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On Saturday, August 27th, Loren Joner participated in an event called “Cars in the Park” Located on the streets in front of the Portland Art Museum. The event was put together in order to advertise the once in a lifetime “Allure of the Automobiles” theme that the museum hosted to show off 16 Old, Stylish, and Rare cars from 1930 to 1961. The cars in the park event was a way for people who lived in the Portland area to come by and park their nice cars on the streets for show in order to encourage people to come out to the museum to see not only the special show in the museum but the nice cars parked out side as well. The event was held on the Saturday of every week that the show was in the museum and each week had a theme, usually a different brand of car every week. The week that Loren helped out on was the Mopar themed week which consisted of mainly Dodge Cars ranging from the 30′s until now. The following picture are of cars brought by Portland residents and all 16 cars show cased in the museum.

Here are the ‘Street Cars’:

Here are the show case cars:

In honor of the terrible tragedy that occurred ten years ago, please check out the new memorial located at Ground Zero.

God Bless America.

By now many of you have heard that Joner Lindberg Baker PLLC is now Joner Baker PLLC. Jeff has hung his own shingle at his new office on Officer’s Row in Vancouver and is already off to a great start. We will continue to work with Jeff on projects in the future, and we look forward to seeing him grow his new firm.

Matt and I remain at Joner Baker PLLC and are excited to move the Battle Ground office to its new location at the Battle Ground Village located at 802 SE 14th Street, Suite 109 in Battle Ground. The new office is right next to Laurelwood Brew Pub and Blue Castle Coffee, so lunch and coffee are steps away. Stop by to see the new office! Once we’re settled, we’ll have an open house for all who are interested.

It was great to see a client write-up in The Columbian newspaper over the weekend. Check out their article. If you have drainage issues at your home, give Steve or Seth Kenworthy a call, and tell them you were referred by Joner Lindberg Baker!

All of us have heard that breakfast should be the most important meal of our day, but it seems like we rarely prioritize consuming a real breakfast. Instead, we usually eat a high-carb snack that leads to eating other bad foods during the day. As a result of our poor dietary habits, we fail to eat the proper foods (like healthy proteins) and therefore don’t supply our brains and muscles with the nutrients necessary to provide us with the energy to work and live at our best. Instead we’re content to hope that our donuts, coffee and fast food will get us through the day.

There’s no question that a strong correlation exists between skipping breakfast and the subsequent establishment of poor dietary habits. There is a similar correlation that exists in the business world. If the proper systems are not put in place during the start-up and growth phases of a business, the likelihood that a business will be unhealthy (or will die) increases substantially. Like your personal health, the health of your business is too valuable to take for granted. Stop feeding you business junk food and fast food while hoping that the business will be lean and profitable. It won’t!

We can help you create a healthy diet for your business much like a nutritionist or personal trainer can assist you with enhancing your personal health. However, it’s up to you to make the habits that will lead to a healthy life and a healthy business. You can do it!

When it comes to estate planning, we tell our clients that there are at least four documents a person should execute in order to have a thorough estate plan in place: (1) a Will or Trust, (2) a Durable Financial Power of Attorney, (3) a Health Care Power of Attorney and (4) a Health Care Directive (also known as a Living Will or Advance Directive).

A Health Care Directive is the document you use to identify your specific wishes regarding end-of-life medical treatment should you have a terminal condition from which there is little or no chance of recovery and you are near death. A Health Care Directive will not only identify your specific wishes, it will also alleviate the burden your family might feel if they are forced to make those decisions because you are unable to.

Normally, your wishes only take effect if your physicians certify that the use of life-sustaining treatment would only prolong the process of dying. If you do not desire that such treatment be used and that you be allowed to die naturally or that you do not desire artificially provided nutrition and/or hydration, you identify this in your Health Care Directive.

You may also give further written instructions regarding your care, including your desire to receive or not receive medication that might alleviate your pain but could also hasten your death.

If you have questions about a Health Care Directive, give us a call at either our Battle Ground or our Snoqualmie office. We can assist you with all your estate planning needs.

Lawyers don’t hear as many “lawyer jokes” as you might think, but every once in a while a great joke is sent our way. I couldn’t resist posting this one:

An ancient, nearly blind old woman retained the local lawyer to draft her last will and testament, for which he charged her two hundred dollars. As she rose to leave, she took the money out of her purse and handed it to him, enclosing a third hundred dollar bill by mistake. Immediately the attorney realized he was faced with a crushing ethical question: Should he tell his partner?

If you have a good lawyer joke, send it along to it Jeff or me at our Battle Ground office or to Matt in our Snoqualmie office. We’re always ready to laugh at ourselves (or at each other).

“Occam’s razor” is a principle of reasoning that says, among competing hypothesis, the one that makes the fewest assumptions is usually the one to go with. In recent years, many popular books and movies have incorrectly shortened Occam’s razor to mean that the simplest explanation is most likely the correct explanation. Or, perhaps more accurately, the simplest explanation that covers all the facts is usually the best.

Leonardo da Vinci’s interpretation of Occam’s razor was that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Albert Einstein put it this way: make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

At Joner Lindberg Baker, we like the way Einstein interpreted Occam’s razor. As lawyers, our job is not to make your life more complicated. Our goal is to take the complexity in your life or your business and simplify that complexity as much as possible. We understand that we can’t always make things truly simple, but, most of the time, we can make things as simple as possible.

Most attorneys, in explaining how Occam’s theory applies to your legal matter might say something like, “Concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity – the corollary of which is: nor are they to be integrated in disregard of necessity.”

At Joner Lindberg Baker we simply say that we’ll do our best to turn your complex issues into simple solutions.

Joner Lindberg Baker PLLC is proud to announce we’ve added a new member to our team. Jennifer Oser has joined our Battle Ground office as a legal assistant. She will work mostly with our Clark County and SW Washington clients but will occasionally work with our East King County clients as well. Jennifer brings a great deal of experience to our firm, having worked for a number or years at another small law firm in Vancouver. We’re glad your a part of our team, Jennifer!