In what ways may one of the best lawyers provide better representation to clients than someone who is just decently known as a very good lawyer?

Title: What type of attorney handles contractor disputes involving unfinished work and threatened property liens in Georgia?
I’m located in Georgia and recently hired a contractor for a $2,200 residential fence installation, paying $1,600 upfront for materials.
The project has involved missed deadlines, incomplete work, disputed installation measurements, communication issues, and disagreements over the original scope of work.
After requesting termination of the agreement and a refund for work and materials not provided, I received a notice stating that the contractor intends to pursue mechanic’s lien rights against my property. He also proposed keeping the entire $1,600 payment as a settlement.
I have a signed contract, payment records, photographs, videos, and written communications documenting the dispute.
I’m trying to determine what type of attorney would be most appropriate for this situation, particularly because it involves both a relatively small monetary dispute and a potential lien against my home.
Would I be looking for a construction law attorney, a real estate litigation attorney, or someone who handles general civil contract disputes?
I’m not asking anyone to evaluate my case or provide specific legal advice. I’m simply trying to identify the appropriate type of attorney to consult before deciding how to proceed.

Subject: Advice Needed – Contractor Breach of Contract, Refund Dispute, and Threatened Property Lien
Hello,
I’m seeking legal advice regarding a dispute with a contractor, Jarek Charles Carlson, owner of Growth and Development Property Management LLC, whom I hired to install a fence at my home in Villa Rica, Georgia.
We signed a contract on October 21, 2026, for $2,200 to install approximately 190 feet of six-foot fencing with two gates. I paid $1,600 upfront for materials, with the remaining $600 due upon completion. The scheduled start date was October 22, with an approximate completion date of October 25.
Since signing the contract, I’ve experienced several issues:
The contractor failed to begin work on the scheduled date and did not complete the project by the stated completion date.
He repeatedly failed to communicate, ignored messages, and left my property without notifying me.
He made promises regarding the work and scheduling that he did not fulfill.
He failed to provide requested receipts documenting how my $1,600 payment was spent.
The work performed consists primarily of fence posts, which I believe were improperly installed and incorrectly measured.
He listed the fence as a dog-ear style in the contract, although my understanding was that we had agreed on a privacy fence. He is now claiming I requested a change to the original agreement.
The project remains incomplete, and some materials have not been delivered.
Due to these issues, I requested termination of the agreement and a refund for the portion of the work and materials that were not provided.
Instead, the contractor sent me a document titled “Notice of Intent to Assert Mechanic’s Lien Rights and Proposed Contract Termination.” In it, he claims approximately 50% of the project was completed and proposes keeping my entire $1,600 payment. He has also threatened to place a mechanic’s lien on my home.
I have the signed contract, payment records, photographs, videos, text messages, and his written lien notice to support my account.
My questions are:
Do these circumstances provide sufficient grounds to pursue a breach-of-contract claim in Georgia Magistrate Court (small claims court)?
Can I legally terminate the agreement based on his missed deadlines, incomplete work, and alleged improper installation?
Am I entitled to recover the portion of my $1,600 payment not legitimately earned or spent on my project?
Can he legally retain the entire deposit and place a lien on my property despite the unfinished work?
Could I be considered in breach of contract for requesting termination and a partial refund?
Can I seek compensation for the cost of correcting improperly installed posts or hiring another contractor to complete the project?
I’m not attempting to avoid paying for legitimate work performed. I simply want a fair accounting of my payment, reimbursement for services and materials not provided, and protection against an unjustified lien on my home.
Based on these circumstances, would I have a viable small claims case, and what would you recommend as my next legal step?
Thank you for your time.

Hey everyone! I'm a BYU student working on an entrepreneurship class project where we're trying to better understand the challenges people face working in law firms.

I'd really appreciate your help with a quick question!

Over the past two weeks, how often have workplace interactions or communication difficulties negatively affected your workday?

☐ Never
☐ 1–2 days
☐ 3–5 days
☐ 6–9 days
☐ 10+ days

Feel free to just comment with your answer, but I'd also love to hear what kinds of workplace interactions or communication difficulties cause the most frustration for you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to help us with our research!

