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Personal InjuryKellam

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January 2016 Newsletter | VOLUME 5 - ISSUE 1 | www.pzlaw.com

Kellam’s Corner: Welcome to 2016! The Parks family celebrated Avery’s 18th birthday in December with a trip to Disney World, which was amazing. We’re finishing up auditions to college dance programs and starting to focus on top choices for Avery come the Fall. Hard to be-lieve she’s graduating this year!

As for the firm, this marks the beginning of year five for the firm, hav-ing grown and become Parks Zeigler, PLLC in March, 2015. We’re up to four lawyers and seven staff to assist our clients with their legal needs, continuing to focus on family law, credit errors/identity theft, personal injury, and with the addition of Brandon, all aspects of as-sisting small businesses from formation, contract review, addition of partners and leases.

We wish you the very best for 2016 and look forward to hearing from you this year.

In The Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear the name on their sleeve for one week. Nowadays, to wear your heart on your sleeve means that it’s easy for others to know how you are feeling.

When children get injured in an auto accident, Virginia law has safeguards to protect their best interests. One example is the statute of limitations does not end until their twentieth birthday. The exception to this rule is a legally emancipated child, who has the standard two year period in which to file an injury claim. Vir-ginia is one of the few states to still recognize “contributory neg-ligence,” and it is important to know how this concept applies to children. You can read more at http://tiny.cc/y5wa8x

This publication is intended to educate the general public about various issues. It is not intended to be legal advice. Every case is different.

Presenting “Fraud Prevention/Credit Report Errors” by Kellam T. Parks

Free educational seminar and materials April 9th, 2016, 10:00am – 11:00 am

RSVP to reserve your spot:JLeitzel@pzlaw.com or 757-426-4526

Open to the public and all sessions will be held at M.E.O. Central Library, 4100 Virginia Beach Blvd,

Virginia Beach, VA 23452.

JOIN ME April 9TH!

Errors on your credit report?

Credit scores are utilized by prospective employers, leasing

companies, and lenders alike. They help lenders gauge a bor-

rower’s likelihood of responsibly repaying debt. Since there

are numerous lenders and loan products, there are many cred-

it score factors.

There are three major Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs) –

TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. Some of the most com-

monly used and weighted components to a credit score are

your payment history (do you pay on time), credit utilization

(what % of available credit is used), length of credit history

(how long have you had these accounts), and new credit and

credit type mix (loans, credit cards, etc.). These factors are all

combined to build your credit scores. You may wonder why

your scores are not the same from one CRA to another. Each

of these companies may have slight variances in how they

score and/or weight the components.

For example, a home mortgage lender will be more interested

in a consumer’s history of repaying loans rather than credit

cards, resulting in the lender picking a scoring model which

puts less weight on credit card payment history. Because

lenders need to have good predictive capabilities, some CRAs

offer different options based on the lender’s product or a lend-

er may opt to order a custom formula.

With every tweak, your score alters. There is also the possibilty

of fraud and/or errors on your reports that can severely lower

your scores. There is no need to be overly concerned over why

Experian says you have a score of 740 and Equifax says you

have a score of 755; rather, the focus should be on ensuring

that the information on all three reports is 100% accurate. You

should check all reports for name spellings, addresses, former

employers, dates of accounts, payments showing late, dupli-

cate reporting of the same debt by two different entities, and

any balances written off as bad debt.

You are entitled to a free annual credit report from each of

the three major reporting bureaus, so you should request,

in writing, your free copies every 12 months. You can find

the “Credit Report Request Form” in our website Library.

http://www.pzlaw.com/library/credit-reporting/

Be sure to request to only have the last four of your social

appear on the mailed reports to safeguard that information. If

you find you have any errors and/or fraudulent activity, please

feel free to contact us. We can explain your rights under Fed-

eral law as well as assist you in getting the correction(s) made.

If necessary, we can file suit on your behalf and explain how

the CRAs may be required to compensate you and even be

responsible for your attorney fees and costs for the lawsuit.

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR CREDIT

We value our clients and want you to come to us for any legal need you may have, no matter the type of case. If it is in an area we do not practice, we will refer you to a trusted colleague to take care of you as we would. If you refer someone to us, we promise to answer his or her questions and provide first-rate, attentive service. Thank you for your referrals and for continuing to come back to Parks Zeigler.

“Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today, let us begin.”

We welcome your referrals!

– Mother Teresa

Kelly, Avery, and Kellam enjoy one of the many holiday festivities that occur at Disney World each year. Avery turned 18 and celebrated her big kid self!

Deb’s granddaughter, Miss Mia aka Princess Elsa, turned 4 last month. She has several prin-cess dresses and red glittery Jessie (Toy Story) boots that she loves to wear daily!

