4478/Legal Advice

Legal Advice
Date of Scene:	24 December 2020
Location:	Nelson and Murdock
Synopsis:	Foggy listens to some details of April's recent exploits and supplies a few (legal) facts of life.
Cast of Characters:	Foggy Nelson, April O'Neil

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Foggy Nelson has posed:
Foggy Nelson stretches back in his chair and swills back the last of a now-cold cup of coffee before grimacing and crunching the disposable cup and chucking it into the wastebasket next to his desk. The office is quiet now, with one more appointment for the evening before he heads out to shiver his way home. "'Tis the season," he mutters as he closes up his laptop and pulls out his legal pad. A few quick scribbles confirm that his pen still works.

He gets up from his desk to go unlock the front office door and turn on the rest of the lights beyond his office.

April O'Neil has posed:
April had setup an appointment last week to come in here, the office name had come across her desk from another client that she'd met in her city-wide reporting. Being off of work as of now, April is riding her bike through Hell's Kitchen and to the law office address. When she arrives, she looks around for a place to lock her bike up... but not seeing any suitable places...

The sound of a bike wheeling down the hallway outside the front door can be heard before the front door to the office opens up and April enters, wheeling the bike in. "Hello?" She calls out.

The reporter from Channel Six is wearing a bright yellow faux-leather jacket, with a black scarf around her neck, a black and white bike helmet on her head with her dark hair loose around her shoulders. A black hoodie is on under her jacket, zipped up, and she's got a pair of blue jeans on with black and yellow running shoes.

April just kicks the stand on her bike and leans it there, adjusting her scarf to open it up and take her bike helmet off to put it on the handle bars.

Foggy Nelson has posed:
Foggy looks up at the sound of the bicycle gears turning while April rolls the bike through the front door. He puts down the client file folder he'd been preparing and stands up to stick his head out of the office as April finishes pulling off her helmet. "Oh, right on time!" he says with a wave. He gestures toward the nicely padded and not at all secondhand-looking chairs in front of his desk. "What brings you our way, Ms. O'Neil?"

April O'Neil has posed:
April's left hand goes up to her dark hair to run her fingers through it after removing the helmet. The helmet, and her scarf, are left on the front of the bike as she looks up to see Foggy in his office. She gives him a friendly smile. "Sorry about the bike. I didn't want it to get bike-napped." She states while starting to walk around it. "And hi, I'm indeed April, O'Neil." She offers a hand and a grin now to him. "I was... hoping to get a basic rundown about your services. Sometimes I find myself in legally, uh, grey areas, and I'm looking for an attorney who'll help me get out of those when, and if they come up."

April takes a step toward one of the offered chairs and settles down on to the edge of it with her hands together in her lap as she cans her eyes around his office.

Foggy Nelson has posed:
"Ah," Foggy says as he sits down, raising his eyebrows at the request. "Well, we focus primarily on criminal defense, although we do a lot of small civil work, too. It tends to come up a lot in the area. Landlord-tenant, commercial leases and liens, that kind of thing, although that doesn't really sound like what you're looking for." He taps his fingers on the desktop and pushes the client file to the side, then leans forward in his chair to look at April for a beat with his head cocked. He folds his fingers in front of him and takes a deep breath. "At the risk of probing too deeply, what... gray areas... would you be experiencing possible issues with?"

April O'Neil has posed:
April just reamsin on the edge of the chair with her back straight for the time being. His initial words just get a simple bit of nodding from her head as she takes that in, but the last question garners a grin to appear on her lips. "Ah..." Her blue eyes dart up toward the ceiling for a second, before her eyelashes flutter and she sweeps her stare back down across his desk toward the lawyer. "Okay, so... I'm an invesitgative reporter. I don't know how much you've, researched, about me... but getting myself in to, well, sticky situations is a pretty common thing. Case in point, earlier this year, I broke in to a place because I got a lead that they were hiding illegal narcotics inside of baubles-- like snow globes --turns out I was /right/ but I also got, well, caught, and thrown out."

She huffs out an exhale. "They told me they were going to sue me for breaking in, even though I saw what I saw, and... well. I'm curious, if I should have a lawyer, ya know... on retainer, or whatever?" She's young, early 20s, clearly doesn't know how this stuff works!

Foggy Nelson has posed:
Foggy frowns. He holds his hand loosely up to his mouth while he takes a few seconds to rock his head back and forth in thought. He sits back in his chair. "Were you approached by police at all, or just site security? Did you present any press credentials?" He pulls the client file back in front of him.

April O'Neil has posed:
April's hands go to the front of her knees and she taps her fingertips against them as she considers his question. After a few seconds she just shakes her head. "No cops, no. Not this time." Which implies there's been other times! "And these guys totally know who I am, so Press Credentials weren't really necessary." There's a pause then as she tilts her head to the side a little and smiles at him. "I come off as a bit manic, or crazy, I'm sorry about that. I..." She releases a big exhale. "It's been a crazy couple years for me, to say the least. My podcast has taken off, something huge, and ... I get a lot of leads onf local criminal activity."

