Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
Can the money saved be used for an attorney?
My brother is being sued for breach of contract. Personal loan, $65k, fraud has been committed by the plaintiff.
For the past 1 1/2 yrs he has put his mortgage payments into a savings account until it can be determined who is the true holder of the note.
He is in the middle of discovery, doing this ''in pro per'', He & his wife are recently unemployed.
They kept the saving acct to show a judge that they DO want to pay the true holder of the note & they have the money($10K). Even thru months of no work.
Doing ''in pro per'' has made them realize they are in over their heads. Legal Aid has not been much help to them.
His wife refuses to let them use the money in the acct for an attorney. I understand & commend her integrity....If they spend $1500 to get them through discovery & can show how the money was spent, it would benefit them greatly. OR might a judge understand & and see that they do not try to deceive the court as the plaintiff has, if they do not use ANY of the money.
My brother/wife are screwing up and don't know if they could or should use the money. What is your opinion?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Can the money saved be used for an attorney?
Being in pro per is nearly always a recipe for disaster, and the stories of people who lost their cases in pro per -- and the concomitant human wreckage -- can be found all over the LawGuru question and answer database.
There really is no such thing as "legal aid," you get what you pay for. I highly recommend that your brother (not you) start calling attorneys. I would be pleased to speak to him, and I do take cases in the San Diego area (if his zip code is the same as the one you put down). But he will have to call me himself, I am prohibited by the rules from calling him.
He and his wife are just going to have to take an honest look at their own skills and abilities, and realize that practicing law is harder than it appears.
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