After the last post, I had several people email me with
questions about what exactly Be Your Own Lawyer can or will do to help people
represent themselves.
At first reading I’m thinking … “Dude did you read the website at all?”
Then I thought about it and realized it was really a very
good question. After all, we tell you that we can help, we tell you that we can
show you how to do things, we tell you that we provide complete support. But
it’s clear that not everyone understand what all that means.
I want to try to clear that up.
In the last post I pointed out what it takes to represent
yourself – either in court or with regard to other legal matters. I also
pointed out that Be Your Own Lawyer is here to help you by narrowing down the
tremendous amount of information out there to a manageable volume.
So now let’s talk about how that really works, and what we
actually do.
At the risk of getting things thrown at me, the answer is –
short of providing you legal representation. which we cannot and will not do –
it’s up to you. Be Your Own Lawyer will do what you want us to do to help you
represent yourself.
No I’m not being evasive. The people we help run the whole
range from “do it all for me” to “just show me and let me do it myself”.
Let’s face it, that’s the way it is across the board in
life. There are those who want to do everything for themselves, down to
changing the oil and fixing the brakes on their car. There are those who prefer
to drop the car off at the garage and be called when everything that needs to
be done is completed.
Neither one is good or bad – it’s just a reflection of how
people approach life.
So in what we do, we see everything from the person that
wants everything handed to them, down to addressing the envelope to send stuff
to the other side, to the person that says “show me the rule book and the law
that applies, then leave me alone – I want to do this myself”. We will provide
help on either level!
When you represent yourself Be Your Own Lawyer will do the research on the law for you. That means you get the statutes, the cases and the
rules, along with an explanation of what they mean.
We’ll warn you about things that have to be done. If an
answer to a complaint is looming, we’ll make sure that you understand what to
do and how important it is that it get done.
If you want us to go further, and prepare papers for you, we
can do that. Or, you can prepare your own and ask us to review them for you.
And it's all up to you. You tell us how much you want us to do.
It’s sort of like a buffet. Take what you want and leave the
rest.
And that is one of the greatest things about how we help you
represent yourself. Were we to be your attorney and enter an appearance, there
would be things that we would have to do, whether you liked it or not. Because
of procedures and rules you would lose a lot of control over how your stuff is
handled. That’s just the way it is – the courts and judges where a party has an
attorney, deal with the attorney not the
person who matters – You!
Be Your Own Lawyer takes the extra layer out of the equation
– you’re in charge and you know what’s going on.
Is this for everyone?
Of course not!
Just as there are cases where you should never try to represent yourself, there are those people that will not feel comfortable on
their own.
It’s not good and it’s not bad – it just is!
Some people like to ride in the boat – others prefer to
drive it!! Most of the people that ask us to help them represent themselves
will be driving the boat!!
