Be Your Own Lawyer
Legal advice websites are everywhere, and we make good use of them. But lawyers can’t tell pro se litigants how to win in court. They can only tell us how THEY win in court. We’re forced to play by a different set of rules.
Only experienced pro se litigants can teach others how a pro se litigant fights and wins. So the next time a lawyer promises to teach you how to win in court, ask when they last appeared before a judge without a law degree.
If you don’t prepare for your day in court, you’re preparing for an ambush. Opposing lawyers want to leapfrog over any issues favorable to you and get a quick win. The judge also wants a quick resolution of the case and will take any shortcuts to get you off the docket. Expect them both to lay traps for a naive pro se litigant.
Having learned the hard way how to prepare for a hearing, here’s my list of do’s.
On May 1st, Sylvia Ann Driskell, a 66-year-old Nebraska resident, sued every homosexual in the world. As ambassador for God and Jesus Christ, Ms. Driskell filed a seven-page handwritten complaint asking the federal district court in Omaha to determine whether homosexuality was a sin. Boiled down to its essence, her pro se complaint asserted that both the Bible and the dictionary had […]
Judicial tyranny is an ugly thing to see. The term usually refers to so-called “activist” judges who interpret the Constitution with no regard to the opinions of a democratic majority. But that’s actually what an independent judiciary is supposed to do. Real judicial tyranny occurs when a judge acts as his or her own law, […]
Myths and uncertainty about the litigation process can be detrimental to parties involved in a lawsuit, especially those representing themselves. Reliance on myths, in fact, can lead to wasted time, avoidable losses and other headaches. The best cure for uncertainty is information, and the best cure for myths is truth. So, below is my list of myths that self-represented […]
The ongoing deterioration of the legal system in the US and its negative effects on citizens seeking to defend themselves in court extends to the highest reaches of the judiciary. While it’s true that the poor state of the judiciary is not news (take the Bush v. Gore debacle as one glaring example), the Supreme Court […]
