Should I Represent Myself in Court?
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Considerations to Make About Self-Representation
Before you decide to represent yourself in legal matters such as adoption, divorce, post-divorce modifications, juvenile cases, or paternity issues, consider what Carla Fuller of Carla Fuller Family Law has to say on the matter.
True or false?
- Building a house is just hammering a few boards together
- Removing an appendix is just a cut, snip, and stitch
- Growing a crop is just putting seeds in the ground
- Working at McDonald’s is just cooking up some food and passing it out the window
- A divorce is just words on paper
None of those statements is true.
Building a house is sequential, complex, and takes a variety of skills.
Removing an appendix incorrectly can lead to death.
Farming is a science that has been developed over centuries to yield the best crop.
And if you walked up to my kitchen window and asked for a biscuit with sausage and a cup of coffee, and then walked to my living room window to pick it up, IT WOULD NOT BE READY.
There are people who have all of those skills: building, surgery, farming, and preparing food. I am wise enough to know that I don’t have those skills.
You Don't Know What You Don't Know
People sometimes feel like the law is a secret language used by a secret club of people all working together to make court more complicated so that people can’t represent themselves. What I try to help people understand is that if everything goes perfectly and everyone agrees, a litigant could probably represent himself, but lawyers have years of personal experience and volumes of written information to know how things can go wrong and to try to avoid the pitfalls. There are mistakes that a person can make representing herself in court that cannot be changed or corrected after the court order is signed. As the saying goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
I often tell people at the end of their consultation in my office, “Even if you don’t hire me, please hire someone. Don’t try to do this by yourself.”
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