What does it take to represent yourself in court?

Can you really do it all by yourself?

The answer to the first question is that it takes a lot of research and information. 

The answer to the second question is yes, but do you really want to reinvent the wheel? It's a lot easier if you let someone help you!

Walking into a courtroom by yourself requires that you know the law as well as the rules and procedures. All of them! If you don’t know them, there is no way you will make it.

Compare it to walking onto a football field to play. If all you know is that your job is to get the football to the other end of the field, without knowing how, what is ok and what is not, you’re not going to get very far.

So it is in a courtroom. No one there is going to draw you a road map, or hand you a checklist of what to do. They won’t even hand you a set of rules.

So what do you need to know to represent yourself? A lot!

For an idea of what you will have to research, visit our site. Here are links to some free information that will give you a good start toward researching stuff yourself.

Want to know why knowing court rules are important? Click here.

Want to know where to look up the law on an issue? Click here.

Want to know if you can bring a lawsuit against someone?  Click here

Want to know what to do with legal papers that you’ve received? Click here

Ok, you get the point.

There is a lot of stuff to know and look up. You can do it yourself or you can let us at Be Your Own Lawyer help.

That’s one of the things we do at Be Your Own Lawyer. We gather information, knowledge and legal advice from a lot of different places and put it at your fingertips. We make sure you get what you need, not overwhelming you with junk that doesn’t affect or pertain to you.

To be honest, everything that we can show you and provide you with is available without our help. That’s right. We don’t even mind sharing this with you. If you’re willing to spend enough time, and do enough research, you don’t need Be Your Own Lawyer, or anyone else. In this day and age, EVERYTHING you need to know about representing yourself is available on the internet. It may not be free, and it’s definitely not in one place, but it’s there. All you have to do is look for it. And of course you have to make sure that what you find is in fact everything you need. That’s a little trickier.

We think representing yourself in legal matters in or out of court is great! Doing things yourself is pretty much and American tradition. But at the same time, there’s no reason to reinvent the wheel and go all the way back to square one.

Unless you’ve had some practice, doing all the research needed to prepare yourself to go to court on your own will take hundreds of hours. If you’re one of those fortunate people that has plenty of extra time, by all means, go for it!!

But if you’d rather not spend a huge chunk of your life re-doing something that’s already been done, and want some help in putting it all together, take a look at our website.

You’ll see that Be Your Own Lawyer can take all of the information you need for a specific matter and put it at your fingertips. We charge what we think is a modest amount for our time and expertise.  Take a glance at what we can do for you and what we charge.

Is it OK to Represent Yourself in Court?

Last month I talked about the issue in terms of “Can you Represent Yourself?”  In response, I got some response in the form of questions, that leaned more toward the question of “Is OK to represent myself?”

It was actually a little disturbing to read some of the questions, because they suggested that people were intimidated by the judicial and legal system, and somehow felt that by venturing into courthouses, they were somehow trespassing on sacred ground.

I guess, upon reflection, that it would be easy to get such a feeling. I never gave it much thought. After thirty-five years of wandering in and out of courthouses and courtrooms, it just feels like that’s where everybody was welcomed. I can see that for the person not familiar, it could be intimidating. After all there are all these huge, impressive buildings. Stone-faced and sometimes outright rude security people greet you.

No that’s not the right term. They confront you. A sad testimonial to what our society has become – but that’s another matter for a different time and place.

Back to the courthouse.  Once you get past security you have to deal with clerks and officials, usually behind glassed in enclosures with a tiny slot to speak through, or even a microphone.

Then there are those self-important lawyers running around as though the clock was constantly ticking down to zero. They certainly make you feel that they own the place and anyone else is superfluous. 

Yeah, I suppose that could all be a little intimidating. Ok, now wipe that whole idea out of your mind!

Those big, huge buildings? They belong to YOU and everybody else. You have as much right to be there and conduct your business as any lawyer all dressed up and bustling about.

All those clerks and officials being rude and making you feel like you’re imposing?  Guess what? YOU and everybody else pay their salaries!! They work for you. They may from time to time need to be reminded of that, but it’s easy to do in a courteous but firm way. As for the glass enclosures – well even after thirty-five years of lawyering I have never figured out how that evolved. When I started practicing law, clerk’s office had long counters – you stood on one side, the staff on the other. If you had a question, or had to conduct business, it was easy and personable. Now it seems as though we’re all possessed of some communicable disease and have to be kept at bay. Nothing we can do about that but to remember that glass or not, these people work for us!!

Those lawyers running around looking like they own the place?  They don’t. They have to file the same papers, and go through the same steps that you do. Oh, they may do it more often. They may be familiar with the very clerk that has been rude to you. But that’s just because they’re there every day, and that’s their problem, not yours.

So there is no need to feel out of place. Those courthouses are yours and you have the same right to conduct business there as anyone else.

Do you have to know what to so. Sure. Laws, rules and regulations are there to make sure, among other things that things function smoothly and as relatively efficiently.

But as long as you do your homework, and are reasonably prepared, there is never any reason for you to feel that you are out of place, unwelcome, or somehow going where you should not be. If anyone in those big buildings suggests otherwise, feel free to let them know the definition of civil servant!