Tag Archive for: judges

How to Talk to Lawyers and Judges When you’re Sued for Debt


I’ve discussed some of the background realities of talking with judges and the attorney for the other side when you’re representing yourself as a defendant in a suit for debt in “Real Words about Talking to Judges and Lawyers.” There, I mentioned that you face systemic discrimination as a pro se defendant because neither judges nor the lawyers will respect you. The judges don’t primarily for classist reasons, but the lawyers for the other side have various reasons. There’s a bias against you, and that means certain things we’re going to talk about.

It means, above all, that you have to be better than the lawyer for the other side to receive appropriate respect. There are reasons this is possible, but it’s primarily because of the business model of the debt collectors. They take a factory approach, and that means that your case will simply get very little individual treatment from the company – it just isn’t profitable for them to do that. Nor is it profitable for them to hire lawyers from the Ivy Leagues, let’s just say. Their whole approach is to bug you into paying without suing you and then to file huge numbers of suits knowing most people won’t defend themselves at all and will allow a default judgment.

Defending yourself takes you way out of the “ordinary.”

And it’s a start, but you also still have to put in enough work to be better than the other side, and that’s what we discuss here.

Because of the general lack of respect for pro se defendants, when you say something, you will be more likely to need to cite controlling authority than a lawyer would. They can make references to “black letter law” (which is just legalese for “generally obvious”), but you will do better, if the issue is important at all, by citing a case that supports it. That means research is going to be important to you.

One thing non-lawyers seem to have trouble with is keeping things “relevant.” If you’re arguing about whether the debt collector has proof they own the debt, some things will shine a light on the issue, but the fact that the company has been sued by the federal government for collection abuses will not be, for example. Because of the way the court sees you, it will have very little tolerance for any straying off topic – it (the judge) will think you’re wasting time and often tune out. Therefore, make sure everything you say relates to exactly the issue you’re discussing.

A related issue is keeping things brief. Again, the court will quickly sense that you’re wasting time if you veer away from the most important things at all. The judge doesn’t need to know why you thought something or planned something, it needs to know what the law requires. Pro se defendants seem to have a tremendous difficulty with this – you want to tell your story, but let me tell you that the court could not give one damn about your story. Legal talk is very different in this respect than regular human talk. Do NOT waste the court’s time.

Don’t whine. This is probably self-explanatory, but it’s part of the other things I’ve mentioned. Because the court does not care about your feelings, it will regard anything you say or insinuate about your feelings as a waste of time. And whining is irritating and unprofessional.

Know when to hold and when to fold. This is part of maintaining self-discipline and paying attention to the judge. When the judge says they’ve ruled, you are on extremely borrowed time. Ordinarily you should shut up and sit down. As I point out in “Real Talk,” you do that by saying, “Thank you, your honor.” But sometimes you don’t think you’ve had a chance to raise a crucial point. In that situation, you say something like, “I hear that, your honor, but I wanted to make sure you knew that they caught the defendant red-handed holding the knife with blood all over him…”

What I’m saying here is that if you want to say something after the judge has already ruled, it had better be damn good, and even then you’re on thin ice, but sometimes you have to say something to preserve the record. Judges can be hasty, and specially so with pro se debt defendants, so sometimes you may feel you have to point something out, but make sure it’s good – otherwise you’re just going to make the judge mad.

And speaking of anger, you must ALWAYS keep your feelings in check when you’re talking to the judge. If you raise your voice you could get thrown in jail for contempt of court, but of course it’s much more likely that the judge will just stop listening to you for the rest of the case. Baseball coaches seem to think it helps sometimes to get kicked out of a game, but this is never going to be a good strategy for you. Shut up, collect your thoughts, and be ready for the next thing.

And now just a few words about the lawyers. First, keeping your cool is just as important with them as it is with judges. They can’t throw you in jail, but they can certainly tune you out in lots of ways. It won’t be good for you if they do.

Because you’ll be negotiating in various ways with the other lawyer, you need to remember one thing: talk is cheap. Because they don’t have a lot of respect for you, if you tell them “we should settle this thing now, or I’m going to file a motion for summary judgment next week…” they’re just going to ignore that. They don’t think you’ll do it. Any similar threats are pointless and more harmful than good. Instead, do the work first and let your actions speak for you.

