Iowa Identity Theft Victim Assistance Coalition is urging Iowans to consider using a new state law that was effective July 1, 2018 that permits consumers to 'freeze' their credit reports at no cost. 

Before this new law, Iowans had to pay each of the three major credit reporting agencies $10 to freeze their credit reports and another $12 to temporarily suspend the freeze if they wished to apply for credit, for a total of $66.00. 

Iowa’s law also permitted companies to each charge up to $10 for permanently removing a credit freeze. The new law does away with all those fees and permits any Iowan to place, suspend or remove a credit freeze at no charge.

Often called a credit security freeze, the effect is to bar new creditors from seeing your credit report and credit score. Consumers may want to freeze their credit reports for several reasons, including to prevent someone else from applying for credit cards or loans in their names. Placing a credit freeze also helps prevent others from using a consumer’s name to apply for a job or rent a home or apartment.

The core purpose of placing a credit freeze is to prevent identity theft. Before this new law, a person had to become a victim of identity theft to freeze your credit at no charge. Iowa’s new law is similar to a new federal law that will become effective later this year. 

However freezing your credit doesn’t prevent all forms of identity fraud.  

Even if a credit freeze is in place, scam artists may still try to make charges on your existing accounts so it’s still important to check your credit card bills closely every month. Freezing your credit also doesn’t stop credit card offers from coming in the mail.  

Consumers who freeze their credit reports, but later wish to apply for credit will have to contact the credit reporting agencies in order to lift the credit freezes which is also now free to consumers.

No matter how carefully you drive, sometimes auto accidents are inevitable. One unfortunate result of the shock people feel in the immediate aftermath of an accident is an inability to think clearly about best practices to protect their own interests. Consider printing out the attached checklist at the bottom of this article and keeping in the glovebox with your registration. How many of these steps are crucial depends somewhat on the severity on the situation, but try to follow procedure even in the event of a simple fender-bender.

Immediately after an accident:

Stay put. Don’t leave unless you require immediate medical care. You’ll want to be present to make a statement to the responding officer.

Don’t admit responsibility at any time to anyone present. People have a tendency to say “wow, sorry I hit you” without thinking of it as an admission of fault. Try to limit your comments to factual statements.

Check on all parties involved to make sure that nobody needs medical care. When in doubt, call for help. People in shock often can’t feel their injuries yet.

Whenever possible, keep everything as it is. Warn other drivers with flashers, lights or flares. Exceptions to this rule would be congested roadways, interstate highways where the likelihood of actually causing another accident is high.

Call the police or highway patrol. You'll need an accident report filed to help with your insurance claim. 

Exchange information with the other parties involved. You’ll need the other driver(s) name, address, phone, insurance policy carrier and policy number. Limit your conversation to these details only. If they make a statement of responsibility, write it down before you forget it.

    •    vehicle make, model and year of the other driver's vehicle
    •    vehicle registration number
    •    plate number
    •    date and time
    •    road and nearest cross street
    •    direction of both vehicles
    •    weather and visibility
    •    responding officer name and contact info

Make a record of the incident. If you have a camera, take pictures or even better, take a video with your phone describing what happened including the details from the list above. If you don't have a phone to use, write down all you can. 

If there are witnesses, get their contact information. They don’t necessarily need to stick around to speak to the police, but their accounts may be important at a later time.

Follow all instructions given to you by law enforcement. When police arrive, tell them only what you know. If you aren’t sure of something say so, don’t speculate or guess, and for your own safety and that of others, follow instructions from law enforcement and emergency medical professionals.

As soon as possible after the accident:

Get medical attention. Even if you feel fine there may be injuries that aren’t apparent at first. If airbags were deployed, consider this an absolute must-do.

Report the accident to your insurance carrier. The faster you get this done, the better.

Keep all records, notes, correspondence, photographs and recordings about the accident. You never know what legal and health repercussions may arise in the future for you or anyone else involved in the accident, so keep everything about what happened organized in a file for easy reference.

