Ask a Judge: What is Pro Se?

What is the process when a person wishes to represent themselves in court? How common is it? Is it true that a person who represents themselves "has a fool for a client?" Today in our "Ask a Judge" series, attorney and magistrate Amy Lin Meyerson and "small town lawyer" Ray Williams give tips for those who have no choice but to address the court on their own behalf. Here is the American Bar Association's virtual legal advice clinic (staffed by human legal minds, not AI!): https://abafreelegalanswers.org/ DONATE TO THE PODCAST HERE! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Legal precedent, Your Honor, going back to 1789, whereby a defendant can't claim self-defense against an agent of the government if that act is deemed a defense against tyranny, a defense of liberty. Your Honor, Henry Ward Beecher in Providence from the Plymouth Pulp in 1887 said-

• 0:16Speaker 01

  1887, this is the 20th century, Your Honor.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  Excuse me.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  It's gonna make him argue with the court.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  I am afforded the right to speak in my own defense, sir.

• 0:24Nick Capodice?

  You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Nick Capodice.

• 0:26Speaker 03

  I'm Hannah McCarthy.

• 0:28Nick Capodice?

  And today, in our not-yet-a-series series, but I hope it becomes a series, Ask a Judge, we are gonna talk about pro se.

• 0:35Speaker 03

  You have a theme song yet?

• 0:37Nick Capodice?

  I don't, I don't, but I'm gonna work on one, I promise. So stick around, pro se coming right up.

• 0:47Nick Capodice?

  All right, Hannah, today we're talking about one of the scariest seeming things you can do, but it's actually not that scary if you just follow a few steps: pro se representation.

• 0:58Speaker 04

  Well, that, like so many legal terms, is a fancy Latin term, but it simply means that you represent yourself. You do not have counsel to represent you.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  Pro se means that individuals want to have access to justice, and they'll necessarily have the means or the desire to pay for legal counsel to represent them, and so they choose to start off by representing themselves before the courts. Sure, I'm Amy Lynn Meyerson. I'm an attorney in Connecticut, but I also serve part-time as a magistrate with the Connecticut Judicial Branch.

• 1:27Speaker 04

  My name is Ray Williams. I am a sole practitioner attorney in West Plains, Missouri. I have two offices where I represent folks in all kinds of cases, and I'm just a small-town lawyer.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  A small-town lawyer?

• 1:41Nick Capodice?

  Now, I'm not some kind of big-city lawyer. Ladies and gentlemen, my opponent's gonna do a little magic trick here with smoke and mirrors.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  Wait, Amy said she's a lawyer and a magistrate.

• 1:55Nick Capodice?

  She is, and therefore I can technically call this an Ask a Judge episode.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  Oh, a magistrate is a judge?

• 2:01Nick Capodice?

  Yes, albeit with limited powers and jurisdiction.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  So I hear civil cases that are under $5,000, unless they're involving home improvement contracts. That jurisdictional limit goes up to $15,000. I also hear housing session matters, and then on the criminal side, I hear motor vehicle infractions.

• 2:19Nick Capodice?

  So again, pro se is simply when somebody represents themselves in court. The Latin is pro for say oneself, or yourself.

• 2:30Nick Capodice?

  And if you fall down a YouTube rabbit hole like I did, you can see thousands upon thousands of videos of people representing themselves and making a hash of it. Many of them, Hannah, sovereign citizens.

• 2:43Speaker 05

  Article 6 Judge under the Michigan Constitution, you have no authority to deprive me of my rights. See how much authority I have.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Because you don't know what you're doing. That's what I tried to tell you originally, the first time you were here. You've never been to law school, you've never tried a case, you don't know the rules of evidence and all the other things.

• 3:01Speaker 05

  So I don't have power to do that.

• 3:02Speaker 06

  Your hearing is over. If you don't take your paperwork and leave the courtroom, we'll have you remanded into custody.

• 3:09Speaker 05

  You're ready now.

• 3:10Speaker 06

  I'm giving you a choice.

• 3:13Speaker 05

  And if anybody tries to touch me, I'll charge them with assault and battery.

• 3:19Hannah McCarthy?

  I think we should make a whole episode on sovereign citizens.

• 3:22Nick Capodice?

