Universities and college communities are not immune to a variety of legal cases. In fact, there is often a need for those who practice law to address criminal defense, domestic abuse, business and immigration law as well as drug cases, underage alcohol possession, DUIs, and sex crimes. Fortunately, there are professionals who practice law near college campuses prepared and willing to give legal assistance when needed.
About 10,000 people in the United States may be wrongfully convicted of serious crimes each year. Students and those that work in a University need to hire an attorney if they are in trouble. On average, a public defender would need about 3,035 work hours or a year and a half to do a year’s worth of work.
It is a fact that about 7% of Kindergarten through 12th grade students had at least one unauthorized immigrant parent in 2012. Unauthorized immigrants make up 5.1% of the U.S. labor force. In 2014, Mexican immigrants accounted for approximately 28 percent of the 42.4 million foreign born in the United States, making them by far the largest immigrant group in the country. The same year, approximately 51% of immigrants were female and around 47% of immigrants or 20 million were naturalized U.S. citizens.
The Diversity Visa lottery was created by the Immigration Act of 1990 as a dedicated channel for immigrants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Each year 55,000 visas are allocated randomly to nationals from countries that have sent less than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous 5 years. Also, there are 480,000 family based visas available every year. Family based immigrants are admitted to the U.S. either as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens or through the family preference system.
Many immigrants come to the United States with a student visa, try to stay and bring their family when they see the benefits of being a U.S. citizen. There are more than 20 types of visas for temporary non immigrant workers. Lawyers are needed for these cases and many more. Those that practice law give legal aid as a defense lawyer, traffic lawyer, immigration lawyer, drug lawyer, domestic lawyer, divorce lawyer and business law.
Even those that work at colleges and universities often need legal advice for compensation issues. Luckily, 74% of states require all businesses to have workers’ comp. Surprisingly, 85% of worker’s compensation claims are attributed to employees slipping on slick floors. Unfortunately, 22% of slip/fall incidents resulted in more than 31 days away from work.
There are also domestic problems since many of those that attend colleges are newly married or have young families. In the United States, researchers estimate that 40% to 50% of all first marriages, and 60% of second marriages, will end in divorce. The average length of a marriage that ends in divorce is nine years. In fact, In America, there is one divorce approximately every 36 seconds. That’s nearly 2,400 divorces per day, 16,800 divorces per week and 876,000 divorces a year.
Sexual assault, DUI cases, burglary, murders, suicide, physical assault and battery as well as rampages seen of late require legal and investigation. Unfortunately, colleges aren’t safe havens immune from real world crimes. Those who practice law can advise administrators, professors and students what to do when the unthinkable happens.