Incidentally, a lot of lawyers try the same trick with the same results (nothing), but whereas I could probably draft a motion for summary judgment and send it to the other side saying that if they don’t settle I’m going to file the motion, you probably couldn’t even do that. There’s a chance they’d read it if a lawyer wrote it, but they probably won’t read anything you send until you file it. So go ahead and file what you’re going to file. Let your actions do your talking.

Talking to Judges and the Other Side When Sued for Debt


Real Words about Talking to Judges and the Other Side
When Sued for Debt

If you are being sued for debt and representing yourself – that’s called “pro se” – you’re going to have to talk to judges and also to the lawyer for the other side. That presents special challenges for pro se defendants, and particularly pro se debt defendants.

The first thing you must remember is that any FACTUAL thing you say can be taken as an “admission.” That means, if the fact you made the factual statement is established, the fact itself will be regarded as proven. That can be huge in debt cases where debt buyers often cannot prove things with legitimate evidence. If you say “I know I owe…” or “I know I did…” or “You told me…” or anything else that leads to
a factual statement, that fact will be regarded as proven. Not BY you, incidentally, but AGAINST you. So don’t try to get cute and say, for example, “I know you can’t prove your case.” The rule only applies to what are called “admissions against interest” and it’s a one-way street: you can’t make admissions for the other side. Is that clear?

When you’re talking to judges, they may simply ask you, for example, whether you used or had a credit card or something along those lines. You may be disputing, primarily, whether the debt collector has a right to collect from you, which could be a completely different issue, but if you admit you got the credit card you will lose the case 99% of the time. You must resist the temptation to answer such a question with an admission. You can say, instead, “that’s one of the things the other side has to prove, and I’m not admitting it.”

You are not a witness under oath when you’re talking to the judge in open court unless you are, in fact, testifying, and you should not feel required to make admissions. If the judge presses you very hard, simply say you don’t think so.

If the lawyer for the other side asks you point blank for some similar admission while you’re negotiating or haggling over discovery or at any other time than while you are under oath, you should simply say you “deny” it. That’s what you’re doing by your denial of the allegation in your answer.

Now let’s go to some “unwritten” facts, you might say. And they’re frankly not going to be pleasant to hear, but you need to know them. Both judges and the other side – lawyers and their minions – regard you as socially inferior. You may feel it and feel intimidated, or you may not even feel it, but most of the time it is a simple fact. They do not respect you in a fundamental way.

With judges that can never be remedied. They can respect your intelligence and your willingness to compete, shall we say, but they are in a position of power over you that is virtually absolute, and they’ve been in that position or some similar position for a long, long time. This gives you kind of a delicate task which we’ll come back to in a minute, but first we’ll talk about the lawyers and the other side generally.

Lawyers don’t respect you, either, and neither, most especially, do their owners the debt buyers. Again, you cannot fix that, but you must treat them, as much as you possibly can, as your equals. They’re not your parents and will never, under any circumstances, do anything in your interests that doesn’t help their interests, so do not ask them for guidance in any way. Ask me. Or ask a trusted friend. And then do your research. But when you’re talking to the lawyer you should be aware of the power dynamic and resist it. Not saying be rude or overbearing; I’m saying to keep your cool and treat the lawyer the way you’d treat anyone else you’re in a professional relationship with. Because that’s what you are.

Believe me, though, they start with contempt for you, and that will never change unless you fight and win. Professionally, again, I emphasize. You fight and win by standing up for your legitimate rights, keeping your cool, not making admissions, and forcing their hand where possible. Eventually, if you do these things, they’re likely to develop a sort of grudging admiration for you – fighters like fighters, in a way. They respect that about each other. But they’re never going to invite you to the boathouse, if you know what I mean. Know that fact.

Now let’s get back to judges, because your relationship to them is much more complicated.

Your job, as an advocate, is to instruct the judge on what the law requires, as you understand it. If the other side is suing you for a debt they cannot prove they own, you have to tell the judge that that failure to prove ownership requires they lose the case. When you object at trial or in motions, for another example, you have to tell the judge why legal precedent in your state requires that your objection be sustained.

