Bricker reckons someone who represents himself in court is a “pre se” litigant. A quick google on that term yields zero results, versus “pro se”, which brings up the host of further reading I was hoping for.
Just a typo (one of two in the early part of the article – the other is “juge”). It’s spelled correctly (pro se) many times throughout the rest of the piece.
Is self-representing in court a bad idea?
There’s an old saying that if you represent yourself in court, you have a fool for a client and an idiot for a lawyer.
My ex-wife and I were both pro se in our divorce.
Granted:
- I went through a website run by a lawyer out of Chicago where you pay $180 and describe the assets you have and how you want to divide them and the website runs a script that will generate the appropriate legal documents for division of assets and for the judgement of dissolution. Granted, as the website says, this is only for divorces that the parties actually are in agreement on how the assets are divide. And if there is something contested later, that $180 can be applied as credit to legal services from that law firm. Oddly enough, after using the service, I happened to meet the guy who programmed up the website for the lawyer. Just one of those coincidences.
2.) Another reason I did this was I researched and found that divorce with no contest in Illinois is fairly straightforward, up to the point that if you have no children, no property, and make less than $50,000 combined, you can actually file online through the state of Illinois and never have to go to court. Granted, that didn’t apply to us. We had to go to court because we had a house and we made above $50,000. No kids, which is a large reason as to why we didn’t need lawyers.
3.) It took 6 months after the petition to get a court date. We show up to the judge. Show him that we have all the documentation needed at the preliminary hearing, and he says he’ll be doing prove-ups later that morning, and if we want to have our prove-up done that morning to inform the clerk and stick around.
4.) Prove-up took 5 minutes. Dissolution was signed by us and the judge, and for $600 (I covered my ex’s respondent fee) and a personal day from work I got a divorce that was worth every penny. Oh, and my ex and I went out to lunch afterwards.
So in some circumstances, pro se can work. But I’ll be the first to admit that my situation was pretty unique.
Also “defendeant”.
Overall, a very good article - well done, Bricker. If I ever choose to defend myself, you are the lawyer I don’t want. Or something.
Regards,
Shodan
Also,
Otherwise, great article, and thanks, Bricker, for restarting the Staff Reports! Excellent job!
Like most people, I represented myself pro se when I legally changed my name change. There are a lot of court procedures with a fairly straight forward procedure and little opposition. Many people are able to represent themselves in these cases.
Here’s Bricker’s fine Staff Report: Is self-representing in court a bad idea? - The Straight Dope
I strongly agree with his bottom-line recommendation that, the higher the stakes (and the more complicated the case), the better it is to have a lawyer represent you. I’m a magistrate in a large city court and regularly have pro se parties appear before me. The stakes aren’t terribly high: up to $15k at issue in the general division, up to $3k at issue in small claims, and up to 6 months in jail or a $1k fine in the traffic and criminal divisions. By and large, pro se defendants do pretty well, I’d say. The really incompetent ones who hurt their own cases are about as rare as the really incompetent lawyers who screw things up for their clients.
When I was a prosecutor, I went up against the same pro se defendant in two separate cases (by coincidence, several months apart, I was the prosecutor assigned to that courtroom each time). He did a terrible job and made a flurry - nay, a snowstorm - of objections that were all overruled. At the second trial it was obvious he’d learned nothing. He definitely would’ve been better off with a lawyer.
I’m in a different jurisdiction, and I’d recommend using a lawyer if you have enough money to afford it, to avoid the anger and disgust of having to deal with the court system and the other lawyers. Except for agreed divorce and other situations where the courts are specifically set up to deal with non-represented people.
I struggle to express my contempt for the magistrates (“I haven’t done this for a while, so I’m not familiar with the law”) and the prosecutors(“I haven’t been briefed or read anything, so you must be lying”). I just wish they all had lawyers to represent them, so that they knew what they were doing, and weren’t wasting the time of the defendants.
Jim Traficant should have listened to you! 
If I remember reviews in the papers here at that trial, it was said he “Struggled with Procedure”!! Gee I wonder why??
What about lawyers who represent themselves in criminal cases? I would assume they’d do better than an average civilian, but is it still strongly discouraged?
Good article, Bricker. And great we get more Staff Reports.