If you're willing, I'd really appreciate it if you could take a few more seconds to fill out our short 6-question Google Form. Your responses would be incredibly helpful to our project!

Click here to take our quick survey!

I have a fun one, say I was to legally change my name to Ronald McDonald, could I open a restaurant and literally name it “This Restaurant Is McDonald’s”? I do not wish to use any of their logos or trademarks, I just wish to tell people the restaurant belongs to me, McDonald.

Thanks.

Hi, I have a question and would appreciate some insight from practicing lawyers.

I'm a law student and also work as a trainee at a law firm. Some time ago, a senior associate assigned me a research task concerning a particular legal question. As it turned out, the issue was largely unexplored in both academic literature and case law. I prepared a legal memo that involved quite a bit of my independent analysis and reasoning, and the senior associate responded positively to it.

I found the topic really interesting and would now like to develop my research further into an independent academic article, which I would then attempt to publish in a law journal.

However, I'm unsure how to approach this with regard to my senior. On the one hand, I don't know whether I would be expected to ask for his permission, as the research didn't involve any client-specific information and I am not sure if asking for permission like that would come across as strange or unnecessary. On the other hand, going ahead with the article without mentioning anything to him feels somewhat inappropriate.

I'm basically trying to figure out whether the professional expectation in this situation would be to ask for permission, simply let him know about my plans, or handle it some other way. I am unsure what is the expected professional etiquette in a situation like this and to be honest, am a bit nervous about bringing it up with him.

How would you approach this, and what would you expect from a trainee in this situation? To be clear, I am not asking about the legal side, just what's normal and expected professionally.

anyone wanna help someone out and understanding a NYC talent contract with a rep

I'm preparing for consultations for a contested child custody matter, and I'm hoping lawyers here can share general perspective — I'm not asking for legal advice about a specific case, and I'm not asking for a referral to a specific attorney.

What I'm trying to learn before I hire anyone:

• When a prospective client comes to you for a contested custody case, what do you wish they had asked about in the first consultation?

• What separates a well-prepared custody attorney from one who is just reactive — in terms of organization, communication, and case strategy?

• What are reasonable expectations around honesty and transparency about process, timelines, costs, and risks, especially for someone going through the court system for the first time?

• Are there red flags a client should watch for when vetting a family law attorney?

I'm not looking for a lawyer to be a therapist. What I value most is someone who will be direct and honest — even when the answer isn't what I want to hear — and who will explain the process clearly at each step, including what to expect, what could go wrong, and what decisions are actually mine to make.

Thank you for any general insight you can share.

I’m not completely sure if this follows the subreddit rules. I apologize if it doesn’t and if that’s the case, please take it down.

I was due to start a new job at the start of August. Baby was due end of August and I was going to start the job and go straight on unpaid Mat leave. My baby was born prematurely at the start of July and my work deferred my start date to a year later (nhs job). This has left me unemployed with no accrual of annual leave, continuous service, and now impacted my mortgage. They told me I needed to defer and gave me no other options. Were they right? Should I have been offered the opportunity to start my job and go on mat leave/absence?? I know it’s such an uncommon situation so haven’t found answers anywhere but feel as though I’ve been disadvantaged for having a premature birth. Contract was signed in June

My 71 year old mother is a New York resident andis visiting me, a FL resident, for a vacation. She was walking across a street when a vehicle failed to yield and struck her when she was halfway across the road. A witness gave his account to the police officer who issued the driver a citation for failure to yield to a pedestrian. My mom was transported to TGH hospital for their trauma care and stayed one night. All sorts of X-rays and tests and by the grace of God only has a fractured fibula and cuts/bruises. She easily could have died.

She has Medicare. She has NY auto insurance with $50k PIP. But because she was a pedestrian in FL, I’m seeing that her auto insurance might not cover her because she’s out of state and a pedestrian? If that’s the case, then what are options B, C, and D to make sure my mom doesn’t have to pay what I’m expecting to be massive medical bills?

