again, that was, uh, that was the big one. I got that one from Columbia house. That was part of my, what is it?

12 for a penny. You keep saying these things that mean nothing to me, man. Did you ever complete the contract? Are they out looking for you, Josh? I think I got close. I think I got close. Yeah, I think I got close, but, um, but, uh, no, I don't think they're out looking for me.

I don't think I'm on their hit list. Faith sold 20 million albums. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. I'm not a record person, but that's pretty good. I'd say.

I'm not a mathematician, but that sounds like a high number. Yeah. Yeah.

It sounds pretty good to me, man. All right. Well, I don't think we're gonna have time to get any more questions. So chat GPT, you'll just have to be mad at me that we only answered a handful of the many, many questions that it spit out. But, uh, Morgan, if you, if any of our listeners call us and they want us to answer estate planning questions, we will do it with you, uh, for free.

Yeah. Comp complimentary consult available again. 9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000 in and around estate planning call now and leave your contact information and attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to set up that complimentary consult on estate planning.

9 1 9 7 7 2 7,000. Another edition of Judica County radio is in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, the power behind this program. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices located, Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Barina, Gastone, and in Morehead city. I'm Morgan Patrick.

See you 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 of a North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at JMW at mwhlaw.lawyer.