By Rob Tucker

It was my pleasure to once again serve on the Rotary Club of Des Moines scholarship interview team for East High School. Every year RCDM awards six $8000 scholarships, one to each of the Des Moines School District's six high schools: East, Hoover, Lincoln, North, Roosevelt and Scavo. And every year my interview partners — Kelly Sargent and Mark Lyons — and I wish we could give scholarships to all four East High finalists.

This year was no exception.

Difficult as it always is, our job is to select a winner, and this year’s East High RCDM scholarship recipient was Ashley Martinez-Torres. Although Ashley has only been in the U.S. four years, and English is her second language, she earned a 3.5 grade point, qualified for membership in National Honor Society and participated in volleyball and theater, all while working part-time at a restaurant and a radio station to help support the family. Ashley plans to major in multi-media communications and photography at Des Moines Area Community College, then transfer to Grandview University to complete her degree, with a goal of a career in broadcasting.

Because our second-place finisher, Alicia Rojas', story was compelling, our interview team decided to make a modest personal contribution to her college future. Alicia lived in Nashville, Arkansas, population 4500, until last year when she made the gutsy decision to move to Des Moines alone to finish high school. Her goal was to improve her chances of being accepted into college by attending a school with greater educational and resume-building opportunities, in a larger city that could also offer more employment options. Although Alicia was fortunate to be able to move in with her aunt and uncle in Des Moines, her living arrangements also entailed providing childcare for their three under-the-age-of-three children, working part-time at Dunkin' Donuts, while still making sure she earned college-worthy grades at an enormous, unfamiliar school.

Alicia succeeded. She graduated in the top 15% of her class and was awarded a nearly full-ride scholarship to attend Drake University.

Kelly, the distaff member of our scholarship team, is small in size, but Alicia is — so Kelly tells me, even smaller. Ya’ know that jokey phrase, “What’s less than zero?” Who knew that in the world of women's clothing, there are actually sizes that are less than zero?! Apparently not only are 3, 2 and 1 adult human clothing sizes, but there are 0’s, and . . . wait for it . . . double 00’s. Guy clothes are much easier!

​Based on Kelly’s experience, she knows that finding clothes in those sizes is a challenge, so she asked if Mark and I might be willing to throw in a little money along with some of hers in order to take Alicia on a little shopping excursion for college clothes. They made two shop-till-you-drop trips and had lots of girly fun along the way.

The other RCDM Des Moines School District scholarship winners are:

By Rob Tucker

Do you know the significance of April 20 — besides being five days after your taxes are due? I didn't until I came across an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Each year on April 20 tens of thousands of Americans celebrate marijuana use on an unofficial holiday known alternately as 420, 4:20, 4/20 or weed day. This counterculture holiday isn't as popular as New Year's Eve, but it's making headway. Twenty-five percent of users say that celebrating the 'high holiday' is more important to them than New Year'e Eve and 36% of them plan to take the day off to do so. That percentage is even greater in states where recreational marijuana has been legalized: as many as 41% of users plan to skip work. Who knew!

The most important thing to remember is that marijuana is an intoxicant. The greater the concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the blood, the slower reaction times become and both lane changing and speed fluctuation increase. 

Although when it comes to driving impaired, alcohol is almost six times more likely to be the cause of a car accident, high driving is not safe driving. Canadian researchers compared fatal accidents one week before and one week after April 20 and found a 12% increase in the risk of a fatal crash on weed day. 

So don't use marijuana and drive and be extra careful every year on April 20.

By Kelly Sargent for Tucker Law

​A friend's daughter was recently in a car accident. It was relatively minor, and Emma was sure that she was perfectly fine, but dad and mom insisted that they take her to urgent care to be looked at. 

Wise parents. It reminded me of something that happened in my life.

When Paul and I were first married — we were just back from our honeymoon for a few weeks — I was hit by a pickup truck that ran a red light. When I say I, I mean me in the car I was driving; I would have been dead if it had just been me. 

It was 100% percent the other driver's fault. Not only did I have a green light, but it was a blind intersection from my direction. There was nothing I could have done to prevent it.

By Kelly Sargent for Tucker Law

​I don't remember how it was that I happened to read an article years ago about a tactic employed by a certain group of uber-famous theme parks that I won't mention by name. It stuck in my mind, though. Fortunately.
 
