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Alright, so getting a legal education isn't easy. Admittance to the bar takes years, and the test is non-trivial. (You can't just waltz in with a high IQ and

Alright, so getting a legal education isn't easy. Admittance to the bar takes years, and the test is non-trivial. (You can't just waltz in with a high IQ and expect to pass without serious study. You can't bullshit your way past it.) Still, everybody's familiar with the stereotype of the scatterbrained and incompetent public defender... Now, take that stereotype and raise it by a couple orders of magnitude and you've got the average pro se litigant. It's almost impossible to "skip past" those years of study and practice, and just litigate your own case as though you were a lawyer. Most pro se litigants have literally no clue what they're doing, and they often end up relying on coaching from the judge (which raises fairness issues) and from the opposing lawyer (which raises ethics issues) -- it almost never ends well. Yet legal services, especially for defendants who are trying to protect themselves from unfair or frivolous accusations in civil court, are so often priced out of reach. So defenses are difficult and sometimes impossible to raise, and there are more than a few law firms who act as though they were mob enforcers. There are two solutions which have been proposed: 1. In most small claims courts, both sides are prohibited from using lawyers, and legal proceedings are simplified and rooted more in common sense than established precedent. This practice could be extended to higher-value civil cases. 2. Establish a "right to representation" in all cases -- civil as well as criminal -- with public access to government-funded legal assistance. It has been argued that this might even save the government money, as pro se litigants are a severe drain on judicial resources, and this practice might weed out frivolous cases before they're even filed. But, hell, the way things are going, legal services and even judges might soon become AI models, so who knows? As for making frivolous cases expensive to bring forward: I think that judges should be quicker to sanction people (and corporations!) and label them "vexatious litigants," which would place limits on their ability to bring forward subsequent civil cases. That aside, I don't think that the pricetag of _anything_ associated with the legal system needs to be raised. BTW: I am not a lawyer but have a philosophical interest in the theory and practice of law. There are lawyers here who surely know a lot more than I do.

