Posted on Leave a comment

Three Meeting Rule – family law

Posted on September 22, 2010 by J. Benjamin Stevens

The types of issues that a client needs to discuss with his attorney in Family Court cases can be (and often are) embarrassing. Imagine for a moment what it must be like to have to tell a complete stranger the most intimate details of your married life, to perhaps have to relive a particularly painful incident, or to admit to some extremely embarrassing things that you have done.  Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?

Yet these types of discussions take place every day in my office and other attorneys’ offices across the country. Some people are forthcoming and disclose these types of facts right away, but most take a little time before feeling comfortable enough with their attorney to do so. Over these many years, I have adopted what I call the “three meeting rule”. I assume that I don’t know anything close to what all I need to know until I have met with a client three times.

 

Continue reading Three Meeting Rule – family law

Posted on Leave a comment

Beaver Dam, Arkansas (Family of Three)

Beaver Dam, Arkansas (Family of Three)
Beaver Dam, Arkansas (Family of Three)
Beaver Dam, Arkansas (Family of Three)
Crystal K. D. Huie
Gelatin silver print
1972
American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts
Accession no. 1983.63.799
Posted on Leave a comment

A Family of Three at Tea

A Family of Three at Tea - circa 1727- by Johann Zoffany

A Family of Three at Tea – circa 1727- by Johann Zoffany or Richard Collins (probably, painter (artist))
Gallery location: British Galleries, room 52b, case 2

Object Type 
When painting ‘conversation pieces’ (relaxed portraits of family groups or gatherings of friends), artists were expected not only to show their sitters in fine clothes, but would also be obliged to include valuable possessions, indicating their wealth and social status.

Subjects Depicted 
The painter shows a fashionable family sitting around a tea table, obviously proud of their up-to-date and valuable silver and porcelain, and also of their knowledge of the correct manner of taking tea. The tea equipage is a typical one of the first half of the 18th century. It includes a sugar dish, a tea canister, sugar tongs, a hot-water jug, a spoon boat with teaspoons, a slop bowl and a teapot with a lamp beneath it to keep the contents hot.

People 
Richard Collins (active 1726-1732) was trained under the Swedish-born, London-based portrait painter Michael Dahl (born about 1659; died 1743), and worked as a portrait painter in Leicester and Lincolnshire. A painting by Collins of the same family drinking tea called The Tea Party is at Goldsmiths’ Hall, London. The V&A version is attributed to Collins because it is so similar.