You’ve seen movies about it and you may have even heard a few stories: The righteous individual who decides to take on the legal system alone, without the help of the attorney. It’s actually more common than you think. The biggest State court, California, reported sixty-seven percent of all cases litigated in this way. Florida reported seventy-three. Though less common at the Federal level, it still occurs almost a quarter of the time. Many personal injury claimants feel that they have been wronged, and justly so. Why should they have to share compensation for loss and suffering with an attorney?
Personal injury attorneys are the legal experts. And the law is far too complex for you to grasp it without having gone to law school. People often wrongly assume that just because they have moral justification, they are legally justified as well. These are two totally different things. Morality has no part in the courtroom. Indignant outrage, blatant facts, all of the things you think will support your case– May or may not even be allowable evidence in the courtroom. Let’s say an ATM camera captured footage of a drunk driver smashing into your car. Easy win right? Wrong. Using that footage requires a very solid understanding of legal theory. You must properly argue for it or your request will be denied.
If your case goes to trial-by-jury, you won’t know how to make the jury selection process favor you. Why? Because this is something that can’t be taught. It’s only possible to swing this process in your favor after years of trial and error. Much of it error.
You won’t withstand examination or cross-examination. This is the most complex part of a trial, whether a jury is present or not. Odds are the other side will field an attorney, especially in a personal injury case. They are masters of rigging up biased interviews and changing the meaning of your words. Your witnesses will have to be chosen carefully as well, or else their testimonies might be stricken or discounted.
The other side’s witnesses will lie and you won’t know how to prove otherwise. Nothing stops a witness from lying, they do it all the time. A solicitor will help formulate the questions in such a way that their case will eventually be proven to contain flaws. Don’t count on being able to do the same. Simply stating they lied is against procedure, even if it’s plain to everyone that they did. Asking them the same question in a different way, also against court procedure. The means and manner of questioning witnesses are the subject of many law-school classes, and even that is no substitute for having done it in a real courtroom.
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