Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Do you know how to be your own lawyer?
That depends on the legal matter you’re dealing with. They say a man who is his own
attorney has a fool for a client.
When should someone be his own lawyer?
You can use legal forms from the office supply store for simple rental agreements, a basic
will or promissory note. You don’t need a lawyer for those matters.
Legal software can replace almost anything an attorney normally does.
You should use legal software for more complex wills, power of attorney documents and financial
forms.
And I can use it for just about anything else.
You need an attorney to represent you in court, handle a lawsuit and guide you through real
estate purchases. The cost of a mistake is too high to try to save money by being your
own attorney.
True. I may not be able to reference legal software if I’m on trial.
If you’re on trial, you want to know every challenge to the evidence, every question
that could be asked a witness, every procedure at your disposal. You shouldn’t risk your
freedom because you want to be your own attorney.
What if I can’t afford one?
Then you have the right to have on appointed by the court … but those tend to be lousy
lawyers, often straight out of school.
Then I need to act as my own.
Or you need to beg your family to raise the money to hire you a good one. Or contact a
legal aid society to get a decent attorney to help you for low or no money.
I need to contest a traffic ticket.
You can plea no contest, ask for adjudication and have it off your record in a year. Or
contest it and go to court, and you might be able to out-argue the cop.
It’s a red light camera.
Unless you find a law on the books that makes red light cameras illegal in that town, or
you have proof your car was somewhere else, you have to pay it.
Why would my car get a ticket if I was somewhere else?
The computer reading the license plate may get it wrong and attribute the ticket to you.
There’s a man in Europe whose snowmobile was ticketed for speeding in London, and a
woman with a red light ticket for when she lived in another mistake.
Then they need to get a lawyer.