Welcome to McGahey & McGahey, APLC
Your small business or start-up could use dependable legal counsel. You may find that in California, the prices at the big firms are too much given the service – and perhaps the quality – on offer. At McGahey & McGahey, APLC, we offer the essential worth of the big firm experience at the price of a boutique firm. We do this through innovation, devising methods and systems that can lower your costs while providing much needed services.
Our firm handles a variety of issues in the business law practice area. We have over 55 years of legal experience in all aspects of Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights), Business, Employment, Litigation, and Real Estate law. We also perform alternative dispute resolution methods such as mediation and arbitration where we partner with you to resolve issues discretely.
Our decades of experience in the field tells us that business owners need a good name and reputation to be successful. With our lean and efficient means of resolving problems for businesses, we protect your bottom line in a reasonably cost-effective and time-sensitive manner.
Personal Injury and Civil Litigation
Additionally, our firm provides assistance to clients who need representation where they have suffered an injury due to another’s negligence and they need fair compensation. We also have significant civil litigation experience we can put to use in any of our many practice areas.
Modern Boutique Business Law Firm in San Diego
If you are in Southern California and are in need of a reliable counsel for your business, contact us at McGahey & McGahey, APLC. We offer free 30 minute consultations to discuss your issue, so find out how we can help.
Recent Articles
Mediation is a process whereby the parties to a legal dispute voluntarily cooperate to come to an agreement with the help of an experienced, trained, and neutral mediator. An experienced mediator will be very effective in helping the parties to come to a mutually agreeable solution to their problem. The mediator helps the parties by identifying the key issues in the dispute, brainstorming with the parties to come up with possible workable solutions to the problem, promoting understanding of each side’s position and point of view, facilitating negotiations, and once a settlement is reached, helping to write up a settlement agreement that all parties can live with, and voluntarily stick to. It is the mediator’s responsibility to provide a process that fosters trust, cooperation and creativity so that a voluntary settlement can be reached. There are many reasons parties to a dispute decide to mediate rather than litigate or arbitrate. The four most important reasons are: 1. Mediation is a confidential process. All parties sign a confidentiality agreement, including the mediator. 2. Mediation is a flexible process. All parties to the dispute proceed with different stages and discussions as they see fit in order to eventually reach an agreement acceptable to all. 3. Mediation is much less expensive than litigation or arbitration. 4. Mediation is more likely than arbitration or litigation to be resolved to the satisfaction of everyone involved because all parties are allowed to maintain control over the process and voluntarily reach an agreement. Therefore, they try very hard to comply with the terms and conditions of their agreement. In litigation and arbitration, however, since a judge, a jury and/or an arbitrator maintains control over the entire process with little or no input from the parties to the dispute, the parties, especially the losing party, may not be willing to accept the decision. This gives rise to an appeal process which is expensive and can take months or years to resolve. Such procedures make the resolution of a case much more time consuming than mediation. 5. When ongoing relationships are important, such as in cases between businesses that wish to continue a business relationship, or disputes between family members, landlord-tenant disputes, or Homeowners Associations and an owner, mediation provides an opportunity to resolve a dispute in a non-adversarial way. This way these key relationships are not only repaired, but can also frequently be preserved and strengthened. The above information is designed to be used in conjunction with an attorney. It should not be used or relied upon without consulting competent legal counsel.
Mediation can be very helpful in employment disputes because it can save significant attorneys' fees and costs, because it is confidential, and because it can allow the parties to preserve the employer-employee relationship. If a lawsuit is filed, a valuable employee must usually sever their relationship with the employer. Mediation allows the parties to talk together and try to work out a solution to the problem before having to go to court. Also a mediation can be kept confidential by an agreement between the parties, thereby allowing the problem to be settled quietly without harmful publicity to the employer or the employee. Usually it is a good idea to have a complaint made first to the appropriate person or persons if the employer has set up a complaint process. The complaint should always be made only after conferring with an attorney so that no rights will be lost by making the complaint. In preparing for a mediation, if you are using an attorney, have them collect and organize all of your evidence, and also have them prepare a mediation brief for you which: states the basic dispute and what is at stake; details the names of the parties involved; any witnesses and what they may say; and have sufficient copies made of all exhibits you may want to show at the mediation. Be sure to consult with an attorney before preparing this brief because it may be a mistake to reveal or withhold certain items of evidence depending on the type of case and the circumstances involved. Upon reaching a settlement, it should be put into writing by an experienced, competent mediator and signed by all parties including the mediator so that it will be enforceable in Court later if necessary. The above information is designed to be used in conjunction with an attorney. It should not be used or relied upon without consulting competent legal counsel.
What is a Hostile Work Environment? It is important to know whether or not an employee is working in a “hostile work environment” because many legal disputes with employers will be greatly affected by whether or not such an environment exists. Generally, a “hostile work environment” is any work environment where an employee is unable to perform his or her job effectively because he or she is being unreasonably discriminated against. Typical examples of when a work environment can be found to be “hostile” is when an employee is being discriminated against based on his or her race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation and/or religion. A work environment can also be found to be “hostile” if an employee is unable to perform his or her job responsibilities because he or she is being harassed or intimated by a co-worker, a supervisor or any other employee who has work related power over him or her. If an employee can prove that he or she is being harassed, intimidated or being discriminated against in his or her work environment, the legal consequences can be quite severe for the harasser/discriminator, and for the employer under certain circumstances. Discrimination, intimidation and harassment over time will usually adversely affect an employee’s job performance as well as his or her psychological, emotional and in some cases, physical well being. Once a complaint is filed, an employer should conduct a thorough investigation and collect all relevant evidence in order to determine whether or not the complaint or complaints have a basis in fact. It is best to have an independent attorney oversee the investigation, but in small business settings, often a supervisor or another employee who does not have direct or indirect power or control over the complaining employee’s job will do the investigation (assuming there are no complaints against them) Such investigation by the employer should be completely unbiased. During the investigation, it is a good practice to move the accused wrongdoer or harasser to another position in the company, away from the complaining employee while the investigation is going on. Generally it is a mistake to move the complaining party because usually the complaining employee has a lower level job than the accused party. Moving the complaining employee may cause him or her to lose seniority, benefits, etc. which might then be added to the list of damages claimed against the employer. The above information is designed to be used in conjunction with an attorney. It should not be used or relied upon without consulting competent legal counsel.