Yes, especially if the accused wishes to testify. There is a method, narrative testimony, that allows a witness to testify without needing to be prompted by questions, but it is awkward and risks confusing or alienating the jury if objections to evidence thus presented are sustained.
Yes, it’s probably a bad idea, but I represented myself in traffic court once on a B.S. red light ticket - took it to trial (to the judge), and was found “not guilty”. It was the only ticket I’ve ever gotten where I was actually innocent. It helps to actually have a case.
The best part was how the cop and the city attorney never saw it coming. By the time they’d figured out I was halfway competent, it was too late. Sweet, sweet victory!
Traffic court is low risk and one of those situations designed to make it easier for self representation.
It’s not always a low risk situation. For example, if you had a lot of points on your driver license, and losing this case means losing your drivers license, or your accused of DWI, you may want to get a lawyer.
The truth is that most traffic court cases aren’t low risk as much as low penalty. You can either pay the fine for a few hundred, or you can hire a lawyer for several thousands dollars. Your choice.
Ninety percent of the time, the DA will give you a plea to cop. Plead guilty, and instead of a four point ticket, it’s a two point ticket, and that won’t increase your insurance premium. In New Jersey, you can pay a $200 on a four point ticket, or $400 on a two point ticket. Neat trick which shows you that traffic court is really nothing more than a driver shakedown tour.
In Texas, you not only can take the plead deal to reduce the ticket from four to two points, but you can take a defensive driving course to completely remove the ticket. You’re only suppose to take the course once, but since there’s no record of a previous ticket, I’ve seen people take it again and again.
Those do have higher risk, yes. Things like “driving without valid registration”, “driving without valid insurance”, “not fully stopping at a stop sign”, going 10 mph over the posted limit, etc are generally low risk unless you have a lot of points. DWI is higher risk. A B.S. red light ticket is the definition of low risk, which is the incident I was replying to.
That’s pretty much what I mean by low risk. You lose, you pay a fine. Maybe a couple hundred dollar fine, but a fine. But you have to get off work to go to court, spend your time getting ready, maybe have two court dates (the prelim to plea, then the followup for your case), etc. That time is not free to you.
Losing your driver’s license or getting a DWI on your record are more significant and probably rate getting a lawyer.
You are allowed Defensive Driving once a year. That means you wait a year from your completion date. You submit a record of the course to the courts and it is supposed to go on your record for that year, but there is a window of time where you have received one ticket and haven’t submitted the proof and getting another ticket where your driving record won’t show the DD course. They have you sign a statement that you are not in that situation. You can lie, but I don’t know what happens if they go to post the DD record and find one there already.
ISTM that the article ignored or glossed over some important factors.
[ul]
[li]The article suggested that the reason self-representation is a bad idea is ignorance of the law. But it’s widely said that self-representation is a bad idea even for lawyers. Now this factor could still be an issue if the lawyer specializes in another field, but I believe it’s thought that self-representation is a bad idea in all cases. So I think some discussion of other factors (e.g. emotional involvement) might have been appropropriate.[/li][li]The article suggests that people who chose to self-represent, particularly on important matters, might be different at the outset than average people. This raises the possibility that this very difference might account in part for them getting worse results. IOW, the fact that a nutcase like Colin Ferguson made a fool of himself can’t be used to extrapolate for more normal people.[/li][li]While I certainly agree that the higher the stakes the more important it is to get competant representation, another factor would seem to be the strength of the case against you (versus the cost of representation). If you are facing a very weak case and the possiblity of being ruined by legal fees, I can see where it might be rational to take a shot at it, as compared to a case where the evidence is clearly against you and you need every bit of legal chicanery to hope to beat the rap.[/li][/ul]
Yes, part of it is being too emotionally involved and “too close to the case.” A lawyer who represents himself, as the old saying goes, has a fool for a client.
I have no quibbles with the article, as it seems referenced, however I do think that if you’re going to have an attorney telling people they really should hire an attorney that it would be a good idea to at least put a disclaimer in that the staff report was authored by an attorney.
I didn’t see any mention of this in the article or elsewhere on the page. If I missed it (or if Bricker isn’t a lawyer) mea culpa. But if it isn’t there and he is a lawyer, I do think some kind of mention of this should be included.