Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

A writ of mandate is like an appeal, usually from an administrative decision or a court order before judgment. Is it possible for someone to initiate it himself? Well certainly; after several years of study, research, and experience working for a law firm.

A writ of mandate is an order from an appellate court to a trial court, issued in the middle of a case pending in the trial court, directing the trial court to do something the trial court has refused to do, or do something different from what the trial court has done. You are not permitted to take an appeal of a case from the trial court until there is a final judgment, but under certian circumstances it would either be inefficient case management, or would work an injustice that could not be dealt with at the end of the case on appeal, if the trial court's order or inaction was allowed to stand until final judgment. The remedy for that is to petition the court of appeals for a writ of mandate. They are rarely even accepted for hearing, and when they are they are often then denied, but occasionally they are issued. This is not an area of the law a non-lawyer could handle with any meaningful chance of success.