Legal AID and More for pro se Litigants

Pro se litigant obtaining legal aid and legal analysis

Have a legal problem and need some legal aid? You’ve come to the right place to transform into a pro se litigant.

Time is of the essence in our busy lives. Given the choice of traveling through a maze or moving in a straight line, we’re sure to choose the direct route. And so it goes for legal problems. Only in this case the maze is the Upper Civil Courts aka the House of Horrors, and the direct route is Small Claims Court and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

Please, Not a Legal Problem

As seekers of peace and pleasure, we invariably avoid or ignore problems when they arise. It’s full speed ahead and we’re flying carefree down the happy highway of life. Everything’s going pretty much as we planned. Oops! One of those ornery obstacles — an unplanned event. But please, don’t let it be a legal problem.

Staring the legal issue in the face often produces the flight syndrome.

As a society we have effective tools to deal with our emotional and medical problems. To resolve them, we recognize the need to be personally involved. But for deep-rooted reasons, legal problems are handled differently. They are not managed in the creative, rational ways we handle other problems. Staring the legal issue in the face often produces the flight syndrome.

the dump truck plan in lieu of a dose of legal aid

There’s no real logic to it. It’s more of an emergency disposal. The sooner you get rid of it, the sooner you forget it. Do you see yourself in the dump truck scenario? A legal problem – who, me? If I can’t see it, it may just vanish. If I wait long enough, it will just go away. If I give it to a lawyer, I can just forget about it. Out of sight, out of mind. During that time, however, the time within which to file your case may have expired and you probably spent a good portion of your Nest Egg!

Person with dolly full of boxes dumping legal case on attorney's desk instead of learning how to be a pro se litigant

The dump truck method is an expensive and disempowering way to go. When the lawyer must step in and do the whole job, the bill is out of reach. What you thought was a step in the right direction could be a freefall off a cliff. That was before you discovered that the source of your legal aid can be yourself!

A BETTER WAY TO LEGAL AID as a Pro Se Litigant

There is a better way. Before you take another step, let Lawsuit Analyzer© empower you with an in-depth analysis of your case. It’s not legal advice but rest assured you will be in the driver’s seat of your legal matter afterwards. With the aid of in-depth Help pages coaching you through the legal analysis process, you just might discover that you are equipped to take the bull by the horns.

Self-Help Works Especially When You Are Guided

You met the self-published author and book printer in other resource pages. This was the author’s outcome from Lawsuit Analyzer^©.

Phase 5 page 4 19 2023 Calcu Damages frame | Lawsuit Analysis

What an awakening it was for the author to understand that his contract had an Attorney Fee provision so if he won his case, he’d also be awarded his Attorney Fees if he hired counsel. He also discovered his contract contained a Limitation on Damages provision which would have limited his damages had his claim been higher than the limitation amount. He was fortunate that was not the case.

He was also fortunate to find, having been prompted to conduct an asset check on the printer, that the printer company is a corporation which gave him a very high score when it came to Collectability Assessment.

His overall Feasibility Assessment is 76%, so relatively good. It would have been considerably higher if the contract with the printer included alternative dispute resolution provisions or if his claim were under the Small Claims Court limit. His main problem is that he will have to battle it out in the upper civil courts to get the $12,000 back.

The Help pages in Lawsuit Analyzer gave him a mini-legal education. He came to understand that shaving $4,000 off his claim to get it over soon in quick and easy Small Claims court is probably the best way to go if he can’t settle. The printer is adamant that the minor defects on the books are within industry standard, so it seems that settlement may not be an option. But, you never know, so always endeavor to settle.

Once you embrace a quasi-legal understanding of your dispute, you can intelligently assess the many options for resolution and tailor a plan to route your dispute to its best forum.

DO IT YOURSELF LEGAL AID IS HERE

We live in a Do-It-Yourself culture now, and the systems available for resolution of legal disputes have finally given way to the scream of the DIY. “Give us the tools to handle our own disputes, make the Small Claims Court and out-of-court ADR more available for us to handle pro se (ourselves)”.

New and Better Platforms Have Surfaced

Your plea was finally heard. Hard to believe, the answer came with the Covid-19 pandemic when the forums officiating our legal disputes pretty much shut down to avoid in-person contact. What to do when this is a platform at the forefront of American justice?

They did a revamp. They initiated the high-tech upgrade we’ve been needing for a long long long time. All this to the advantage of you, the legal self-helper.

Pro se litigants should build blocks to legal analysis with legal aid

The pro se litigant now has legal aid at their fingertips.

MEDIATION AND ARBITRATION CUSTOMIZATION. You can now customize your Mediations and Arbitrations to better suit your needs with self-representation agreements, limited hearing durations, limited discovery in Arbitration, Document only Arbitration, and so much more.
ONLINE CASE PREP AND FILING. In most states and in all ADR proceedings there are now portals for the self-represented to prepare, file and even serve their claims with interviews to help with the process.
REMOTE PLATFORMS FOR ONLINE PROCEEDINGS.
- The legal self-helper now has robust online platforms to appear remotely for Mediations, Arbitrations, and Small Claims proceedings, removing both the intimidation and inconvenience factors associated with in-person hearings and scary courtroom atmosphere.
- A new platform, Automated Online Negotiation, has emerged as a quick and easy way for disputing parties to ‘bid’ into a settlement.
- Online Document-only Arbitration has become more popular, especially for the self-represented allowing them to avoid oral legal argument and focus only on the written word.
SMALL CLAIMS ADVISORS. Not only can you prepare and file your Small Claims case online in most states, but Small Claims Advisors are available in most states if you have questions.