That said, I certainly understand Dr. Johnson’s frustration (she sounds a lot like Supremacy Claus though).

The law in this country is not really about right or wrong, legal or illegal. It’s ALL about who has the money and power.

Corporate America is indeed “over-lawyered”. John and Jane Q. Public are “under-lawyered”. Therefore you have people pursuing the pro se option.

Xlrq’s conclusion is a non sequitur. If there were legal consequences for bringing such suits, many such suits wouldn’t even be brought pro se.

Speaking of non sequiturs – what makes you think guys like Jack Ass would know, much less care, what the consequences are for bringing such suits? The attorneys would know, of course, so it’s a safe bet that stricter penalties for bringing frivolous suits would mean fewer such suits overall, but I don’t think you’d see fewer frivolous pro se cases. More, in fact, since not every would-be plaintiff will give up after the umpteenth lawyer tells him to give it a rest.

Moreover, it’s the compensation culture of the plaintiffs’ bar that encourages such pro se suits in the first place. Is the toupee suit really any crazier than the sleeping-driver suit, the McDonald’s coffee suit, the Pelman obesity suit?

No, but that wasn’t my point. My point is that a disproportionate number of pro se cases are crazy and incoherent. I never claimed pro se litigants have a monopoly on such cases.

I’ve got news for the honorable barristers here. Every lawyer (but one) I interacted with (in the case cited on my website and blog) . . . LIED . . . either to the Court (filing false answers on behalf of their clients) or to me (during discovery & settlement negotiations). I found NO justice in the justice system. When I complained to the State Bar, I got nowhere.

I currently have a perjury case . . . one that I cannot get a DA to prosecute . . . not because I’m not right or the law is not on my side . . . but because “prosecutorial discretion” lets him get away with doing nothing. The jerk won’t even meet with me to discuss the charges and has refused to refer the case to the SBI for an independent, unbiased investigation (the thing several lawyers told me should have happened when I made the allegations).

On the other hand, those same lawyers told me that “perjury happens every day and everyone knows it”.

People have told me to “just get a lawyer”, but lawyers are expensive . . . and without a DA or other regulatory body taking some kind of action that supports my claim . . . it’s an expensive crap shoot. The merits of the case do not matter. And the cost of pursuing the case is prohibitive . . . as you say, “financially ruinous”.

The end result is that the law does NOT get enforced, and the victim of a series of white-collar crimes does not see any kind of “justice”.

So I fully understand why people pursue “pro se” cases. And I don’t think all of them are nutcases pursuing “outlandish legal theories”.

By the way, I’d be obliged if your blog would not delete this comment. I stand behind it.

As a matter of a premise, do contingent-fee attorneys take the time to give to clients they reject free explanations why their case is no good? I know from my experience arguing with monomaniacal loons with outlandish legal theories that that can be stepping into a tar pit.

I’ve also personally seen too many small-to-medium-size business clients get in over their head when they want to sue a competitor, but aren’t told by their hourly attorneys that their proposed course of action would be financially ruinous and have little to no chance of success. There are some big firms out there that do their clients no favors and act either unethically or incompetently overoptimistically.