  We could, it might get us in a bit of a pickle and I want to be careful. But let me just do a fast explainer on that movement. Sovereign citizens believe they are not subject to the laws of a government and that US citizens are being used as collateral to pay off foreign debt and that birth certificates and social security numbers are just bills of sale. And the aforementioned YouTube rabbit hole is rife with titles like "Judge Destroys Sovereign Citizen Argument in 5 Seconds."

• 3:50Speaker 04

  The fact is that, yeah, anybody can represent themselves and you don't need to make odd constitutional arguments about sovereign citizen type things that the patents don't pass down from the king all the way to the common law and all the things that they want to talk about. In fact, you can represent yourself and tell the judge your story.

• 4:13Nick Capodice?

  So now we've got that out of the way. Let me say, sovereign citizens aside, people representing themselves in court is a lot more common than I had thought.

• 4:22Hannah McCarthy?

  How common is it exactly?

• 4:24Speaker 04

  Well, it turns out there's been studies on that and it's an increasingly common situation, largely because of two things. One, folks sometimes just choose to go it alone. They don't think they need a lawyer, or they think they can do an adequate job by themselves.

• 4:42Speaker 03

  For the cases I preside over in small claims court, many of our litigants are self-represented. And you are seeing increasingly individuals representing themselves in the courts of general jurisdiction as well, because they don't have access to attorneys that they can hire on a regular basis.

• 5:00Speaker 04

  The more concerning thing, Nick, is this thing called our justice gap, where folks want a lawyer, but they simply cannot afford one.

• 5:07Nick Capodice?

  Now, if you're a defendant in a criminal case, you have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford a lawyer, the court appoints one to you.

• 5:17Hannah McCarthy?

  And this is a public defender.

• 5:19Nick Capodice?

  Right. But you do not have a right to an attorney in a civil case.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Let's talk about civil cases. And a civil case versus a criminal case is you're not charged with a crime, but you're suing or being sued typically for money, or maybe rent and possession, or an eviction case where they're asking you to move out of your apartment. And in those cases, the numbers of pro se litigants are staggering. For example, in landlord tenant cases, in credit card collection cases, the larger entity, usually the credit card company or the landlord, will have a lawyer. The pro se litigant will appear by themselves, who is the tenant or the person owing the money, or allegedly owing the money. And in those cases, it's generally more than 50%.

• 6:06Hannah McCarthy?

  Wow, half?

• 6:07Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, half, maybe more.

• 6:10Speaker 04

  There are some of the statistics will say it's as high as 75% or 80% of one side is represented and the other side is not. In state court especially, and we're talking about state court cases, unlike the federal courts where generally it's the type of litigation where everybody has a lawyer. And in cases in state court where one company sues another, almost every Every time, both sides will have lawyers in those cases. But in cases like landlord tenant, consumer debt collections, family law, increasingly one side can afford a lawyer, the other side cannot. Or some of those small claims court, for example, that'll always be both sides are pro se, but that was designed for pro se litigation.

• 6:52Speaker 04

  But these others were not, and it's simply that folks just can't afford a lawyer to represent them in these kinds of cases.

• 6:59Hannah McCarthy?

  This may seem like it has an obvious answer, but if you had to choose between having a lawyer represent you and representing yourself, you would pick the lawyer, right, Nick?

• 7:12Nick Capodice?

  You would, almost all the time. There is a famous quote that is attributed everywhere to Abraham Lincoln, but I couldn't find the source for it. So I'm going to say, unless a listener writes in with a citation, I'm going to say it is in the air. But the quote is this, "A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client." Now, Ray did say pro se representation is rare in federal courts, not so rare in state courts. But when people did represent themselves in federal courts, the judge ruled in their favor only 12% of the time if they were the defendant, and 3% of the time when they were the plaintiff.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  In a general jurisdiction court, where the formal rules of evidence do apply, then having a lawyer is very helpful because attorneys are familiar with the rules of evidence and how to get evidence admitted and keeping evidence from being excluded that they'd like to have admitted that would help prove their case. So it is helpful, obviously, to have a lawyer.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  If you don't know the rules of procedure, if you don't know the rules of evidence, if you don't know what's called the burden of proof, or what do I have to prove to win? Or if you don't know when the other side's doing something wrong so that you can object, your odds are pretty much stacked against you. And it's really a concern that we have. Also, the court system doesn't run as efficiently because folks don't know what is going on in court, they're not used to being in court, and so they're asking the judge to help. And unfortunately, judges, by their ethical guidelines and standards, are not allowed to help a litigant. So that is a real concern.

