There are a lot of different cases in the world, some cases are highly unique than the other legal cases. However, in general, the most common type of cases are criminal cases, civil cases, and family cases. You might be surprised to read about family legal issues, however, there are a lot of families in the world with legal issues and disputes. Some families handle their cases on their own and other families’ disputes get worse that they need to go to the court. According to the Family Law attorney, Tampa, about 10% of family disputes are handled internally, 6% of cases take the help of lawyers to negotiate and only 3% of cases go to the court to seek resolution.
Now lets us talk about the different types of cases
- Criminal cases
As the name suggests, these types of cases involve a crime scene or any type of assault. Usually, a person or a group of people is taken to the court of law because of the criminal accusation put on them by the victim or a witness or any other person. Some of the criminal cases involve other people such as assault, sexual assault, murder, identity theft, robbery, and some of the criminal cases involve objects such as possession of illegal or banned drugs, making fake currency notes. The person with charge is called the accused until proven guilty or innocent. The punishment of criminal cases varies from fines to community services to probation to prison to death in some countries depending on how big the crime is. However, the judge or the jury panel should consider the evidence presented in front of them in the court before passing the judgment on whether the accused is innocent or guilty and to what extent.
- Civil Cases
Again as the name suggests, civil cases are the disputes between people or institutions. Typically, these types of disputes involve money or property, for instance, inheritance issues, issues involving contract breaches, family issues like divorce or property distribution or child custody, other issues involving the landlords and tenants, or forcible actions like insisting someone to sell or buy something that they don’t want to, etc. Mostly, the punishment in these types of situations is compensation. In civil cases, there are a lot of different sets of rules that apply to different types of cases, and normally after the verdict, a victim can ask for compensation for the damage suffered by them. But for that, the victim must be able to prove that the damage he/she suffered was caused by the guilty.
- Family cases
Well, once again, as the name suggests family cases involve disputes between family members. These types of cases are civil cases and are mostly represented in civil courts. The issues in family cases are concerned with issues between partner, family business, child custody, parents, domestic matters such as violence, etc. Family cases can be solved internally if not, you can hire an attorney. According to the statistics provided by the family law attorney, Tampa, the most common types of family legal issues are:
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- Divorce and annulment – When things simply aren’t working between partners, they decide to terminate their marriage. The marriage can be terminated either by getting a divorce or getting it annulled. In both cases, the marriage ends, and both processes include legalities. There is another type of resolution where the couple remains legally married but they don’t live together. The court issues an order regarding the division of the property, alimony money, custody, and child support, etc.
- Paternity and custody – This is a case where a man needs to be proven and declared the father of a child or children. This can happen with both married couples and unmarried couples. The orders issued by the court are more specific regarding the child and his/her well being such as custody; legal and physical, visitation, childcare support, paternity rules, etc.
- Guardianship – Guardianship involves declaring a person as the guardian of the child in case of absence of the biological parents. The guardian will take care of the child until he or she becomes an adult or till the time he or she is capable of taking care of himself or herself.
- Protection or restraining orders against domestic violence – These are other common types of cases seen in the family court. In this, the domestic violence victim can go to court and ask for protection orders or restraining orders to be safe and keep the accused and abuser away.
- Name changes – This may sound weird but there are laws regarding the name change where a person (child or adult) can file a case in order to change his or her name. Normally, this is different from other family legal cases as this does not usually involve any type of disputes or disagreements. This also happens when a woman gets married and wants to take up her husband’s name.
- Matters involving juvenile – Cases involving juveniles are highly taken seriously. These types of cases involve child abuse, child neglect, endangering a child’s life, or illegal behavior towards children. Hiring a lawyer in cases like these to become really imperative as it involves the safety and well being of a child.
- Underage marriages – It is no secret that until a person is an adult, they are the responsibility of their parents and they need their parent’s consent in some matters such as getting married before turning into an adult. There have been cases of underaged kids wanting to get married earlier and therefore want to be free from parental control. The underaged can petition the family court to get legal approval, but, the verdict is not always favorable and the court might ask the underaged to wait till he/she is an adult.
- Adoption – Adoption is another case which is different as there is no dispute involved. When a person or a couple wants to adopt a child, they need to undergo a lot of legalities as it concerns the safety and well being of a child. Here the parent-child relationship is not natural and biological but it’s legal.