At Black Bear Legal I endeavour to go out of my way to ensure you understand your legal costs upfront and before you start engaging us to do any work for you. Indeed, the last thing I want is to have a client complain about their costs because it means ...
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The days of your local medical clinic being owned, run and serviced by the actual doctor a patient consults with are long gone.  These days, especially for local GP practices, a corporate body will often own the practice itself and the GP's working within the practice will either be employed, ...
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Each year, in July, the Indigenous voices of Australia become stronger as we all celebrate NAIDOC Week.  A welcome focus on the history, culture and achievements of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. As a lawyer, my mind inevitably turns to the High Court decision in Mabo on 3 ...
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We have had a few enquiries of late by persons looking to reject the used car they just purchased under their statutory cooling off period. This brief article hopes to provide some insight into what the cooling off period actually is and how, in reality, it can be a pretty ...
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I recently found out about a fairly new not-for-profit organisation called Pride in Law which aims to bring awareness to the need for all of us to think about the way in which we treat our colleagues, peers and clients who might not fit the same mould as you or ...
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There appears to be a revived pyramid scheme in Australia called the 'loom'. I've seen it pop up in Facebook feeds and Instagram feeds and it is unfortunately capturing the attention of some people who appear to be of the view they can 'make' money from the loom scheme or ...
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To start legal proceedings it is necessary to do 2 things: 1. File a claim or application naming another person or entity as the Defendant or Respondent; and 2. Personally serve that filed claim or application on that person or entity you want to make your claim against. There are ...
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If you are party to civil litigation proceedings then at some point along the way you will have to provide the other party with a 'disclosure' of documents. For more information on when that occurs see our dedicated civil litigation page. What does disclosure mean? You have a positive duty ...
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We deal with a number of client issues surrounding the purchase of cars and other motor vehicles privately, after things have gone wrong. When selling a car privately you don't need to provide any assurance that the car is in good condition or will work.  Whilst there might be a ...
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There are some very important and fundamental differences in the way that the law treats criminal cases in contrast to civil cases.  In particular, there is a stark difference to the burden (or onus) of proof and the standard of proof, that must be met. What does it mean? The ...
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There appears to be a growing number of incidents involving dogs or other pets or animals causing damage to property in Queensland. It is important to remember that a pet is considered, at law, to be a persons property.  So if a dog were to attack your dog causing damage ...
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We deal with a number of client issues surrounding cars and other motor vehicles after they have repeatedly broken down and spent more time being fixed and off the road than on it.  Such cars are commonly known as a 'lemons'. When the vehicle is new or nearly new, the ...
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The million dollar question asked by almost every client we have.  Nobody wants to go to court and lose! The same is true of lawyers who go to court.  I can personally attest to the awful feeling that you get as a lawyer when a clients court case has ended ...
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If you think you have a claim against somebody then it is inevitable that you’ll wonder if a lawyer will do your legal work for you on a 'no win no fee' basis or a speculative basis. Whilst these arrangements are usually offered in conjunction with personal injury claims, we ...
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Our dedicated page on the collection of debts provides relevant information on the best processes and procedures to adopt in the effective debt collection. A question we often get asked is if a person should just use a debt collector to collect a debt and not bother using a lawyer ...
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We meet at a BBQ and you ask me what I do for work....I'm a lawyer I say and you ask... what sort of law do you do?... civil litigation I tell you flippantly... erm what's that?... you ask.... understandably! Civil litigation is a general term lawyers use to describe ...
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In 2013, the Legal Services Commission published a document aimed at consumers to encourage them to raise the issue of legal costs with lawyers and be better informed about the basis upon which you will engage (and pay for) a lawyer. Here is a link to the publication 'Ten questions ...
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If you are asking yourself this question, then I think what you need is to change your frame of mind. A lawyer is a service provider like any other profession. Lawyers work within a set of rules and regulations day in day out and have established experience of dealing with ...
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