He makes a lot of super radicalized public comments about people, that are obviously lies. Why don’t these people sue him? He makes them via social media, in a very public fashion, with 100% intent to harm that person’s reputation.

In my day job, I work for a real estate brokerage and I often do lots of research to uncover the property owner. I know there are skip tracing services but the issue is that most LLCs are gate kept by a registered agent. It’s impossible to tell if the registered agent actually forwards your email to the owner. Is there a method to get around this?

currently a nurse and want out of healthcare, it isnt what i expected and would love to know where to start. graduated with a overall 3.2 gpa (ik its not decent ). ive worked over 3 years as a lvn working at a ltac and behavioral health.

do i go and continue to do a masters or just study for the lsat and apply

what experience would i need to have my application stand out. i am genuinely starting from scratch again and need help. thank you :) ❤️

Hello! My school recently had a bus driver arrested for not stopping to render aid at the scene of an accident, and I want to hear about what others might have done in the same situation. You can likely find the news story online, however, many of the details in these articles are totally wrong (I know this because I was on the bus during the accident).

The Overall Situation:
The accident occured at around 3:00 AM (we were returning from a band trip) and due to low visibility and the strange circumstances, the situation was not initially recognized as an accident by anyone. A drunk driver, who had been driving the wrong way on a highway, pulled over to the side of the road, got out of his car, and proceeded to stand on the side of the road. He was hit by a truck pulling a horse trailer, and three seconds later the school bus ran over the man.

Before the Accident
Prior to the accident, the problems started with the two band directors on board. One was driving and one was *supposed* to be serving as the navigator. Unfortunately, the navigators phone was completely dead and thus unable to perform his usual roll. (Busses left around 6:00 AM and did not leave until aroun 12:30 AM.) As such, the driver was recieving all texts regarding road hazards from the lead car (which drives far ahead of all of the busses). The lead car's passenger had access to emergency responders radios, and they eventually sent a text to the bus that a car was driving on the wrong side of the road on the highway. The bus driver then recieved this message, did not respond by text, but did continue using Google Maps while remaining vigilant with the other adult.

The Accident
A few minutes later, however, the bus driver saw debris in the road. He was following a truck and the driver was also looking at Google Maps whenever the debris came into view. As a result, the bus ran over the debris and there was a bump as the bus drove over everything. I did not feel the bump personally, but a student claimed she did at the back of the bus. The truck ahead quickly sped off. Quickly, the driver pulled over to check the bus. At this point, many students woke up and were looking out the windows.
The truck driving off immediately gave vibes that this was just regular road shrapnel. Plus, due to the darkness no other pieces of wreckage could be seen anywhere and a possible wrong way driver was still likely coming at them. Thus, the driver gave the "all clear" and pulled away. The only things he saw were undamaged tires and what he though was a small red bug on the grill. The underside of the bus was too dark to see. Overall, nothing looked out of the ordinary. I should note that the news articles claim that the driver only spent 30 seconds outside of the bus. I can not comment on exactly how much time the driver spent outside, however, I will say that due to an incident on the last band trip a few days prior, it would not surprise me. ---The last trip resulted in a truck crashing in front of one of the busses and the driver proceeding to stash several bags of cocaine on the side of the road. Several cars hit the vehicles that were pulled to the side of the road, so the driver likely did not want to risk a second happening as this incident occured on the same highway as the other wrecks.--- Either way, the bus pulled away and continued home.

Return to the School
When the busses were almost home, the driver recieved another message from the lead car. It said that a car wreck had been discovered around where they had hit the debris and a body was in the road. At this point, the driver gets a bad feeling, returns to the school, and contacts the other directors to express his concerns. The students are released quickly, and police are called as soon as possible. As daylight breaks, someone looks under the bus and sees signs the the bus did indeed run over a human body. Furthermore, what the bus driver thought was a red bug happened to be a very small drop of blood. The police thanked everyone at the scene for doing the right thing; however, the next day a different police department arrested the bus driver.