Lawyers do this all the time, although even lawyers handle judges they don’t know extremely well, with kid gloves. And your job is much much harder because the judges regard you as socially inferior. You still have to tell the judge what the law requires, and you can’t mince your words about that. But never, ever, interrupt a judge, raise your voice, or lose your cool, and don’t forget that judges can make mistakes (and so can you, of course), so work with that. It doesn’t mean they’re against you – it doesn’t usually mean much of anything. It’s usually impersonal, and even if it isn’t you have to act like it is.

Remember that judges are in a god-like position over you, and a lot of them seem to think they are god, too. If they tell you to shut up or it’s over, they’ve ruled on a question, they expect you to thank them! They do, and it’s standard. The judge says, “I’ve overruled your objection,” and you say, in response, “Thank you your honor.”

It could seem disgusting, but it’s tradition as much as anything else, and you are respecting their position when you say that more than their person.

So you have a challenging balancing act with judges. You have to tell them what the law requires and what makes you think so – and they actually may not know or remember. But you must keep in mind that their power is nearly absolute, so you should usually treat your arguments as “reminders” to them of what you expect they already know. And yet you are their intellectual equals, too, so you should stand up for the right of your position even if the judge is questioning it.

With all that said, a lot of judges are intelligent, nice people. ALL of them are, at least some of the time to some people. Recognize that fact and understand that they play a role in this case, and that role is to make judgments, some of which you aren’t going to like. Don’t personalize their rulings, and don’t think that because they disagree with you on some point that they’re against you. Unless you’re a competitive athlete or a lawyer, this is probably way out of your experience, but referees in football are required to look at every play and make their best judgment regardless of who they like better. They try to do that, and so do judges, most of the time. Understand that fact – it’s just their job.

When you’re talking to the other side, but especially when you’re talking to a judge, remember to listen carefully. So often people just listen to what others are saying primarily as a way of marking time – you have something to say, and you’re just waiting for them to finish so you can say it. Don’t do this in the law. Listen to what they’re saying – it’s usually important.

And make sure the things you say are important, too. Stay on point and remember that anything you say that seems to go off-point will cost you respect and attention. No one wants to hear your feelings or difficulties. They want to hear what the law is and what it requires. If you’re representing yourself, you’re going to have strong feelings, but keep them in check and keep them quiet. Talk about the few things that matter to whatever you’re discussing.

Remember that above all, the case that means so much to you means very little to the other side or to the judge. It’s just a job to them, which they may take more or less seriously, but for you it is much more important. Act like the case is important to you and work steadily and hard, and stay humble. Hope the judge will take his or her responsibilities seriously enough to be fair and listen to you when it matters, and that the lawyer on the other side is as uninspired as most of them are. Keep those things in mind and you’ll have a great chance to win.

What to Expect as a Poor Person in a Rich Man’s Game

Real Words about the Law and Being Sued for Debt

What to Expect as a Poor Person in a Rich Man’s Game

You may have heard that “justice is blind,” which oddly enough was meant to suggest that justice is fair in America – it’s blind to class and race, and all the rest, supposedly. But if you’re being sued for debt you’ve probably heard of another saying: “it’s a big club, but you aren’t in it.”

I’m afraid that second saying is probably more relevant to what you can expect in the courts. If you’re going it pro se, that is to say representing yourself, you’re going to have some trouble getting the
attention of most judges. They’re not going to value what you say as much as they’d value what a lawyer would say, especially a lawyer for a corporation. Most judges are on that side of the fence, and they’re DEFINITELY from that side of the tracks, if you know what I mean.

So let’s just say there’s an institutional bias  – prejudice – against you. But I am saying “most” judges, after all, and some don’t share that bias.

And as a general rule judges do have a sense of fair play as far as playing by the rules, although again this is just a “general rule.” If they care about the outcome of a case, I’d say they can be pretty results driven, never minding the rules, but in fact most of them do NOT care about the outcome of debt cases. On the whole they seem not to like them, and we’ve all heard that debt collectors are notoriously heartless and… dirty. The judges are aware of all this, and I think they do regard them, on the whole, as the vultures of the legal kingdom. Judges often come from the more high profile sort of law.

But these are generalizations, and you should observe for yourself what your judge is like.

And here’s yet another general rule of the courts: the judges regard cases involving less than a couple
of million dollars as being sort of trifling and not worth their time. That’s a thing you should never forget. It’s a question of who they blame for your case wasting their time. I think they start with the sense that YOU are to blame, if you bother defending yourself, but this can change, and we want it to change. You didn’t bring the suit, after all, but you are one of the few meaningfully opposing the debt collectors, and so the judges might blame you for that. It has often seemed that way to me, anyway.