arcbyte 4y ago
The biggest issue with pro se litigants is not their lack of understanding of the law. Honestly the law is not that hard. The law is usually very straightforward if you spend any time thinking about the particular domain in front of you. The issue with pro se litigants is that they haven't picked up "how" to think about their case. Court is, on the surface at least, a very sterile environment filled with people who deal with life altering situations every day and are mostly numb to any individual case. That isn't an indictment because for the most part people care a great deal about things, but probably not about what the layman cares about. Case in point is drunk driving. I've done it two or three times in my younger years. Growing up in a rural area I had my own ethics about it. I never did and would never have done it in a populated area, but I never saw the harm in making my way home on dirt roads surrounded by corn fields where there was no one else to hit. Again, i only did that a few times in my college years and was very against drunk driving. But this is the ethic that I had in mind as I showed up to my first "DUI Day" in county court as a student in practice prosecutor. The entire courtroom was filled, and more people overflowed outside - at least 200 people. And that was just the morning docket. In the afternoon it was a different 200 people. This happened every single week, 400 new people a week, without end. All thinking to some degree, just like me, that they were special in some way or what they did wasn't that bad. I learned quickly just much of a problem drunk driving is and how naive most of these pro se litigants were in thinking about their own cases. They would raise some minor complaint about the officer or some stupid thing expecting the court to side with them and throw the case out. But we see a thousand complaints and stupid things a day and almost never does it materially impact the evidence against the person. But the mindset of the pro se litigants is that they are special. The only litigants that were ever special were the ones who either a) detached from their case in a way that let them actually objectively decide if they had a good case or not; or b) had enough sense to know they were guilty and present to us good reasons why this episode would never happen again. I dropped the hammer on so many people who weren't ready to accept they were going to ve convicted. But I let people off incredibly lightly who demonstrated that they were accountable despite making a mistake that I myself made a few times.
cogman10 4y ago
It's not perfect, but switching over to a "loser pays" system would go a long way in killing the strategy of the wealthy to just drag things out ad-infinitum. > It has been argued that this might even save the government money, as pro se litigants are a severe drain on judicial resources, and this practice might weed out frivolous cases before they're even filed. The biggest drain on government money in the judicial system is when 2 big corporations sue each other. You get 2 teams of hundreds of lawyers filling 100s of motions for YEARS which takes a bunch of resources from judges, court reporters, and the clerks. pro-se litigation is a drop in the bucket for the government when all is said and done. A pro-se litigant simply will not be able to generate the amount of paperwork out of sheer ignorance that a real lawyer could file. Sort of an 80/20 rule. Why spend the time worrying about small fry tax payer costs when the real problem is when google and oracle sue each other.
- throwaway81523 4y ago
  > It's not perfect, but switching over to a "loser pays" system would go a long way in killing the strategy of the wealthy to just drag things out ad-infinitum. Wouldn't it encourage that strategy? If the case could go either way, the richer litigant can keep increasing the stakes until the poorer one faces ruin on a coin toss. So they are forced to settle. Even if you have (say) a 75% chance of winning, the Kelly criterion puts you out of the game once the expenses reach a certain level.
  - cogman10 4y ago
    This wouldn't prevent all cases, for sure. Especially cases where there's some merit to the claim. However, for cases where it's 90:10 or 99:1, it'll stop those cases. In those obvious cases it wouldn't surprise me to see more law firms lining up to take the case on a contingency basis. It's easy money and the person that'll pay them is the rich litigant. The real problem, IMO, is this will disincentivize meritorious lawsuits from poorer people against the wealthy. Perhaps that could be fixed by narrowing the scope of "loser pays" to cases like defamation and libel.
golem14 4y ago
In a small claims court case, Joe Doe vs Coca Cola, how does Coca Cola attend without using lawyers?
- A_D_E_P_T 4y ago
  In California, for instance: "A corporation may appear and participate in a small claims action only through a regular employee, or a duly appointed or elected officer or director, who is employed, appointed, or elected for purposes other than solely representing the corporation in small claims court." (CCP § 116.540) If somebody's suing Mom and Pop's Corner Bakeshop, LLC, the corporation will probably be represented by Mom or Pop. If somebody's suing Coca Cola, the corporation will probably be represented by an in-house member of Coca Cola's legal division. So a corporation can use a lawyer to handle its appearance in small claims court, but the lawyer has to be a regular employee. It's forbidden to hire a lawyer or firm specifically to litigate a case.
  - dtrizzle 4y ago
    There is a slight mistake above. The person who represents Coca Cola may not be a licensed attorney, even if they work for the corporation. (See Code of Civ. Proc., § 116.530, subd. (a) and (b).) Corporations typically send a non-attorney member of their legal staff to appear for them. Note that you cite CCP 116.540, but subdivision (m) specifically states: (m) Nothing in this section shall operate or be construed to authorize an attorney to participate in a small claims action except as expressly provided in Section 116.530. Thus, the the general rule of CCP 116.530 applies, despite the language you quote in CCP 116.540, subd. (b). The controlling language in CCP 116.530 is: (a) Except as permitted by this section, no attorney may take part in the conduct or defense of a small claims action. (b) Subdivision (a) does not apply if the attorney is appearing to maintain or defend an action in any of the following capacities: (1) By or against himself or herself. (2) By or against a partnership in which he or she is a general partner and in which all the partners are attorneys. (3) By or against a professional corporation of which he or she is an officer or director and of which all other officers and directors are attorneys. (I serve as a temporary judge in CA and have presided over many small claims matters so I deal with this problem regularly.)
anonymouskimmer 4y ago
> even judges might soon become AI models Can an AI model properly weigh the effect of a not-yet adjudicated new law on current laws and proceedings? And at least as important, if AI becomes the default judge, with human judges reserved for adjudicating the effects of new laws, then how would those human judges gain the experience necessary to properly adjudicate new laws?

arcbyte 4y ago

The biggest issue with pro se litigants is not their lack of understanding of the law. Honestly the law is not that hard. The law is usually very straightforward if you spend any time thinking about the particular domain in front of you. The issue with pro se litigants is that they haven't picked up "how" to think about their case. Court is, on the surface at least, a very sterile environment filled with people who deal with life altering situations every day and are mostly numb to any individual case. That isn't an indictment because for the most part people care a great deal about things, but probably not about what the layman cares about. Case in point is drunk driving. I've done it two or three times in my younger years. Growing up in a rural area I had my own ethics about it. I never did and would never have done it in a populated area, but I never saw the harm in making my way home on dirt roads surrounded by corn fields where there was no one else to hit. Again, i only did that a few times in my college years and was very against drunk driving. But this is the ethic that I had in mind as I showed up to my first "DUI Day" in county court as a student in practice prosecutor. The entire courtroom was filled, and more people overflowed outside - at least 200 people. And that was just the morning docket. In the afternoon it was a different 200 people. This happened every single week, 400 new people a week, without end. All thinking to some degree, just like me, that they were special in some way or what they did wasn't that bad. I learned quickly just much of a problem drunk driving is and how naive most of these pro se litigants were in thinking about their own cases. They would raise some minor complaint about the officer or some stupid thing expecting the court to side with them and throw the case out. But we see a thousand complaints and stupid things a day and almost never does it materially impact the evidence against the person. But the mindset of the pro se litigants is that they are special. The only litigants that were ever special were the ones who either a) detached from their case in a way that let them actually objectively decide if they had a good case or not; or b) had enough sense to know they were guilty and present to us good reasons why this episode would never happen again. I dropped the hammer on so many people who weren't ready to accept they were going to ve convicted. But I let people off incredibly lightly who demonstrated that they were accountable despite making a mistake that I myself made a few times.