• 8:48Hannah McCarthy?

  Can you tell me what Amy and Ray mean by the rules of evidence?

• 8:52Nick Capodice?

  Yeah.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  And that's one of those lawyer things that it just comes by nat- nature to me. But yeah, that's a very important question. And a rule of evidence is that hearsay, for example, is defined as an out of court statement, like you and I having this conversation, offered into court for the truth of the matter asserted. And what that means is if we took this recording and took it to court, it wouldn't be admissible as evidence, according to the rules of evidence, unless there was an exception that allowed it to come into play. And that is a, an example, just like the photograph. A photograph in itself is an out of court statement. In this case, a picture or a video that was made, but you have to demonstrate to the

• 9:36Speaker 04

  court a, what's called a foundation, that it was made at the time of the incident or in a situation where the incident is the same or substantially similar as to when the timeline of what's going on happened. So you have to be able to know enough to get your evidence, your documents into evidence so the judge can consider them. And if you're going up against a lawyer, the lawyer's likely to object if you try to offer something that's inadmissible.

• 10:07Hannah McCarthy?

  This all sounds pretty daunting.

• 10:09Nick Capodice?

  It is daunting, but Hannah, let me say it is not impossible. Again, so many people have no choice but to represent themselves. So after a quick break, I'm going to give everyone some tips if they're going to have their own day in court.

• 10:29Nick Capodice?

  Have any of you out there ever Googled your own name? Like actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing, there are companies called data brokers, whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where incogni comes in. Incogni- Contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over. So your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once and they keep working in the background.

• 11:14Nick Capodice?

  You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

• 11:35Nick Capodice?

  Holiday season is coming and I don't think I have to tell you this might be a tough one because things are expensive in the fall of 2026. Everyone I know is looking for ways to make a little extra money, prowling around the side hustle subreddits. But I will say, if you're looking to sell something, to launch a store fast before the holiday rush, Shopify is the one stop shop platform for making a professional looking store without touching a line of code. You can sell anything and you can sell it anywhere that people shop online. You can have it done in minutes and you can launch before Black Friday, that time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy.

• 12:19Nick Capodice?

  So if you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/civics to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/civics. Just go to Shopify.com/civics today to hear your first.

• 12:40Hannah McCarthy?

  The older I get, the more I am looking for truly lovable closet staples that I know I will reach for just as often next year as I do right now. I want a closet that doesn't need constant updates or replacements, just high quality clothes that last, especially the kind with tags that say 100%. As in 100% Mongolian cashmere, 100% mulberry silk, 100% organic cotton. Just like the Quince Fisherman Cropped Cartier I am wearing right this very second. This sweater has kept its shape, color, And softness for years now. I reach for it every single fall, every time I want a warm and elevated look. Quince gives you the quality you expect from a luxury

• 13:22Hannah McCarthy?

  brand without the luxury price tag. Find the fall pieces you will reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Civics 101. It's a great way to support the show.

• 13:53Nick Capodice?

  We're back. You're listening to Civics 101 and we are talking about pro se.

• 13:57Hannah McCarthy?

  All right. So if you are involved in a civil case and you cannot afford a lawyer or you just plain don't want one, how can you make sure that you do things right?

• 14:08Nick Capodice?

  All right, here we go, Hannah. Step number one.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  If you look on the Judicial Branches website of your state, there's actually a tab for self-help. And if you click on that tab, it'll bring up a lot of information on things you need to do to bring a case in court on your own. There are different resources where you can get free legal advice, either through your bar association. A lot of bar associations often have legal aid clinics that are free and open to the public where you can come ask a question. The American Bar Association actually has a program called Free Legal Answers, which is like an online walk-in clinic. And it's available in a lot of different states. And if you go on the ABA's website, aba free legal answers.org, you can click on there and just post a question online and an attorney will answer your question.

• 14:55Nick Capodice?

