Legal Question in Construction Law in California

It is illegal for more than one pro se plaintiff to file on the same pleading. That would make the one person who prepares and files the complaint guilty of practicing law without a license as to the other plaintiffs. Each person must file their own complaint and handle their own case, or they must hire a licensed attorney to represent them.

This is an example of "permissive joinder" and the right to sue together and the limitations thereon are set forth in the Code of Civil Procedure, section 378.

The first major problem I see is that a non-lawyer cannot represent others. That means all the plaintiffs will have to make every court appearance, and all plaintiffs will have to sign all documents filed with the court. This sounds like a major headache.

The next possible problem is that only an individual can represent himself. If any of the proposed plaintiffs is a corporation or other artificial entity, it will need a lawyer.

You didn't say much about the case, in particular, the amount involved. I question the wisdom of trying to do this in pro. per. (in propia persona) as there will be many decisions to make, many better made by a lawyer.

The sequence in which the plaintiffs' names are listed in the caption is immaterial except that whoever is listed first will be the name in the case short title, and everyone else will be an "et al." So, it should be someone who isn't publicity-shy.

I could not find any helpful annotations to CCP 378, nor any cases illustrating how courts handle the administrative aspects of multiple in pro. per. plaintiff cases. I did find one unreported appellate case involving three co-plaintiffs, all self-represented (Lee v. Ly, 2002 WL 307902).