cogman10 4y ago

It's not perfect, but switching over to a "loser pays" system would go a long way in killing the strategy of the wealthy to just drag things out ad-infinitum. > It has been argued that this might even save the government money, as pro se litigants are a severe drain on judicial resources, and this practice might weed out frivolous cases before they're even filed. The biggest drain on government money in the judicial system is when 2 big corporations sue each other. You get 2 teams of hundreds of lawyers filling 100s of motions for YEARS which takes a bunch of resources from judges, court reporters, and the clerks. pro-se litigation is a drop in the bucket for the government when all is said and done. A pro-se litigant simply will not be able to generate the amount of paperwork out of sheer ignorance that a real lawyer could file. Sort of an 80/20 rule. Why spend the time worrying about small fry tax payer costs when the real problem is when google and oracle sue each other.

throwaway81523 4y ago
> It's not perfect, but switching over to a "loser pays" system would go a long way in killing the strategy of the wealthy to just drag things out ad-infinitum. Wouldn't it encourage that strategy? If the case could go either way, the richer litigant can keep increasing the stakes until the poorer one faces ruin on a coin toss. So they are forced to settle. Even if you have (say) a 75% chance of winning, the Kelly criterion puts you out of the game once the expenses reach a certain level.
- cogman10 4y ago
  This wouldn't prevent all cases, for sure. Especially cases where there's some merit to the claim. However, for cases where it's 90:10 or 99:1, it'll stop those cases. In those obvious cases it wouldn't surprise me to see more law firms lining up to take the case on a contingency basis. It's easy money and the person that'll pay them is the rich litigant. The real problem, IMO, is this will disincentivize meritorious lawsuits from poorer people against the wealthy. Perhaps that could be fixed by narrowing the scope of "loser pays" to cases like defamation and libel.

golem14 4y ago

In a small claims court case, Joe Doe vs Coca Cola, how does Coca Cola attend without using lawyers?

A_D_E_P_T 4y ago
In California, for instance: "A corporation may appear and participate in a small claims action only through a regular employee, or a duly appointed or elected officer or director, who is employed, appointed, or elected for purposes other than solely representing the corporation in small claims court." (CCP § 116.540) If somebody's suing Mom and Pop's Corner Bakeshop, LLC, the corporation will probably be represented by Mom or Pop. If somebody's suing Coca Cola, the corporation will probably be represented by an in-house member of Coca Cola's legal division. So a corporation can use a lawyer to handle its appearance in small claims court, but the lawyer has to be a regular employee. It's forbidden to hire a lawyer or firm specifically to litigate a case.
- dtrizzle 4y ago
  There is a slight mistake above. The person who represents Coca Cola may not be a licensed attorney, even if they work for the corporation. (See Code of Civ. Proc., § 116.530, subd. (a) and (b).) Corporations typically send a non-attorney member of their legal staff to appear for them. Note that you cite CCP 116.540, but subdivision (m) specifically states: (m) Nothing in this section shall operate or be construed to authorize an attorney to participate in a small claims action except as expressly provided in Section 116.530. Thus, the the general rule of CCP 116.530 applies, despite the language you quote in CCP 116.540, subd. (b). The controlling language in CCP 116.530 is: (a) Except as permitted by this section, no attorney may take part in the conduct or defense of a small claims action. (b) Subdivision (a) does not apply if the attorney is appearing to maintain or defend an action in any of the following capacities: (1) By or against himself or herself. (2) By or against a partnership in which he or she is a general partner and in which all the partners are attorneys. (3) By or against a professional corporation of which he or she is an officer or director and of which all other officers and directors are attorneys. (I serve as a temporary judge in CA and have presided over many small claims matters so I deal with this problem regularly.)

anonymouskimmer 4y ago

> even judges might soon become AI models Can an AI model properly weigh the effect of a not-yet adjudicated new law on current laws and proceedings? And at least as important, if AI becomes the default judge, with human judges reserved for adjudicating the effects of new laws, then how would those human judges gain the experience necessary to properly adjudicate new laws?