Example Pro Se Answer To Motion: Fill & Download for Free

I have not been adverse to pro se litigants. I have seen them in court as a non-party observer, and I have dealt with them as a clerk to a judge. So, pretty limited experience. But, sheesh, where to start…Probably the most common mistake is not understanding what judges care about. And I don’t mean “care about” in a personal sense, I mean care about professionally. Pro se litigants tend to think in terms of facts. They vomit out all the facts they have, hopefully (but not always) in a logical order, and expect a court to react the same way their buddy would react. A pro se litigant’s outline of a motion or a whole trial is: “Here’s fact 1, fact 2, fact 3… therefore, I win.”A judge wants to hear: “I’m suing under this law. In order to prevail, I have to establish element 1, element 2, and element 3. Here’s a citation to controlling authority that supports my three-element characterization. Fact 1 establishes element 1. Here’s a citation to relevant authority in which element was was established by a very similar Fact 1A. Fact 2 establishes element 2, as supported by this other citation to relevant authority. Fact 3 establishes element 3, as supported by yet other relevant authority. Moreover, so and so Fact 4 — which has been argued as relevant by my opponent — is actually irrelevant. Here’s a citation to authority indicating as such. Therefore, I win.”I wouldn’t say it’s the major thing, but it’s a pretty major thing: pro se litigants suck at explicitly connecting facts to law. Maybe a corollary is that pro se litigants sometimes suck about figuring out which facts are relevant. If we’re suing each other for breach of contract, it’s totally irrelevant that I can prove you’re cheating on your spouse (unless it’s a very strange contract). Pro se litigants sometimes get too excited about “damaging” facts like that.Another thing pro se litigants suck at is actually structuring an argument. In fairness to them, it’s hard. Pro se litigants suck at it. Law students suck at it. Many junior lawyers suck at it. It’s the sort of thing one continually works on and improves over the course of a career in advocacy. A perfectly structured argument is something that flows naturally from one step to the next. Each step has a certain inevitability to it, and everything seems organized.A terribly structured argument has the feeling of a staccato recitation of propositions that don’t necessarily all fit together. You kinda see maybe where it’s going, but then it suddenly shifts gears and goes somewhere else.As an example many people are familiar with, I present Sarah Palin. Now, in fairness to Palin, she was not appearing in front of a judge. But the way she answered (?) the question bears all the hallmarks of what pro se litigants often sound like to trained legal ears. I’m not going to link to a video. I want you to read the answer, because it’s even harder to follow. Again, in fairness to Palin, one doesn’t speak the same way one writes. Even an eloquent lawyer can’t just speak off the cuff and expect the answer to translate perfectly to the page. Bear that in mind when reading.COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families, who are struggling with healthcare, housing, gas and groceries, allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?Pause here. Do you understand the question? Do you have a sense of what a possible answer might sound like? What form it might take? Don’t read on until you do.PALIN: That's why I say, I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the tax payers looking to bail out, but ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping tho— it's got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track, so healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as— competitive— scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.That’s what pro se litigants sometimes sound like. BTW, not just when they’re litigating. (Oh, the curse of being a lawyer…)

I don’t really know. A good deal of the answer would depend on where you had the conversation. If you were in a public area with no reasonable expectation of privacy, that is on you, not on the other lawyer. Lawyers and clients, or lawyers and potential clients, should not have conversations in public if they desire to have attorney/client privilege.If you did have a reasonable expectation of privacy, for example, you were in a private room and the lawyer was hiding in the closet. Or used a listening device. Or otherwise inappropriately invaded the privacy, that is another matter.So the answer to your question depends on whether you had a reasonable expectation of privacy, such that you would have a privilege, or not. If not, may I suggest, in the future, you not have conversation that you would like to be confidential in public places.You would need to sit down with a lawyer to discuss whether you should make a motion, and the proper way to do so. Otherwise, you can look into the rules and figure out how to make it yourself. The judge would listen to the situation and make a decision about whether the lawyer did anything inappropriate such that they should be disqualified from the case.

In the U.S. the answer depends on the judge. Of course, the answer depends on what you mean—specifically—by formalities of court. Generally, the rule is pro-se litigants are held to know the rules of procedure just like an attorney. If you want to play in the majors, you have to know the rules.For example, if the opposition files a Motion for Summary Judgment, in most states the responding party has 14 days to file a response. The court will not give you any leeway on that deadline (unless you properly file a motion to extend). Moreover, a response to a Motion for Summary judgment must demonstrate that there is a legitimate dispute of facts that must be resolved by a trial/hearing. As such, the response must include evidence (not just denial or self-serving statements). The court is not going to give you leeway on that. However, the court will, likely, give you leeway on formatting and organization. Assuming the court can make heads and tails of what you wrote, the court isn’t going to hold it against a pro-se litigant that the document is not drafted in the same manner an attorney might.In general, judges do tolerate pro-se litigants and give them more leeway than they would attorneys. The issue with pro-se litigants is they bring to the court mostly irrelevant information and argument. Judges tend to be patient with that to a point.