This is all hardly a ringing endorsement of the process, I know, but probably nothing new to you, either.
So why do I still think you have an excellent chance of winning if you fight these cases? Because the debt collectors really don’t usually have what they need to prove the things they need under the rules, and courts do have respect for rules. They’ll forgive corporate counsel a few transgressions, but in the final analysis they want the rules to be followed, and the case can be reversed on appeal if they don’t. So you have your chance.

And judges are people. The more time you spend with them, providing you keep your goals in mind, the more the judges will like you, the more they’ll listen to what you have to say. And you will have the law on your side. That does matter. It usually makes all the difference if you know what you’re doing.

And that’s why we’re here – to make sure you do know what you’re doing. Just be aware that whatever
they say about cutting a break for non-lawyers in the justice system – and they do in certain unimportant ways – you’re probably going to be held to a higher standard than the lawyer representing the debt collector rather than a lower one. You’re going to have to know more and do a better job than the other side.

You can do that, it just takes work and a certain humility. The lawyers on the other side are not the greatest legal minds. The debt collection business draws business people, and the business they’re in
means they won’t spend a lot of time on your case. They won’t have a lot of the stuff they need or the
time to get it. Your job is to show that to the judge in a way he or she will listen to. It’s a challenge, but it can usually be done. We’ll be helping you.

The lawyers for the other side have a job to do, and that’s to beat you. Some of them will treat you with respect, and others with contempt (which will be controlled), but remember their job, and however they present themselves to you it will be part of their overall plan to beat you. Don’t expect to go out with them for drinks after it’s all over.

 

The Most Dangerous Myth for Consumers in Debt

The Most Dangerous Myth for Consumers in Debt

For a free copy of this article in PDF format, click here: the Most Dangerous Myth

Consumers who owe money – debtors – often believe a lot of myths that are bad for them. Debtors can be desperate and will look for what seems the easiest, fastest way out of trouble. That makes sense – if you’re being sued you do need immediate action. But you must be on guard for myths that will hurt you by luring you into the wrong action, or no action.

And the worst myth being played to people being sued is the idea that somehow someone else will take care of them. It shows up in many ways and is always bad news. It isn’t necessarily your fault if you have believed this destructive myth – there are a lot of people peddling it. But your chances to beat the debt collectors and protect your money depend on your taking charge.

The Myth – where does it show up and how does it do so much damage?

Let’s look at some of the biggest examples of the myth that someone ELSE will take care of you.

People Think the Debt Collectors will Try to be Fair

Everybody KNOWS this: Debt collectors make very little effort to be fair once a lawsuit is filed – and they don’t try much before that, either.

Once you’re in a debt collector’s sights, the only thing they really care about is getting your money.  At the “harassment stage,” the debt collectors are paid depending on how much they can get you to pay, and not many people think they trust them to tell the truth. And yet so many people tell me they have offered information or money to the debt collectors or asked them to give them a break in some way. They SAY they don’t trust them, but then they depend on them to make a fair or helpful offer. And when they’re talking to them about “how much they owe,” they believe the debt collector instead of demanding proof.

You’ve learned to tell the truth, so you trust and believe the debt collector on the phone will tell you the truth. And you do that even while you, yourself, might feel free to lie to them at any given point.

The debt collectors know all that, and you can’t trust a word they say. You must take care of yourself, and with debt collectors, that means checking every fact they claim and making them write down every promise they make. Anything short of those things is trusting someone you don’t know, who doesn’t care about you, and has strong financial incentive to rip you off, to do the right thing. That’s naïve and foolish – and it happens all the time.

People Think the Lawyers Will be Fair

I know, you’ve probably heard the joke: “How do you know if a lawyer is lying?” – “His lips are moving.” It’s fashionable to say bad things about lawyers, and everybody knows, in the abstract, not to trust them. But there are two major forces going against you in a debt case. First, lawyers are not all untrustworthy, and most of them don’t sound like they are. They make their living by getting people to believe and trust them, after all. The second reason is more insidious: it is power. Lawyers in debt cases have the power to make your life very difficult. They can embarrass you, put you to enormous stress and expense, and they often treat you like dirt. In addition to that, they represent large, rich companies, while you are a financially stressed individual.

