I first heard of Tony three months ago when I was having lunch with a Scientologist called Brian Daniels. Jon Ronson has the tale of a teenager who simply has to outwit professional psychiatrists, and a lot of them.Īct 2, Disorder in the Court, in which I talk to a prosecutor who has lost to an amateur who was defending himself.Īct 3, Swak Down, in that act a brother does what he has to to help his sister.Īct 4, Underling Gets An Underling. One of them does that in a courtroom, the others do it out in the world.įrom WBEZ, Chicago, it's This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International.
The legal term for representing yourself in court is a Latin phrase, pro se, which means on behalf of himself.Īnd so today, on our radio show, we have four very dramatic stories of pro se people, people brave enough- or desperate enough, actually, in most of these cases- to become their own advocates. Imagine being a surgeon and having somebody in the operating room in a key position who doesn't know the names of the instruments or what they can do. He fills out a form and then he takes it to the receptionist.Īs you might expect, some lawyers and judges hate these amateur lawyers. One guy is so confused that he thinks that he's here to get a free lawyer to take his case. So the number's been increasing as the economy's gotten worse.Īt this particular help center, which specializes in housing court cases, people wait in long lines and a big government room with green linoleum floors. And the reason that most people represent themselves is they just can't afford an attorney. In criminal cases, you can get a free court-appointed attorney, but any other kind of case, housing, family law, credit issues, small claims, bankruptcy, civil cases of all kinds, you are on your own.
These are amateurs being sent in to do something that is technical, and full of jargon, and totally intimidating. And if you heard him say that and you thought to yourself, I don't know what summary judgment means either, I just want to say to you me too. That's one of the three law school interns who are here giving advice today.