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throwaway7070

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throwaway7070
·hace 3 años·discuss
This whole "pro se" being treated well by judges is not the reality I have experienced. I have been involved in a few cases over the last several years as a pro se litigant and I lost almost every motion I filed, despite the other (represented) side's position being obviously frivolous. However, I also ghostwrote motions for attorneys in those cases as well, and when those motions are signed by an attorney they succeeded every single time. It seems like unless a lawyer signs a filing it will be outright ignored by many judges.
throwaway7070
·hace 3 años·discuss
Self-represented litigants are treated extremely unfairly compared to represented litigants.

I have been involved in three trial court cases where I represented myself ("pro se"). I won about 10% of dozens of motions I wrote and personally signed. Worse, in most of those cases the other side's lawyer was arguing a position obviously contrary to law, won anyway, and forced me to engage in extremely time consuming appeals process to correct the error.

Amazingly, I have ghostwritten about a dozen motions for co-parties represented by counsel and their counsel signed it. The success rate of those motions has been 100%.

At least with the three judges I have had, it seems like my filings were outright ignored and not read. As soon as a lawyer affixed their signature to my writing, the judge read it and took it seriously enough to apply the law correctly.

I know there is a lot of propaganda about self-represented litigants being treated fairly or with kid-gloves, but my personal experience suggests this is false.