Handling Yourself In Court When This Is Not Your First Rodeo

As a new pro se litigant, you can forgive yourself for getting slammed in court, but forgiveness comes more slowly when this is not your first rodeo. You should have known what you were up against. You should have thought it through earlier, prepared that argument better, covered all the bases with your research. You should have won.

Right. No. It’s not quite that simple. You can’t learn all you need from one go-round in court. Most times, you’re too out of your depth the first time to even know what’s going on.

But it’s a different story when it’s not your first rodeo. You have fewer excuses. You know how easy it is to get bamboozled with fancy legal terms. You know the lawyer on the other side will take shameful advantage of your ignorance and naïveté. You know the judge will barely notice your presence until you make some noise. You know how important it is to make everyone follow the rules.

In other words, you know just enough the second or third time to be intimidated by the whole process.

It’s enough to make you want to duck and run. Sometimes you can, but most times you have to give it all you’ve got. When your financial future is at stake, or relations with your children might suffer, or your rights to housing could be lost, you have to fight and win.  You have to put a case management solution in place as soon as possible.

Do it right this time with Case Manager, our case management service designed for pro se litigants. You get automated templates for drafting brilliant motions, legal research tools at your fingertips, anytime access to all your case files in PDF format, a short but powerful online course in litigation, a community of people walking in your shoes, and much more. This time around, give your case the tools and the leg up it deserves.

Did you learn some painful lessons on your first case that you’ll never make again? Share in the comments below.