Today
The driver was bailed out for a sum of $50,000 but is being threatened with jail time. We have no idea what is going to happen; however, I wanted to ask for the opinions of others. What else could have been done in this situation? I don't believe the driver is at fault. He could not see what happened and him looking down at the map would not have prevented him from hitting anything. It was simply too dark to see anything. Furthermore, staying at the scene would risk the lives of all students on board and their mental health if they did just so happen to catch a glimpse of the corpse. The truck that actually hot the man is also still missing, but police seem to be much more interested in blaming the bus driver than finding the truck. Also, all of this was caught on video. The news is also giving out false information which is only worsening the situation. The school itself is also partially at fault for making the drivers stay up for almost 24 hours with only energy drinks. The driver was a band director and therefore needed to be involved in the activities all day. He was exhausted like every other bus driver. The students are also no longer permitted to stay the night at hotels due to several sneaking out for a "senior tradition" earlier this year though those seniors in question have since graduated.

Under these circumstances, will the driver likely face charges? If not, could someone possibly get money from the news station for putting out false information and treating it as if it were a fact. There are no "allegedly" words in the articles and as a teacher myself this will definitely affect his career negatively.

We had our home listed with an agency. It wasn’t selling and we found a wholesaler on our own and asked to be released from our listing. The broker agreed. However instead of putting it in the MLS as withdrawn, they put it in as sold for a very very low price. We didn’t realize this immediately. This affected the zestimate that the wholesaler was looking at and drug out the transaction for months. The home became market weary, we couldn’t keep up with the utilities, and ended up losing tens of thousands of dollars. I ran my issue through Gemini and it mentioned E & O settlement.

For educational purposes, how does Errors & Omissions (E&O) coverage generally apply to clerical or administrative mistakes made by a broker, such as misreporting a listing's closing status? What elements generally need to be shown to establish proximate cause between inaccurate valuation data and economic loss in real estate disputes?

Actually I am confused btw psychology and law can you suggest which is gonna best

Hi all,

I’m unsure if I have a leg to stand on when it comes to ‘unfair dismissal’ I had left my transport planner job of 3 years to join another transport company in the same role, I worked at the new company for a total of 3 days the first day I was there I was shadowing a colleague the second day was my dipping my toes in the water and then on the third day I was actually working on my own and then I was told I’m not the right fit.

The reason I ask if I have a leg to stand on is because I’ve left a secure job of 3 years to go to this company and after 3 days been dismissed with a months pay I’m now struggling to find another job and it’s put me in a situation where I won’t be able to cover bills next month.

What do you guys think is it worth me taking this to a solicitor

Hi everyone. Early into research about what a career change to law would be like. Specifically looking into estate law. Of course as most people would consider up front are the financials.

I’m 28 yrs old working in medical device sales making 200k. Making a big career change and even thinking about going through part time night law school is even nuttier with 2 young kids at home.

I feel as if estate law is something I would excel and love to do long term but of course the finances in the shorter term are weighing heavily. Any thoughts? If you have estate law experience I would love to hear your favorite and least favorite part about it!

In general, what legal frameworks in the United States address online impersonation involving obscene AI-generated images of a person, the public disclosure of their phone number, and resulting unwanted contact from strangers?

Are laws concerning harassment, cyberstalking, non-consensual intimate imagery or malicious communications potentially relevant when the images are sexually degrading but not explicitly nude? How do these legal frameworks generally differ between federal and state law?

Separately, what mechanisms exist for reporting such content to online platforms, and what options do law enforcement agencies generally have for investigating anonymous accounts?

This is a general question about how the legal framework works, rather than a request for advice about a particular case.

Location:Texas.

