"During my tenure as a research attorney at the Court of Appeal, I found pro se civil appeals often took two to three times longer to work up than if they had been presentedby competent counsel. In order to give these litigants a fair shake, I was forced to tease out of the jumble of disconnected facts and purported statements of law a coherent synopsis of what the litigant was really trying to say - and then do the exhaustive research necessary to resolve the issue.
"Many of my colleagues at the court were not so charitable. They simply washed their hands of the whole mess by citing the famous maxim that the failure to tender a coherent legal argument with appropriate citation to authority constitutes a forfeiture of the claim. I find such an approach morally problematic, for it destroys both the meritorious and the unmeritorious appeal with equal force, and tends to give the wealthy litigant who can afford counsel an unfair advantage over his or her poorer counterpart."
Many people are not aware that the court of appeal makes money off appeals:
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| In Sacramento, Third District Court of Appeal judges are hostile to pro per appeals, according to a whistleblower. If you don't have a lawyer, you are not welcome in the appellate court, court watchdogs allege. |
This case originated in Louisiana's Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Court watchdogs allege that virtually the same pro per and socioeconomic bias associated with courts in the Deep South also occurs in California.
Read our Special Report: Sacramento County Family Court Operates as RICO Racketeering Enterprise, Charge Whistleblowers.
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