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.
