The Pro Se Courtroom Experience

Picture yourself playing a three tiered chess game for the first time against an experienced opponent. Simultaneously you are playing poker against another experienced opponent, who bluffs and cheats. Loud music throbs in the background, heavy metal, rap, or whatever you don't like. Screaming children run in and out. The room is too cold or too hot and dimly lit. The stakes are perilous. If you lose, you could lose your house, your children, your money, each one, or all at the same time. Unfair? Uncomfortable? You bet. This can be the pro se courtroom experience. On top of all that, the judge speaks a different language, doesn't speak directly to you at all, doesn't allow you to speak, instead speaking in that different language and only to your opponents.

You came in to court for a dispute which you thought would be fairly decided by the judge. In your naive fantasy, you imagined the judge as a benign super hero ready and waiting to sort out the dispute and see through the lies the other party spews. Sometimes it works out that way, sometimes not. Sometimes, whoever tells the best lie wins.

So how to prevent this scenario? The obvious answer, is do not represent yourself in court. Hire an attorney. However, this is not possible for many. According to the Florida Bar's Economics and Law Office Survey completed in 2012, only 35% of the attorneys who responded stated that their hourly rate was less than $200. And 24% of the responding attorneys stated that their hourly rate is over $300.. And the trend for the years 2005 through 2012 tells a bleak story for wage earners:

Florida Real Median Household Income Trends since 2005

The current median household income for Florida is $45,040. Real median household income peaked in 2007 at $52,938 and is now $7,898 (14.92%) lower.

Real Median Household Income: Florida, National

Household income often assumes there are two wage earners, but we cannot be sure from the statistics given. And we also can't be sure of the family size, this could be a single wage earner, a one person household. Or a family of any number with only one adult working; or a two income family with no children. We don't know from these numbers. What we can glean is that, since the median household income in 2012 Florida was $45,040.; that works out to $865.000 per week gross earnings; and around $634.00 net. Which in turn works out to less than $16.00 per hour net, based on a forty hour week. And the wage earner is up against the decision regarding whether to eat and pay the bills or pay an entire week's check for around three hours of an attorney's time.

Crunching the numbers its easy to see that the decision to self-represent is dictated by daily survival. I encourage consumers to educate themselves as much as possible. And while non-lawyer document preparers may not offer legal advice, legal document preparers can offer information, and explain procedure and time lines to consumers. Document preparers can also prepare the documents thoroughly and professionally, and if nothing else the pro se litigant's claim is down on paper in court filings in black and white.