It described a purposeful strategy that all staff members were trained to employ as a means of avoiding being sued or at least mitigating the amount of damages the company could be found liable for. The truly amazing thing about this tactic is that not only is it so incredibly simple and easy to put into practice, it has the added advantage of 1000% seeming like the natural and right thing to do. The deliverer seems altruistic, a good Samaritan, even a savior.
 
What is it? I'll tell you, but I'm guessing at first blush, you'll be underwhelmed. Stick with me, though.
 
The employees are trained to be instantly there on the spot and immediately say to the injured person, "Are you okay?"
 
I told you you'd be underwhelmed. What's not right about that? How could that be a "tactic" to mitigate damages?
 
Here's how: Think about your own experiences of being injured. Once you realized that you hadn't been killed, weren't gushing blood from anywhere and seemed to have all your body parts intact, when someone near you asked if you were alright, you probably said, "I'm okay." 
 
Obviously, if it's a severe injury, the injured party isn't likely or may not be capable of saying they're okay, but barring that extreme, it's reflexive to say, "I'm okay."
 
The problem is that we very likely don't know whether we're actually okay or not, because in the immediate aftermath of an injury we're often in a certain amount of shock, plus the adrenaline kicked in the micro-second you hurt yourself, literally preventing you from feeling your pain. In that moment, we lack the capacity of knowing whether or not we are in fact okay.
 
Beyond our immediate, frequently unreliable self-evalutation, without being properly examined by a medical professional, we don't know if we are 100% okay — or what potential ramifications may manifest in the fullness of time.
 
In light of that, now consider this: if someone representing the entity at fault for your injury gets you to say . . . subliminally helps you to say . . .  that you're okay, documents that that's what you said, probably with witnesses, possibly has you sign something — there you are on record, with a list of witnesses, as having stated that you were in fact "okay." 
 
Later on if complications manifest such as headaches, back problems or recalcitrant pain, and you discover that you're going to need physical therapy or other interventions, possibly having to miss work, and you seek compensation for what it will cost to make you whole again, the statements you made at the time of your injury can be used against you. 

Of course what not to say, isn't just applicable at theme parks. Twice in my life I've been glad I remembered the point of the article I read. More about that next time. 

By Rob Tucker

​If by chance you happened to read my post about the fishing trip I took to Kodiak Island in Alaska, you may remember that I have a sister-in-law who is a travel agent. Because of her, I learn about off-the-beaten-path travel opportunities I likely wouldn’t hear of otherwise. I took her up on one a year ago and spent nine days in Cuba. 
 
I was intrigued at the prospect of visiting this island that's been sealed off to outsiders since 1961 and just reopened in 2015 to visitors who certify they belong to one of 13 approved entry categories.
 
We flew into Havana — by we, I mean the 23 three of us who signed up for this tour — then boarded our deluxe (de lujo in Spanish) bus to travel to a splendid stretch of white sand called Varadero Beach a couple of hours east of Havana, where we soaked up the sun, took salsa dancing lessons and chillaxed for two days.

Another unique Cuban phenomena are all the mint-condition, classic American automobiles driving around. Miami is only 90 miles away, and before Fidel Castro came to power, Cuba was a popular destination especially during the 1950's. Americans imported as many as 125,000 Detroit-made cars to use on the island, only to abandon them in 1959 when the government nationalized all commerce and closed closed off Cuba to the outside world. ​

As enjoyable and informative as my trip was, the best thing about it was meeting Cuba's energetic, lighthearted, fun-loving citizens. Music and dancing abounded wherever we went, and except perhaps at the large, tourist hotels, everyone was exceedingly warm and welcoming. Gracias a mis amigos Cubanos.

​By Kelly Sargent for Tucker Law Office
 
Rob Tucker founded his law firm in 1992; his daughter Erin joined him as an attorney in the practice in June of 2015. Last month I quizzed Rob about how that’s working out, and he had nothing but good things to say about what his daughter has added to the firm:
 
She’s a genuinely nice person
She’s a hard worker
She respects his knowledge and experience
She’s a creative thinker
She keeps up on the myriad changes in the law
She’s an excellent writer
And she’s fun
 
Not too shabby. But, I wondered, what would Erin have to say about dad? 
 