Faced with such a difficult situation, it’s easy to hope for the best. And if you can hope it, you can believe it, right?

Legal Ethics

The lawyers are supposed to be careful, at least, before filing suit. They have an ethical obligation not to bring meritless suits.

Do you believe they make that effort when suing debtors?  Probably not – and you would be right. The courts wink at the collection process, allowing lawyers to “rely” on the statements of the creditors that you owe the money. In the case of debt buyers, ironically, the very agreements by which they buy debt say that the records cannot be trusted and are not guaranteed. But the lawyers forge ahead usually without the slightest idea of what’s in the case, let alone whether it’s right or not.

And the courts let them.

On a more fundamental level, a lawyer’s main and almost exclusive duty is to the advantage of his or her client. It isn’t ethical for a lawyer to “cut you a break” at the expense of his or her client. They won’t ever do it.

And yet debtors share information and throw themselves on the mercy of these sharks by the thousands per DAY. That’s trusting the myth.

Trusting the Courts

Most people trust the courts. They know that a lot of judges are bozos in black gowns, and they know that most judges come from the plaintiff’s side of the law. They know the legal system is skewed in favor of the rich even as the laws are skewed in favor of the rich. They know, theoretically, that trusting judges to take care of them is a big mistake.

And yet you would not believe how many people tell me the judge should have seen through something or not allowed the debt collector to do something – often without even having asked the judge for what they wanted.

Know this: it is not the courts’s job to take care of you. They give only the briefest look, if any at all, at the outcomes of debt cases – they don’t have time, they don’t care, and they aren’t even supposed to care. The legal system is designed as an “adversary” system. That is, it is a fight, and in any fight people could use various strategies. The court will let you use almost any strategy you choose, and if that causes you to lose it isn’t their fault or concern.

The courts will not require the debt collectors to put on admissible evidence. If they did, most debt collectors would never win their cases. Instead, it is up to you to object to evidence you don’t like and make the court keep it out. If you don’t do that, the court lets it in.

And yet people expect the court to try to make the outcome of cases fair. They do not. Believing they will is believing the myth that someone else will take care of you.

In daily life, people do look out for each other quite a bit. In legal life, NEVER.

You wouldn’t believe how many people do not even show up in court “because they don’t owe the money.” They somehow trust someone to see that and care, but this is just foolish.

The Myth, outside of Court

People in debt frequently look to other people for help in the belief that those people will, in fact, help them. On the internet, there are people earnestly telling you that no one owes anybody anything (the “Accept for Value” idea), yet they’d be outraged if you didn’t pay them – just as you would be outraged if you went to work and your boss told you that. To believe the A4V theory is to believe that someone is taking care of you. More than that, to believe the people hawking that, or any other program, is also to believe the myth.

Even Me

Everything I’m saying here applies to me, too.  You might be surprised how often I get emails or messages asking me what they should do and presenting pages of facts or laws. They want me to take care of them – they are trusting me to take care of them.

Representing yourself pro se means developing your OWN judgment. It requires carefully weighing facts and motivations and coming to your own conclusions. It means figuring out the facts and how to get them.

It takes work, and it takes time.

When debt collectors sue you for debt, you have a very good chance to win. But it is up to you to make that happen. Our materials and memberships exist to help you know what you need to do and to help you do it. We want to teach you how to defend yourself. Once you learn that, it changes your whole view of the world. It frees you from the myth that someone else will do it for you and lets you soar on your own wings.

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Your Legal Leg Up is dedicated to helping people defend themselves from debt lawsuits without having to hire a lawyer. Lawsuits have a number of points where specific action is called or, and we have products to help you deal with most of these situations. We also have memberships that give you access to more materials and better training, and also provide a regular opportunity to ask questions and get answers in real-time. You can use this time to find out what the debt collectors are trying to do and what you might do in response, and you can get guidance on the issues that matter and how to think about and address them.

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Products Related to this Article

Because this is a general article, there are not any products specifically related to this post. I do suggest asserting your rights early and often, and you might find our Take Control of your Life product helpful in that. I also suggest great care in researching and analyzing facts and law. You might find our Guide to Legal Research and Analysis product helpful for that.

Beyond that, if you are facing significant debt problems, I’d suggest our memberships.

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