  I am going to put some helpful links that Ray and Amy sent my way down there in the show notes, by the by. But on we go. Step number two. Take a day off and see what you're in for.

• 15:06Speaker 04

  If a party has to go to court by themselves, then you need to understand you're being held to the standards of the lawyer. I would recommend going to a courthouse and seeing how it works beforehand, preferably on the same type of docket, a family law docket. Very common is these, what's called order protections or a similar name where folks get a restraining order to keep another person away from them. I would recommend if you're involved in a situation like that, you go to one of those courts and watch them before your case comes up.

• 15:38Nick Capodice?

  Have you been to court, Hannah? Like, not have you been on trial, but have you visited a courtroom just to see what's going on?

• 15:45Hannah McCarthy?

  Of course, we had a whole episode about it.

• 15:48Nick Capodice?

  That's right, it was the Supreme Court, wasn't it?

• 15:52Nick Capodice?

  What about like a regular court, not the Supreme Court?

• 15:55Hannah McCarthy?

  I have. My aunt is a lawyer and I have watched her in court before. What about you, have you?

• 16:01Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, one of my professors in college said, "Courts in the United States have open proceedings. The building is 10 blocks from here, just walk in and take a seat." And I did, and it was fascinating.

• 16:13Hannah McCarthy?

  Do you remember what the trial was?

• 16:15Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, a kid in Boston got in a fight in a mall. Anyways, physically going to the court beforehand isn't just to see what your trial's gonna be like. It's to talk to the clerks and to make sure you've done all the proper paperwork.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  So there's this very amount of legwork that needs to happen before you actually appear in court. It's always important to first go to the courthouse or connect online with the clerks of the court and find out what procedures you need to follow. In small claims court in Connecticut, while the formal rules of evidence don't apply, you still do need to follow the practice book rules. So it's important to follow the procedures of the court, make sure you have your documents that you need to file filed and on time, and have all of the information to prove your case also filed. Oftentimes, I'll see self-represented parties file the claim or the writ and say, "Mr. X owes me such and such amount of dollars because I paid..."

• 17:16Speaker 03

  them to do the service, they didn't provide the service. And that's all they write on the writ. They fail to attach, for example, the service order or a canceled check showing that they paid the amount. And that evidence or supporting documentation needs to go with your claim so that the court can look at all the evidence and determine whether or not they should rule in your favor.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  Always remember the court clerk is your best friend. They know where things are, they know things, how things get done. They're not going to give you legal advice, but it sure is nice to know when your docket is and what you need to do next, where you need to stand, those sorts of things. Remember, as I said before, you're held to the same standard as a lawyer. So you need to have some familiarity with what your case is about, what the rules of procedure are, such that you know what to file, what must be filed, what the deadlines are. Don't miss a deadline. That's a real key point.

• 18:09Hannah McCarthy?

  All right. So these are all things to do before you appear in court to represent yourself. What about the day itself?

• 18:16Nick Capodice?

  Well, I told Amy that if I did this, I'd kind of feel like a dog playing basketball and not a particularly talented dog like Air Bud. And so I asked her, is this kind of like a one day crash course version of law school? Everyone in court trying to help out the person doing pro se?

• 18:34Speaker 03

  I think it can be very daunting for people who haven't gone to law school. It is similar to maybe what people have seen on TV. I don't know if it's exactly like a law school experience where you're in a classroom where the professor is asking you questions of the method. But yes, the self-purpose of the parties will come to court, they'll present their case, provide the evidence or point to the evidence that they've already filed and then hear what the other side has to say.

• 19:03Nick Capodice?

  Also, courtesy goes a long way.

• 19:07Speaker 04

  Show up not in some T-shirt with your favorite crazy logo on it, but instead show up. Professionally dressed, you don't have to wear a suit and tie, but certainly, or, or, or, you know, a funeral dress, but on the other hand, it's very good to show up in a professional way and take it very seriously. It's always good to refer to the judge as your honor, or yes, judge, or, or, or very politely and professionally, even if they rule against you. Don't argue with the judge, don't argue with folks like that.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  One important thing is, uh, the litigants should do their best to remain civil and really focus on getting their story out and telling the court what it is that they would like to see happen, what kind of relief they want, and not focus on little things, like trying to refute every single thing that the other side has said, and try not to get too emotional so that your story is told, so the court, it makes it easier for the court to render decision. I've had a couple of different instances, either the litigants get very angry with each other and start, you know, saying, oh, that person is lying, or that's not true, or focusing on little issues like, oh, he threw a gum wrapper at my, at my feet when

