The Family legal advisor

The primary goal of The Family Legal Advisor is to give you an understanding of the law as it touches the daily life of an average family. As tenant or landlord, borrower or lender, parent or child, as the maker of a will or the holder of an insurance policy, as the owner of a car or a pet—sooner or later, you arc likely to encounter questions of law. It is in these circumstances that you will find it especially helpful to have this book at hand, for it will enable you to discuss your problems intelligently with your lawyer, who is of course your ultimate legal advisor.
Although the law is complex, differing sharply in its details from state to state, general rules do govern your legal rights and responsibilities. In this book you will learn about such common concerns as your civil rights, the extent of a minor's responsibility for accidents or misbehavior, and how to make a will, as well as more unusual matters like the law of libel and slander, and what you should do if you are arrested.
The book explains your rights vis-a-vis the United States government, either as a citizen or as an alien. It explains your Social Security and Medicare rights, and your doctor's legal responsibilities. In many cases, The Family Legal Advisor will also tell you about major exceptions to prevailing law; in other cases, tables provide a state-by-state catalogue of laws on marriage, divorce, and wills.
Secondarily, but still importantly. The Family Legal Advisor hopes to entertain as well as instruct. Although laws are written and enacted by legislatures, their validity is established in the courts, which must consider the law not in the abstract but in relation to the particular behavior of particular people. To clarify legal points, the book cites hundreds of cases, each of them a small drama of people in conflict. Some of the cases are touching or exciting; a number of them are even comic.
Portions of court decisions are quoted to demonstrate the reasoning behind them, and thus to make the law vital and meaningful to you. Legal terms are explained in this book as they occur in text. To help you still further, however, a Dictionary of Legal Terms appears at the end of the book, as does an index which enables you to quickly locate the information you seek.