After the long hopeless search for a lawyer, people think about acting as their own lawyer, filing lawsuits against legal, judicial and government corruption on their own.
It is certainly good to know something about the details of the law in America, so as to better understand the legal tricks that are being played by lawyers and judges.
As you start to study the law, you may get all excited about what a great case you have, and you dream of winning a great victory on your own, acting as your own lawyer. You may start reading the law, and you may find you're just as smart as many lawyers. You may find all sorts of laws, and statutes, and previous cases, that support your position. You see that the law, theoretically, allows you to win a lot of money for your pain and suffering and for the harm that was done to you.
There are also a number of resources you can use to help you. On the internet you find do-it-yourself legal guides. Near your home you may have a free law library you can use, and with time and study you can become reasonably educated with the law, as becomes true of many prisoners allowed to use the prison library.
On one level, it's not that hard. The law is full of jargon, and is annoying and inconsistent, and takes some time to get used to the jargon and learn the rules, and know all the stuff you should know. You need to get used to the ways that lawyers are constantly twisting words around to mean different things, depending on what they are arguing. But it's not beyond the average person.
After all, many actual lawyers are total idiots. America has over a million lawyers, and many of them are fairly stupid, despite three years of law school and having passed the bar exam. And despite their stupidity, they still get away with charging people $100 and more per hour.
With your passion and dedication to your own case, and some diligent self-study, you can out-learn and out-think those idiots with law degrees, on one level.
However, it is usually just a fantasy to think you can get somewhere by acting as your own lawyer. To fulfill your fantasy, you would need to find a judge somewhere who cares about the law, the truth, the evidence, the facts and about justice, more than he cares about covering up for his fellow lawyers and judges. And that's where your fantasy starts to fall apart.
There are actually cases in which a judge admitted, he always automatically denied a court appeal by a person acting as his own lawyer. He didn't even read the arguments, the claims, and the evidence. Denied! That's all. And the USA Supreme Court totally refuses to even hear arguments, in about 99% of the cases and appeals presented to it ... especially the appeals by 'pro se' (for himself or herself) litigants. Motion denied without explanation, appeal or case dismissed.
The reality of law and courts in America, is not that idealistic image you invent in your mind after reading the law books. In a real court, judges and lawyers have found and invented hundreds of ways to delay and deny you justice ... whilst the people bribing the judge for the oligarchy, get instant and quick service, taking away the rights of their victims.
And if not legally, they will do so illegally. They will just rule against you, period, and tell you that you lost. 'But . . . but . . . but . . .' you will sputter, because the law and the facts and the evidence and the truth are on your side. And then the judge will tell you to shut up, or he'll send you to jail for contempt of court, maybe grinning and smirking to his lawyer friends.
The US Constitution and the law turn out to be empty words which will not help you, when you discover that the judges ignore not just the written law of statutes, but the Constitution itself. And you will be amazed at how judges can rig a court proceeding with just a series of small rulings on court procedure.
Right to a jury - denied. Right to present some piece of evidence - denied. Right to present an important witness - denied. Right to cite some specific statute, or example, or a previous case - denied. Right to talk about the Constitution - denied, "Irrelevant!" screams the judge. The judge will directly ban you, under threat of jail, from speaking about truth or facts or evidence or law, that interferes with the judge's desire to fix and rig everything for the richer people who are politically connected, or just anyone who is paying the judge a juicy bribe.
When the judge starts yelling at you, that he is going to put you in jail, if you say one more thing he doesn't like, or if you don't answer the illogical question he asks you in the way he prefers, you will finally understand how American judges really behave. Indeed, it is nothing at all like you see on television.
You can think about appealing the illegal orders of the first judge. Although sometimes they even threaten to jail you on false charges, or contempt of court, if you file any appeals. In my own experience in the USA, friends of the judge even threatened to murder me.
But even with an appeal, you typically just go to another judge, who dismisses your appeal, maybe even without listening to what you have to say. Most judges are not interested in reading or hearing appeals by little people who have no lawyers. And the people attacking you will tell the judge, that the fact that you have no lawyer, just proves what a lousy and worthless case you are trying to present.
Another illusion you may have about acting as your own lawyer, is that you think you will get media coverage, after you file a lawsuit on your own. You imagine that your case will start to win public support, after the media informs people about what you are trying to do. And you imagine that there will be all sorts of TV and news reporters watching you in the courtroom.
But you are nearly always wrong, if you think that the media will cover your lawsuit that you file on your own. Yes, the media does cover some legal cases. But they often totally ignore any cases filed by people who do not have lawyers, regardless of how interesting, or how strong the evidence. The media pretends that you are a nut or a crackpot, just because you have no lawyer. And they know your case will not get anywhere. So for all your efforts in court, not only with the judges dismiss your case or delay it indefinitely, but you will suffer in silence, as the media won't cover your struggle either.
Sometimes you can be caught in this hopeless game for months and years, before it all crashes down into nothingness. Or before you are finally arrested by the local cops on some supposedly unrelated charge. Or before the judge and the lawyers themselves file a lawsuit against you, and their lawsuit actually works out very well for their side. One way or another, they will most likely show you the nature of their power over you.
Almost certainly, there is very little you can accomplish against legal or judicial corruption, by filing lawsuits acting as your own lawyer. The judges will rig the game to nail you, regardless of the law, the facts, the evidence, precedents, the truth, or anything else.
This is not to deny that, people do sometimes win when filing a lawsuit or appeal on their own. It is rare but it happens. As with everything else amongst the millions of cases chugging through the USA legal system, there are always exceptions. This is part of the game in the way the system is set up - they can always cite a counter-example, of someone who 'won' where most have lost.
And in legal cases in general, judges just hate people who show up in their courts without lawyers. Judges think it means you don't respect the court, because you aren't taking your case seriously enough to pay money to one of the judge's friends.
If you're not yet regarded as an outlaw in the American legal system, and can still get a lawyer for a normal legal case, it is often yet a good idea to pay even some idiot lawyer to stand there before the judge, as it generally goes easier on you when you have a lawyer, than if you don't. It is like protection money to gangsters; the alternative is dangerous.
Click here to go back to the FAQ table of contents.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
