Many times someone will find themselves in a legal dispute over a contract, damages, wages or a number of other reasons. The disputed amount doesn’t warrant hiring a lawyer but is enough to justify a legal action. That is why there is small claims court, yet many people think that they cannot represent themselves in a court of law. You can and it isn't as hard as you might think.
Why Use Small Claims Court
Some of the reasons you might find yourself considering
filing a legal action in small claims court could be not getting paid your
proper amount of wages, a contract dispute for labor, getting your security
deposit back from your landlord or damages to your property from a former
tenant for example and hundreds of other reasons. The amounts involved don’t
justify hiring and paying a lawyer.
This is a general outline of a small claims court since each
state and sometimes counties have their own small claims court rules. These
limits range from $1,500 in Kentucky and Rhode Island to $15,000 in Delaware
and Georgia.
What About Lawyers
Lawyers are not allowed in small claims court under most
rules. There are exceptions, if your opposition is an attorney, you can request
that you have a lawyer represent you. Since it is somewhat unfair to be a
non-lawyer and be in small claims court against a lawyer. But you don’t have to
have a lawyer represent you since the rules of small claims court favor the
average person, the person who is not an attorney. If you have legal questions
you need answered, you can consult an attorney outside of the courtroom before
you sue and or before you go to small claims court.
Be Prepared
Sometimes you aren’t the person suing in small claims court,
but the person being sued. You have to be prepared either way. Being prepared enhances
your chances of winning your case. Being prepared gives you confidence and
being prepared makes you look professional. As lawyers like to say, make sure
you have all of your ducks lined up. I have seen people in small claims court
look far more professional than many lawyers do. To fully prepare yourself in
small claims court you should do and have the following:
- All paperwork and evidence you will need.
- Know all the state statutes you will be using in your case.
- Have everything neatly sorted and ready to read and to hand to the judge.
- Make sure you are suing in the right county. This is known as the venue, and usually you sue in the county where the violation took place.
- Make sure everyone is properly served. Hire a professional process server and have that person serve everyone you are suing separately. If you are suing Mr. and Mrs. John Doe, have each of these people served separately. Each person you are suing needs to be served with their own set of legal papers. You cannot serve anyone yourself, so hire a process server or even a county sheriff to serve the papers.
- You have the power to subpoena paperwork, records and people as witnesses or anything else you might need to prove your case. For this, you will go to the court and fill out a form, then a judge will review your subpoena request and if granted you can once again use a process server to serve these subpoena papers to the proper person.
Nolo Press has books about small claims court for
each state. You should consider getting one of these for your state and
familiarize yourself with everything you need to know about your state laws.
Appeals
You can appeal the judge’s decision if you should lose, and
if you win the opposing party can also appeal. In some states if you lose and
you appeal, you must pay the amount you lost into a bond to the court before
you can appeal.
Limit the amount of coffee you drink before going to court.
You don’t need to be that nervous and you never know when your case will be
called. Just because it is set for 9 AM doesn’t mean you will be called at that
time, you might not get called until 11:30. You would hate to be in the
bathroom when it’s your turn.
Dress and look as neatly as possible, be comfortable, polite
and confident. You can be all of those things since you are prepared.
Copyright © 2009 Sam Montana
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