I work at a burger restaurant. From 10-11 6 days a week. I am there EVERYDAY. One day when the stove was giving us a lot of trouble. I’m stressed out, the cook is watching me, and he (The Cook) says why don’t we close. So I say sure why not. Mind you I am doing the work of a manager, a buss boy, a waiter, a cashier and a janitor. 
So I close and my dad looks at the cameras. And he calls me 10 seconds later. “Why are you closed?.” We’re closing up. The stove had been giving us a lot of trouble—it’s fixed now, but we didn’t have any customers today, so I said, "We might as well close." My dad already yelled at me. He said he didn’t care how tired I was; he claimed I need the money and that I’m not allowed to be tired—since, according to him, we never have any customers anyway...
He says I have no right to be tired because, in his view, I don’t do anything. I don’t perform any work for him; therefore, I’m not permitted to be tired.
But he doesn’t care. I’m not allowed to be tired; as far as he’s concerned, I do nothing at the restaurant.
And now he wants to fire me—so I have no idea what he’s going to do, or what I’m going to do.
I’m not the one who’s angry; he is. I’m just sitting here, listening to him shout about how much he dislikes me.
I clean tables, scrub the floors, sweep, take out the trash, clean the restrooms, serve customers, handle payments, take orders, restock drinks, and manage the inventory—all by myself. The only thing I don’t do is cook. But, apparently, I "don’t do anything." AND HE REFUSES TO HIRE MORE PEOPLE THAT WE DONT “MAKE ENOUGH MONEY” 

I clean tables, mop the floor, sweep, take out the trash, clean the restrooms, serve customers, process payments, take orders, restock drinks, and manage the inventory—all by myself. The only thing I don’t do is cook. But, in reality, I don’t do anything at all.

I can’t just leave. They won’t let me. I’m supposed to be there to work—otherwise, how am I supposed to live? How will I pay my bills? I’m expected to be there from 11 to 11 every single day. It doesn’t matter; *I* don’t matter.
I’ve heard this my whole life. To my father, my only value lies in what I can do for him. He doesn’t love me as a son; I’m just his "favorite employee."

He told me I won’t have a job anymore, but I have no idea what that actually means to him.

Am I in the wrong here? Can he really fire me for being tired?

Hi everyone, I would love to hear your feedback. Im a 3L and been doing everything to find employment in my home state for post grad, but it just dont seem possible. I've been cold emailing and reaching out to people on LinkedIn and it just feels like im going in circles. Any advice or tips would be helpful.

Info: want to be an IP attorney (soft IP) and entertainment law as well

Location : Dallas

Someone opened credit card accounts under my name. 3000 and 10000 credit limits. They used 98% of it. They have all been reversed after my credit score plummeted. My credit is frozen to prevent someone from opening accounts. Apparently this is identity theft case and because of the amount involved, regardless if it was solved/recovered or not, it still happened. This put it under the felony category, right? But that's not the point. I live in TX. The crime happened in Oakland County in Michigan while I was on my way back to TX from Seattle. I filed police report in TX and in MI. We have pictures of the suspect from CCTV, I also have leads because there's a MI address in my credit report that I dont recognize. My problem is the two Police Department keep playing pingpong with me. MI tells me to talk to TX police because Im not a MI resident. TX police tells me I talk to them because it is where the crime happened. I have filed police reports in both!! I already reached out to the prosecutor of Oakland county because of this disservice and they only told me they're not an investigative agency and that's fair. I understood that. If yall curious why I keep pursuing this it is because those mofos can still open accounts under my name anytime (7 years, 12 years, etc. from now) and I cant have my credit frozen forever and unfreeze it when Im opening an account, buying a house, etc. They have to be stopped from having access or having possession of the knowledge of my SS.

So please, what is the pathway? Who/Where should I go/talk to when these 2 police department keep playing pingpong with me? It would be absurd to establish a residence in MI just for this.

I'm thinking and Im sure Im not the only one who has had this before. Not the first and wont be the last. Surely someone else in the past had been a victim of a crime that happened in State 1 but the victim was a resident in State 2. My case should not be unprecedented.

Im not seeking a client relationship. I just need to know who to talk to and/or go next if these 2 PD's persist on playing pingpong.

Thank you.

2 cops stopped me said I had a warrant for my arrest

I stopped my bike and was standing still when both officers tackled me to the ground knocking me unconscious. Woke up in handcuffs officers said I was under arrest for resisting arrest. No mention of the warrant they stopped me for. There was no warrant. The body cams shows me just standing when tackled. Clearly showing i didn't resist but they still thru me in jail

Is this false arrest?