It's widely known that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. Nothing is more truthful when it comes to a pro se litigant, who is often an indigent plaintiff that decides to represent himself. I'll concede that it's quite unfortunate that legal representation is often beyond the grasp of the economically-disenfranchised masses. When it comes to civil suits, indigent plaintiffs rely on the limited resources available at Legal Aid, law school clinics, pro bono attorneys.
Nonetheless, there's a reason why people go to law school. We learn how lawyers "really" communicate in a courtroom. The common laity believes that attorneys and judges speak in the mystic tongue of legalese. What they don't know is that such colorful colloquialisms like "hitherto", "aforementioned", or "said property" has long ceased to exist in everyday lawyer talk. If anything, the old ways (e.g. "Now comes Plaintiff A") permeate in today's pleadings for no better reason than someone not changing the word-processing templates.
Of course, it's one beast to litigate your own case at the trial level, but it's entirely another Cerberus-Britney Spears hybrid monster when you seek an appeal. A plea to the judge's heart simply doesn't cut it. A case on appeal faces many procedural obstacles. Not only must an appellant have preserved an error properly (e.g. making an objection), but he must raise the issue on appeal in a manner that makes his case reversible. As Justice Morris told me, "first the trial court must have made an error, then the error has to be so important that we must reverse the case back to the trial court.
So what makes pro se appellants so irritating? They have no idea what they're talking about. I spent three days wading through a sea of crap. The court reporter's record was bound in 5 volumes totaling over 2000 pages. Then there were the 10 volumes of court transcripts and the parties' briefs and responses at the appellate level. Fortunately, one side had good attorneys to tell the court what was going on. Because trust me, there are enough bad attorneys that makes you wonder if an appellant was better off pro se. Not a day went by during those three grueling 9-5 office hours that I wasn't pounding my head, cursing at the S.O.B. who was wasting my time. Yes, I know you feel wrong. No, you don't need to write about it again. Yes, you've mentioned this for the umpteenth time. No, the facts didn't change between page 568 and 876. No, you still haven't cited any legal authority supporting your case. No, that rule against goes against the basis of your case. So at the end of the day, my sanity is reduced to a pile of rumble. If only he would tell me 1) where to court records support his claims, and 2) what cases supports his arguement, my life would be a lot easier.
My friend called me a month after finals. He tells me, "you realize now that we're done with our first year, it's possible that somone will give us real lawyering assignments."
Yeah, I've been doing that for a while.
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