For someone who never went to law school, I know a lot about the law. Several years ago I served as the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against a crooked real estate developer who had bilked several hundred of his buyers to the tune of roughly $250,000 each. The case was eventually settled & never went to trial, but I learned a huge lesson in that effort in that shortly after the case was filed I realized that the attorneys involved in BOTH sides of the case were screwing us worse than the crook we were suing. I eventually sued our attorneys in that case for malpractice.

When I sued the attorney, I did it "Pro Se" which means I did it on my own without an attorney. In my experience with the class action lawsuit mentioned above, I participated in the actual drafting of the complaint as well as all the motions filed. I even wrote the first draft of many of the motions, one of which in fact our lawyers filed exactly as I had written it. I've filed "Pro Se" suits on several occasions since then, involving breach of contract, faulty construction, false claims, and I even filed one for copyright infringement in which I received a large settlement relating to a case in which someone virtually copied an architectural floor plan that I had created for that client. I've become a firm believer in the  filing of "Pro Se" lawsuits for many different types of grievances, most of which are filed for relatively small amounts of damages. "Pro Se" lawsuits can also be filed for "declarative judgment", in which if you're successful, you can get The Court to order your adversary to do something that he or she is refusing to do. I won such a case relating to a house painter who did a crappy job, and I got The Court to order him to correct all of his sloppy workmanship. That suit was not finally closed until I submitted an affidavit to The Court stating that I was satisfied with the defendant's "fix".  People should not be intimidate from trying this. It's not that hard to do. The key to it is to always remain calm and respectful to the judge, and not to ask The Court to award you a ridiculous amount of money in damages for trivial complaints, just because you're pi$$ed off at your adversary.

In cases involving fraud of any kind, I've learned that you do better, when asking The Court for "punitive damages" in addition to your actual out of pocket damages, that it's better to ask for punitive damages "in an amount that The Court deems just and proper" Doing so tells the judge that you trust that he or she will treat you fairly, and judges like that.

I've also learned over the years, that in smaller cases, and even in some big ones,  even if you win, your attorney will be the real winner. This can be especially true in suits filed by an attorney on your behalf under a "contingency agreement" If your claim is good and verifiable, your attorney will often spend a minimal amount of time on the action before getting the defendant to settle with you, in which his or her percentage of what you get will amount to thousands of ballers per hour of work invested in the case. If your case is REALLY strong, and you want to use an attorney, you should consider paying them simply at their hourly rate. If you do so, keep a diary in which you keeps the best possible record of the time the lawyer spends on your case, because in all too many instances, your own attorney will try to screw you in his final bill by inflating the hours he or she actually spent on the case. Always ask to see your attorney's time sheet. I've caught my own attorney billing me for 3 hours of time for a 5 minute court appearance, where the court is only 10 minutes away from his office. You should attend all of the appearances in your case, even when it's not required for the plaintiff to personally attend. If you can afford to spend the time, you should do t...