There's a shake of her head then as she glances toward a window. "Not to mention, Harley Quinn lives at my apartment now too, which has brought all new kinds of interesting... situations, in to my life." She states, with a smirk back at Foggy, assuming he knows who Harley Quinn is.

Foggy Nelson has posed:
"Quite frankly," Foggy says with a sigh, "I'd say you're kind of close to the cusp of becoming a lead yourself. If you're saying that everyone knows who you are without credentials, that's a claim you'd have to defend in court." He shakes his head. "Convince a jury there isn't any reasonable doubt that the security guard who happens to be on duty knows your qualifications, and you're asking for some very muddy water that might not clear the way you want.

Beyond that, are you on any police reports anywhere? Any pending charges?" He starts making some notes on his legal pad with a few arrows.

April O'Neil has posed:
Again April is left just gently nodding her head to what Foggy tells her, but then his last question makes her shake her head in response. "No legal charges, not to this point. I've expected it though, I mean... Harley Quinn is doing well these days, but she has quite a checkered past. Plus, her friend... Pamela Isley, has put up a garden on my apartment building's roof, and sometimes is up there... milling about. I don't know what her story is, she doesn't really approach me a lot." There's a slight lopsided grin then before finally April leans back in the chair and puts her hands on the arms of it.

"I'm just trying to prepare, you know?" She states then, sighing once more.

"What if the people from that investigation, the ones who owned the building... What if they crashed a truck in to it and very nearly ran me over? Because that happened. Would I have a case against them?"

Foggy Nelson has posed:
Foggy shakes his head slowly. "Not really, not if there isn't a solid case for any kind of assault outside of the details of why you were there." He frowns. "If it's their building, and they crash into it, that's potentially an insurance fraud case, whether you're there or not. If they can say you were trespassing on a posted property, it makes a criminal charge against them a lot harder to hold up. Civil, maybe. Suing them when they might have the money and evidence for a countersuit alongside charges..." He holds out his hand and wobbles it back and forth. "That ice is a little thin.

"As for your roommates... it's not uncommon at all to become a suspect just by sharing a living space. It's not impossible to defend against in court, but that's a hell of a lot of mess for splitting rent." He raises his eyebrows and leans his head forward to look at April as though he were peering over a pair of invisible glasses. "Those cases come up quite a bit."

April O'Neil has posed:
April just gently nods her head then. "That makes sense." She says back at him about the first part, and the second part, really. Idly her head shakes back and forth. "I saw their operation with my own eyes. They had all kinds of shady stuff inside their gift shop products. Diamonds even, all jammed up inside the bases of the globes, or inside of teddy bears stomachs. They've packed up though, since I was there, moved on to another place. I was gonna report'em, but since they've moved their site, now I'm still trying to track them down again."

As she sits up once more, she clears her throat. "Another situation, however..." Her eyes trail away for a moment. "I recently came to know a handful of young people, teenagers, who live... in the sewers. They were attacked, their home down there was invaded. Someone tried to kill them, and their father. We're trying to track the attacker down, but I'm hoping there'd be some legal charges that could be brought up against this nutcase. He tried to kill /me/ too, and my other friends."

Foggy Nelson has posed:
"Only if there's some kind of report with law enforcement first," Foggy says with a shrug. "For anything criminal, they're the ones who put together the complaint to see whether the state wants to pick it up. DA doesn't want to go anywhere with it," he says with a pause, his shrug deepening. "The charges won't go anywhere. A teen housing case would need a lot behind it to get into a courtroom for a criminal case, if they could try passing it off to social services instead." He shakes his head. "Threats to life and limb aside, the longer you hold off to report, the less likely a DA would be willing to pick up."

"The best police complaints are at the scene, not later. And not," he says, gesturing around him to the law office environs, "through an attorney. The police would need to investigate the scene. No scene, no case." He shrugs again.

April O'Neil has posed:
"Right." April says then, clearly not thrilled with the answer, but it all does add up and the confirmation of her thoughts-- and her own research --does give some solidity to her thoughts on it all.

"Complicated." She flashes him a smile. "I really appreciate you hearing me out on these few things. They've been weighing on me a lot. I fully do believe that I'm on some kind of 'watch list' now because of my housemate, mates. Whatever they are." She draws in another breath as she sits once more on the edge of the chair.

"We live i na weird world, Mister Nelson. A very weird world. My goals are never to break any laws, I assure you, not ones that would harm anyone innocent. I grew up desperately wanting to be a super hero, but I'm not, I'm just a normal person. But I still think I can do a lot of good, as long as I got my ducks in a row." She flashes a grin at him. "Or turtles. Or... ya know, any cute little animals."

April moves to stand up then. "I won't take up much more of your time though."

Foggy Nelson has posed:
"Happy to help," Foggy says with a nod. "Just a general warning, though... when it comes to criminal charges, your intentions don't help much until... well, the sentencing phase," he says, pushing his hair behind his ears. "It's not a win."

He stands up and hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the view of New York in a deep chill. "It's not going to get much warmer out there for you. Let us know if we can be of any more help, but please... be careful."