Since she’s his daughter, obviously Erin would have had ample time to develop opinions anyway, but in Erin's case, she's had more than the usual opportunities to get to know her father. That's because Erin started helping out at Tucker Law when she was just a kid. As soon as she learned to use a computer keyboard, Rob gave her interrogatories to type at home so that she could practice her typing skills. Soon Erin began working in the office part-time and summers doing clerical work. Rob even let her sit in on a trial with him so she could see how a case is developed from beginning to end: case development, discovery, witness preparation, exhibit handling and trial presentation. 
 
With all that experience and exposure, you’d think that Erin would have had being an attorney in her sights from a very early age. You’d be wrong. 
 
Erin didn’t want to follow in her dad’s footsteps. She wanted to strike out on her own path, carve her own niche in the world, so instead Erin studied business management, earning a bachelor's degree while at the same time working full time at Wells Fargo at night. Whew!
 
Erin had no intention of studying the law. No way, no how, not going to do it.
 
As it turned out, though, Erin didn’t find working in a large corporation terribly fulfilling, and so — almost on a flier — she applied to attend law school. She wasn’t taking the prospect very seriously, though, because she figured her chances of getting accepted were slim and none. She hadn’t, as many do, geared her undergraduate education toward law school acceptance, her bachelor’s wasn’t from a prestigious university and she hadn’t concentrated any effort on building a law school application resume.
 
To her great surprise she was accepted into Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville.
 
Despite having decided not to study law, Erin found that it came naturally. No wonder, since she’d been in and around it for as long as she can remember. Erin not only excelled in law school, but graduated eleventh out of a class of 546 students. She passed the Florida Bar Exam in 2013 and worked for a sole practitioner in employment law for about a year. But then she thought, “Hey wait! I could be working with my dad!” 

Thus the father-daughter team at Tucker Law was born. And so what does Erin have to say about working with her dad?
 
Erin can’t imagine herself working with anyone else. She appreciates that her father is willing to embrace new ideas, allowing her to pursue creative strategies based on the latest changes in the law. Erin finds her dad's decades of experience invaluable to her as a new lawyer, and she's grateful that she can seek his support and advice as often as she needs to. Erin's other significant strength, she believes, is her ability to remain calm in virtually any situation, whereas her dad is more demonstrative — a yin to his yang. All in all, she's convinced there isn't anyone else she could work with and make such a good team as the two of them do. 

​By Kelly Sargent for Tucker Law Office

​How many father-daughter law firms are there in Iowa, I got to wondering after having lunch with Erin Tucker. Erin practices law with her dad, Rob Tucker, at Tucker Law. 

For fun, I asked the Iowa Bar Association. The answer is not very many. The IBA doesn’t have a firm count; there is definitely at least one other, but their best estimate is, at most, only a handful exist in the state.

I was curious how the dynamics of a father-daughter legal team might work (or not) on a day-to-day basis, so I decided to see what each of them had to say when the other one wasn’t around.

Speaking personally as someone who grew up without a father, I found it especially endearing that they both are so authentically members of a mutual admiration club and so thoroughly respectful of one another.

Here’s what dad Rob had to say about daughter Erin:
 
“First of all Erin is a genuinely nice person. She’s a hard worker who's very detailed-oriented and focused on doing her job with a high degree of proficiency. In addition, she's a creative thinker, full of new ideas, and very much on top on all the changes in the law which occur, it seems, almost daily. She's also fun to work with, bringing life to a middle-aged office. 

Erin's greatest strength is in legal writing. Everything she writes is to the point, and exceptionally well written. Her biggest gift to me personally, however, is providing me with the opportunity to pick her brain and discuss legal strategies, foundations and tactics. Fortunately Erin respects my 26 years of experience, asks for my advice on a regular basis and appreciates my historical wisdom.” 

Rob is also proud of the route Erin took to becoming an attorney, but more about that later. Next up: what Erin has to say about her dad.