Louisiana Articles & Resources - Hampton Law Firm

Update and Revision Thid morning I have just received the news that she is not going to become responsive again. She has now been moved to end-of-life care, and her family is facing the unbearable decisions and final hours that come with that. There is no way to make news like that fit neatly into a paragraph, and there are no words large enough to hold what the people who love her are carrying right now. Please keep my dad and his family in your prayers. my heart hurts for t

A collection of thoughts that didn’t make it to the blog. I am not entirely sure how all of this happened in the same week. Last Sunday, I was driving home from Great Wolf Lodge after making the extremely rational decision to recover from a week of working until 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00 at night by loading three children into my vehicle and taking them to a water park by myself. Obviously. I had been scared to go. I had never done anything quite like that alone with all three of

Earlier today, Tammy, my legal assistant, asked me a question I honestly could not answer off the top of my head: Does Louisiana have a Lemon Law? The answer was not immediately sitting in my brain because this is not the type of law we ordinarily practice at Hampton Law Firm. A perfectly reasonable person might hear that and say, “Okay, Judith. Then just say you don’t know and move on with your life.” That is apparently not how I operate. I had spent most of the afternoon at

For additional guidance - download our free educational resource explaining Title Insurance. Let’s make this painfully simple. You buy a house. You pay for the house. You sign approximately 47,000 pieces of paper. Somebody hands you the keys. You move in. You buy a couch. You argue with somebody about where the couch should go. It is your house. Except six months later, somebody shows up and says: “Actually, part of that house belongs to me.” Excuse me? Maybe somebody in the

Thoughts Outside the Office I Am Not Easy to Find. That Is Not the Same as Unavailable. I have been told that if I stay off Facebook, stop posting pictures of myself, quit announcing where I am, and generally refuse to participate in the online display of single womanhood, I may never have sex again. That seemed like a fairly dramatic consequence for deleting an app, but I did consider the possibility that everyone else understood modern life better than I did. So I tried it

More Than a Statute It is Wednesday, the third workday of the week, and 27 new civil matters have come through Hampton Law Firm since Monday. Those are not casual inquiries, names on a call sheet, or people who may eventually need something. They are genuine matters involving real people who need real legal help. I am ecstatically happy because the number tells me that what I have spent the last year building is working. I am also fully aware that Hampton Law Firm consists of

Our Commitment to You For most of my life, I thought one of my best qualities was that I did not have an off switch. I could work longer than everybody else, focus harder than everybody else, and keep going long after everybody else had gone home, gone to bed, or simply lost interest. I thought that was discipline. I thought it was ambition. I thought it was why I had been able to do so many things that, if we are being honest, probably should have required several different

Sixteen borrowed fragments. One original sentence at the center. The stitch turns the meaning into something entirely new. What Is a Hampton Turnstitch™? A Hampton Turnstitch™ is created from sixteen borrowed fragments and one completely original sentence. Eight fragments build the first meaning. The original sentence becomes the stitch. Eight more fragments follow, turning everything into something new. How Do You Create One? Select sixteen short fragments from existing writ

From Judith’s Desk — Note dated August 4, 2026 Hampton Law Firm is committed to accuracy, fairness, transparency, and accountability. Our writings may be revised for clarity, accuracy, or continued development. The most recently published version is the official public version, while prior drafts are retained in our records. Read our Commitment to You for more information about our publishing and accountability standards. A collection of thoughts that didn’t make it to the bl

By Judith L. Hampton, Attorney at Law Hampton Law Firm, LLC Hampton Law Firm is committed to accuracy, fairness, transparency, and accountability. Our writings may be revised for clarity, accuracy, or continued development. The most recently published version is the official public version, while prior drafts are retained in our records. Read our Commitment to You for more information about our publishing and accountability standards. Tonight, sitting at the desk where I have

THOUGHTS OUTSIDE THE OFFICE It is midnight on Friday night. Technically, it is Saturday morning, but I have not slept, so I refuse to recognize Saturday’s authority. Until I have removed Friday’s bra, washed off Friday’s makeup, and briefly lost consciousness, Friday remains in effect by emergency order. I walked through my front door around 10:00 tonight after leaving my office at 7:45, driving to Ruston to retrieve my children, getting everyone home, and beginning the calm,

A collection of thoughts that didn’t make it to the blog. From Judith’s Desk — Note dated July 31, 2026 Hampton Law Firm is committed to accuracy, fairness, transparency, and accountability. Our writings may be revised for clarity, accuracy, or continued development. The most recently published version is the official public version, while prior drafts are retained in our records. Read our Commitment to You for more information about our publishing and accountability standard

Hampton Law Firm is committed to accuracy, fairness, transparency, and accountability. Our writings may be revised for clarity, accuracy, or continued development. The most recently published version is the official public version, while prior drafts are retained in our records. Read our Commitment to You for more information about our publishing and accountability standards. Beginning August 1, 2026, Louisiana’s bail laws will change in ways that matter to defendants, famili

EDITOR’S NOTE: REVISION AND ACCOUNTABILITY July 31, 2026 This article has been materially revised after publication. I continue to stand by the core factual account, opinions, perspective, and conclusions expressed in the original version. These revisions are not a retraction, an admission that the central account was false, or a response to intimidation. A copy of the original publication has been preserved in my private records and is available if requested, I simply choose

From Judith’s Desk: A collection of thoughts that didn’t make it to the blog A few days ago, a woman sat down across from me in my office, and somewhere between the reason she came in and the conversation that followed, we recognized something familiar in each other. We both see the world in stories. Not just the stories people tell once everything has ended neatly and they know what it all meant. We see the ones that begin with a smell, a storm coming through, an old road, o

Thoughts Outside the Office Last night, around midnight, I looked over and found all three of my children asleep across the couch. Normally, I would have picked them up, carried them to bed, tucked them in, located whatever stuffed animal had gone missing, refilled somebody's water, and somehow completed six additional tasks no one had asked me to do before finally sitting down. Instead, I stood there looking at them and realized I did not have enough strength left in me to m

From Judith’s Desk A collection of thoughts that didn't make it to the blog. --- Story time with Nan The Time She Married One of Arkansas's Most Wanted Last week I got lost in Arkansas. Nan found this absolutely hilarious. Not because she's mean (although reasonable people may disagree), but because, in her opinion, I got off easy. You see, years ago Nan went to Arkansas and accidentally married one of Arkansas's most wanted fugitives. No, that's not clickbait. No, I'm not ex

A collection of thoughts that didn’t make it to the blog. Lawyers speak English, but not always in the way ordinary people understand it. Years of practicing law teach us how to communicate entire paragraphs through a carefully chosen phrase, a raised eyebrow, or a silence that lasts approximately two seconds longer than politeness requires. We learn to remain civil while disagreeing completely, to threaten without technically threatening, and to tell someone an idea is terri

A collection of thoughts that didn't make it to the blog. There are moments in a courtroom that no law school professor prepares you for. Last week, during a hearing, the prosecutor looked directly at my client and asked, point-blank, "Did you commit the crime?" Without thinking, I stood up and said, "Objection, Your Honor." The judge looked at me with a grin and asked, "How are you objecting to your own client?" I immediately realized what I'd done. "Never mind... no objecti

A collection of thoughts that didn’t make it to the blog. I used to think the most expensive thing I ever gave someone was money. Looking back, it was not. Money can be earned again. Time cannot. Trust rarely grows back in the same shape after it has been broken, and hope has a remarkable way of draining a woman long before her checking account finally catches up. By the time this story took place, I had spent years paying for decisions that were not mine, cleaning up messes