When it comes to locally grown food, Southeastern Virginia offers lots of options. Vir-ginia is the largest seafood producer on America’s Atlantic Coast and third in the nation. Virginia’s watermen harvest over 50 commercially valuable species, including oysters, sea scallops, spot, striped bass, croaker, summer flounder, clams, and blue crabs. Vir-ginia’s agricultural production is one of the most diverse in the nation. Virginia fruit and vegetable products rank in the top 15 among all U.S. states. Virginia tomatoes rank 3rd, apples rank 6th, and grapes rank 7th. And let’s not forget peanuts! Virginia’s world-re-nowned peanuts are grown in Virginia’s sandy soil, found in the Southeastern region where the climate is ideal for producing large peanuts that have outstanding flavor and crunchy texture.

Three reasons to buy local:

1. Taste and freshness - On average, food travels 1,500+ miles from farm, to store, to table. Food grown locally is fresher and tastes better than food harvested then shipped from other states or countries.

2. Supports the local economy –The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services estimates that if every household in Virginia spent $10 a week on local prod-ucts we could add $1.65 billion in revenue to our state economy.

3. You’ll be healthier – If you know where your food comes from, how it is grown and harvested then you can make a more informed choice when selecting the quality of your food. You can ask a local farmer what, if any, pesticides they use, are hormones or antibiotics used, or if they use genetically modified seeds. The nation is becoming more aware of these factors and the trend to seek out healthier options is growing.We have many local farmer’s markets and roadside stands and some local grocery chains are now carrying local farm goods inside their stores. When it comes to making food purchases, buying local is so easy in our area!

Whoopie Pies…..not to be confused with the small delicate macroon craze. We’re talking two mounds of baked goodness, in any variety of flavors, sandwiching a sweet creamy frosting between them. It’s the state treat for Maine, complete with Whoopie Pie festivals. I discovered that around Pittsburg these are actually marketed as “Gobbs,” something unique to that area. This Southerner requires baked from scratch goodness, preferably from a recipe passed down through many generations. Ambir has shared her “Mimi’s Whoopie Pies” with us, which comes from her grandfather’s family who are from Maine. Per Ambir –“My Mimi’s cookies are FAMOUS in the Virginia Beach Courthouse. She retired from the Circuit Court Judge’s Office in 1999, and she kept everyone very well fed. In the 10 years that I worked there, I was asked for cookies at least once a week. In fact, I was told many times that it was the only reason that I was hired.” As you can see from her picture, these are indeed homemade goodness! So gather your Crisco, sugar, lour, eggs and head on over to our website (http://www.pzlaw.com/library/recipes/) to get the full recipe. We’re going to be treated to Jackie’s pies next – so look for her recipe too! I’ll try both and get back to ya’….MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR CREDIT

Family Corner

Family Law:

On The Local Front

Custody of children is defined two ways in Virginia: Legal and Physical. In most cases parents are awarded joint legal custody, giving both parents a say in how the child is raised, even if the child primarily resides with just one parent. Physical custody, states which parent has actual physical care of the child. This is generally primary or shared, depending on the number of days with the non-custodial parent (and this can impact child support calculations). Go to http://tiny.cc/kbxa8x to learn more about Virginia child custody.

Deb Dishes:

LOCALLY GROWN FOOD

4164 Virginia Beach Blvd, Suite 204Virginia Beach, VA 23452-1762pho: 757.453.7744 | fax: 757.453.7578www.pzlaw.com

Staying on top of yoru Credit

Locally Grown Food

New Technology

Parks Zeigler, PLLC

Parks Zeigler, PLLC

Parks Zeigler, PLLC

Parks Zeigler, PLLC

Visit our blog @ www.pzlaw.com/blog

Visit our website @ www.pzlaw.com

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

This month I’m highlighting a handful of cool new tech/gadgets coming out of the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which wrapped up the beginning of the month.

• Rollable Display – LG has created a screen that can be rolled up like a newspaper and they are working on roll-up TVs for portability. No date on release, but I’d bet on 2017 or later.

• Oculus Rift – This Virtual Reality (VR) headset which was pur-chased by Facebook in 2014 finally came out with a release date and price (3/16 and $599). A hefty price and there are other manu-facturers jockeying for the VR space, so it will be interesting to see who becomes the market leader come later this year.

• Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator – Silly name aside, this new fridge has some amazing tech. It has a 21.5” vertical touchscreen panel

that covers nearly the entire upper right door. It is a smart device, so connects to the internet and has ambitions to share Amazon’s AI assistant, Alexa, to allow for voice commands. Internal connected cameras takes photos of your groceries each time you close the door and it connects with an App so you can see if you need more milk, etc. You can also purchase food and ingredients from the App. The large screen allows you to display calendars and pictures. Starting price is $5,000, so not cheap, but definitely cool.

• Ili – It is a wearable instant language translator. It is about the size of an Apple TV remote and you click a button, speak, and it then “speaks” what you said in the language programmed to the device you’ve chosen through a speaker (one language per device currently). Instant translation – pretty amazing. No date on release or pricing information yet.)

Tech Tip:

New address? New phone number? New Email? Help us stay current by letting us know. Call Deb at 757.453.7579 or email her at dmontagna@pzlaw.com. If you wish to unsubscribe to this newsletter, please call Deb. Thanks!