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In this lesson, you will learn how to stay focused during your litigation process, how to choose your battles, and real-life examples of how not staying focused could negatively affect your case.
Stay focused
- Review and understand procedures, case law, definitions, and statutes
- Find ways within the law to do what needs to be done despite how a lawyer is acting.
- Stay focused and calm. It doesn’t pay to react to every instance of lawyer delays, stonewalling, ignoring of standard practices, or even insults.
- Respond only when not doing so will hurt your case.
Transcript
In order to properly describe orally and in writing, why you\’re right, you need to stay focused.
How do you do that?
Know your law. Stay calm and choose your battles carefully.
Know your law.
This is a general refrain throughout these lessons because it\’s important.
Review and understand procedures case law, definitions, and statutes as they relate to the facts in your case.
Knowing courtroom protocol is also useful.
Stay calm.
Some tactics that lawyers use seem unfair or downright mean. These tactics can distract frustrate or anger you. Don\’t get into unnecessary arguments.
Rather, find ways within the law to do what needs to be done to despite how a lawyer is acting.
Eventually, you\’ll calmly describe why the judge should rule in your favor.
Choose your battles carefully.
Though tempting, it doesn\’t pay to react to every instance of lawyer delays, stonewalling, ignoring standard practices, or even insults.
Choose to respond only when not doing so will hurt your case.
In short, fight the lawyer with the law and the facts.
In one case, a pro se litigant always scheduled a court reporter for hearings on his motions because he wanted everything to be recorded.
The opposing attorney would also hire a reporter who was directed to arrive very early to get there before the pro se litigant\’s reporter.
Since only one court reporter was allowed, the pro se litigant would pay and dismiss his court reporter.
This happened several times in a row.
One day, the pro se litigant decided that it didn\’t make sense to hire a reporter because the opponent would have one.
So he didn\’t schedule a reporter for an important hearing.
For the first time, no reporter appeared.
It turned out that the attorney for the opposing side had been calling the pro se litigant\’s court reporting agency before hearings to determine if he\’d scheduled a reporter.
The day he didn\’t, the lawyer canceled his in hopes that the hearing wouldn\’t be recorded.
Rather than make a big deal of it, the pro se litigant called to have a reporter sent over and had the courtroom wait.
The reporter arrived within ten minutes.
The pro se litigant went on to successfully argue the case without any reference to the lawyer trick.
That is focusing on what\’s important.