• 20:22Speaker 03

  we were talking, and that's really disrespectful, that really doesn't get the heart of the legal issue that they're trying to, to show. Um, I've also had, um, unfortunately, disputes between family members where they get very emotional, um, and it's difficult to hear what they're trying to relay because they're just overcome with emotion, and it's, it's, it's hard to hear what they're trying to say.

• 20:45Hannah McCarthy?

  Okay, let me run it all back. Go to the court's website, make sure you filed everything you need to file beforehand, go to the actual court itself to see a trial similar to your own, and make friends with the clerk, don't miss deadlines, dress professionally, be courteous, and don't let your emotions get the better of you.

• 21:07Nick Capodice?

  And there's one thing, we mentioned it earlier, you have got to do your research on the rules of evidence as pertains to your case in your state.

• 21:15Speaker 04

  Be sure that you know... Some basic information about the rules of evidence. If you have a picture and you want to introduce it, then you have to tell the judge that it's fairly and accurately depicts what you're wanting to tell the judge about. You always get tripped up on hearsay. That's a complicated area of evidence, but at least have some basis for what you have to do in your case. And then know what you want. Because if you don't ask the judge for what you want, how does the judge give it to you?

• 21:47Hannah McCarthy?

  Last thing, Nick. I know there has been a significant increase in people using AI to prepare for a case. Is this something that's recommended?

• 21:58Nick Capodice?

  Well, Hannah, as you know, I'm kind of a diet in the wool, take no prisoners, anti-AI guy. But Ray said it could be helpful, but you've got to be careful.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  The artificial intelligence is extraordinarily helpful in legal research now. But remember that especially the general artificial intelligence platforms will, from time to time, if you ask it a question, almost try to be too helpful and hallucinate an answer. And those hallucinations are common in the law. And sometimes you'll get a case citation that if you look it up, it's not really there. It's made up. Judges have had that happen with typically young lawyers, but law firms have filed those things where they used AI to give answers and they were made up answers and they didn't check them and have gotten into significant and serious trouble.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  So if you use AI, go look at your source documents. Look at your citations and be sure that those cases exist. And it's always good to even print them out and provide them to the court as a courtesy.

• 23:05Nick Capodice?

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ray said if you can afford a lawyer, get a lawyer. Even if it's just for one little part of the process.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  There's something in most states called limited scope representation. And you're able to retain counsel for a limited purpose. For example, if you are sued, that's usually in the form of something called a complaint or a petition, you need to file something called an answer. That's a legal document and you can sometimes hire a lawyer to just file your answer. Or you could hire a lawyer to just go to trial in a landlord tenant case, for example. So you might be able to limit the scope, the nature of what the lawyer is going to do for you and pay less money. The other thing is if you qualify, it's the right type of case and you don't have sufficient income, then you might qualify for something called legal services. And the legal services corporation is a national corporation with various entities

• 23:58Speaker 04

  around all the states that provide legal services to the indigent who cannot otherwise afford counsel in a civil case. And in those situations, they would represent you for free. In other words, if you can get counsel, do it, just like the old adage is, I wouldn't want to take my appendix even though I know how to do it because I can read it on the internet.

• 24:23Nick Capodice?

  That's all we got on Pro State today. This episode is made by me, Nick Capodice, with my name in all capital letters, and Hannah McCarthy. Our staff includes producers Marina Henke and Dana Cataldo and executive producer Rebecca Lavoy. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions, Epidemic Sound and his honor, Chris Zabriski. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  What does it really take to start a startup? I'm David Rosenko, entrepreneur, investor, and the host of Leap Forward. In each episode, I go behind the scenes with successful founders and someone who knew them before they were famous. Their college roommate, their first employee, or their mom. To hear the sometimes uncomfortable, but very real inside stories of how companies actually get built. Companies like Reddit, Airbnb, or Twitch. Listen to the new season of Leap Forward for never before heard stories behind the world's most iconic companies.