The Pro Se Challenge - Accessing the Court System

As a pro se litigant, I recently experienced a frustrating (and expensive) example of the sort of barriers a pro se litigant can encounter. I discovered that court systems are not designed to aid the pro se litigant in filing their paperwork, and a clerk of court’s staff are often far from helpful.

In 2015, I was sued by someone in a state on the other side of the country. Other attorneys in his area referred to him as a vexatious litigant, and he filed all his lawsuits pro se and in forma pauperis. He had never won a lawsuit.

My background is in research, and I once managed a law library. So, I was able to defend myself, and I prepared a defense based on lack of personal jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, the court system this man lived under was still in the 1990s technologically. There were many obscure rules, and many forms for filing documents that were unique to that court. Half the time I called the clerk of court to ask a question, and either the person I needed to speak to was “out of the office,” or the person I spoke to had no idea how to help me. To make matters worse, this court system just happened to be implementing new scheduling software, which caused even more problems as members of the clerk of court’s staff became unavailable because they were “in training.” I left messages, and did not receive calls back until literally the last minute I had to do my paperwork.

There was also no system set up for full electronic filing. I could send a copy to the clerk’s office electronically, provided I went through an obscure registration process. However, I was still required to “snail mail” copies to the judge. Barney Fife obviously served as clerk of court in this county!

I filed a motion to dismiss, only to discover that I had filled out a form incorrectly, and my dismissal hearing was not properly scheduled. I became so concerned about not being able to communicate with the clerk’s staff that I hired an attorney in the other state. In the end, because of various actions by the plaintiff, it cost me $21,000. It could have cost more. Thankfully, the attorney I hired recognized that I was competent at legal research and allowed me to do research for him on personal jurisdiction. That saved me $1500. (The judge, by the way, awarded me those attorney fees after everything else was over with.)

The attorney used the same arguments I used in my motion to dismiss, only adding a few points from that state’s case law. Had the court system in the Plaintiff’s state been more accessible, I could easily have handled these matters myself. The end of this affair proves it: After the Plaintiff lost to me in his home state, he tried to sue me in Florida – and I defeated him for no more than the cost of postage and copies..along with a small payment to a helpful legal document preparer!

Guest Blog - published with permission from the author, Jim Holding.