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Thomas A. Musi, Jr., Richard C. Daubenberger, and Lucas A. Clark, IV, have been voted 2022 “Top Lawyers” of Delaware County. Thomas A. Musi, Jr. has been recognized for being a “Top Lawyer” in Personal Injury as well as Real Estate and Commercial Litigation. Richard C. Daubenberger earned the title of “Top Lawyer” in Criminal Law, and Lucas A. Clark, IV has been named a “Top Lawyer” in Family Law. “Top Lawyer” is known to be one of the oldest and most respected peer review publications that exists within the legal profession. The invitation to cast votes is given exclusively to lawyers who were recognized in the previous addition as well as allowing for an opportunity to acknowledge attorneys who have stood out among their peers in a year that was filled with enormous obstacles and constant uncertainty. The year of 2020 presented an unusual amount of change within the legal industry due to the pandemic being present. There was a multitude of employment shifts and movement among firms and locales within the area of Delaware County. Voting for “Top Lawyers” of 2022 began in February of 2021 when attorneys who were awarded by “Top Lawyers” from the previous year…

Cryptocurrency can be defined as the collection of binary data that is designed to work as a medium of exchange where individual coin ownership records are stored into computerized databases using cryptography in order to secure transaction records. One of the most common types of cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. Bitcoin has existed since 2009 but has recently been growing in popularity. Many more investors have invested in these cyber assets, but care needs to be taken when you are developing your estate plan. In an estate where cryptocurrency is held, an executor or administrator of this estate may be put into a tough situation where they have to choose how to secure control over these digital assets. This includes determining where all of the digital accounts are held, but most importantly locating all of the decedent’s private keys and passwords. A simple solution to an issue like this would be for the account holder to leave behind all of the detailed instructions of how someone can access the “coins.” If this was done, however, it would ultimately defeat the purpose of investing in these digital assets. Information like such would have to be stored in a way that would protect these…

A Superior Court case, Commonwealth v. Richards, has affirmed the ruling in the case of Commonwealth v. Chichkin, 232 A.3d 959 (Pa. Super. 2020), that a prior ARD offense cannot, should not, and will not be considered a criminal offense and therefore a defendant should not be tried or sentenced as a second-time offender if they received ARD for a prior offense. Musi, Merkins, Daubenberger & Clark wanted to take the opportunity to inform readers about the facts of this case and how it worked to uphold the importance of the Chichkin case. During this case, the Defendant was charged on two counts of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) and related summary offenses. Both of the DUI offenses Defendant was charged with were graded in the criminal information as second offenses because the Defendant had previously completed the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program for a DUI offense in 2011. The Commonwealth had argued that the ruling in Chichkin allowed them to grade offenses based on the Defendant’s ARD DUI if it proved beyond a reasonable doubt at sentencing that the prior DUI offense had actually occurred. The Defendant had entered numerous motions to argue that after Chichkin, the Commonwealth was…

There are an overwhelming amount of car accidents occurring and this trend has been seen for a very long time. In total, there is in excess of two hundred fifty million vehicles that are registered in the United States. In the early 2000’s, we saw approximately six million car accidents in the first few years. There are many different causes of car accidents, but a majority of these accidents are solely the result of someone acting negligently. A number of these negligent acts include someone not adhering to a particular motor vehicle law. For example, 75 Pa.C.S.A. §3112 (a)(3) of the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Code states that an individual must stop at an intersection if there is a solid red light. Failure to stop at this solid red light may cause an accident, and thus be considered negligent by the statute. This is just one example of a negligent act that can cause motor vehicle accidents. The millions of motor vehicle accidents that occur result in personal injury claims for recovery of economic and noneconomic damages. In turn, insurance companies have become overwhelmed with claims. Pennsylvania and New Jersey hold some of the highest insurance claims in the nation, with…

The head of Musi, Merkins, Daubenberger & Clark, LLP’s Family Law Department, Lucas A. Clark, IV, Esquire, was retained to take a custody case to trial that involved two parents operating under a 50/50 shared physical custody order who were both fighting for primary physical custody of their 15-year-old son.  The parties had this shared physical custody arrangement in place for years and lived very close to one another.  However, throughout this case and at trial, Luke focused mainly on the co-parenting issues between the parties that needed to be highlighted in order to show the Court that primary physical custody should be awarded to his client, who is the mother of the child.  Additionally, some major points highlighted during the trial that helped Luke obtain this victory were the well-reasoned preference of the child based on the child’s maturity and judgment as well as the attempts of one of the parents to turn the child against the other parent.  The Court found both of these factors to be in favor of the mother and this ultimately led the Court to find that the 16 factors of the Best Interest Test, which the Court is required to set forth and…