The lawyer against you would like nothing better than to trap you in a wrestling match!
Wrestling doesn’t win court cases.
Pro se litigants (people without lawyers) too often find themselves in what seems to be a wrestling match grappling with an avalanche of confusing paperwork compounded with arguments and terminology that seems strange at first. So they “wrestle” with the opponent, instead of “playing the game to win!”.
Winners know court cases are more like a tennis match. The ball is served. The opponent tries to return the serve effectively. If he succeeds, the first player hits the ball back over the net again, only this time with a “spin” that causes his opponent to work a bit harder to keep the ball going.
Or, you can think of it like a two-handed game of cards. You have the cards you are dealt. You can’t play an ace if you don’t have one, so you play your best card first. Your opponent then must play the card he chooses to play. Then it’s your turn. The game goes back and forth. You don’t just throw all your cards on the table to see who wins. That’s not card-winning tactics!
That’s not step-by-step!
I’ve been winning for my clients and students more than 40 years teaching case-winning tactics! In all those years I’ve known some pretty shady lawyers! In fact, most lawyer I defeated would do all they could to drag me into a wrestling match over facts that didn’t matter and laws that didn’t control the judge. In lawyer-speak it’s called “smoke & mirrors”.
But, smoke & mirrors don’t win court cases. Step-by-step tactics do!
One step at-a-time.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t worry about three steps down the road. At every stage of the proceedings, there is only one (1) step ahead of you. The next step. The step you must take wisely. The single step that may win your case!
Every case I won proceeded step-by-step. Lawyers on the other side did all they could to hide evidence, confuse the judge, even file paperwork containing statements they knew to contain lies! If I’d let them con me into chasing their rabbits they would have won. But they didn’t win, because they were crooked and the clients they were working for were crooked, and because I refused to be dragged into the confusing nets they tried to set for me in case after case after case.
Don’t let the other side confuse you. Winning isn’t hard or complicated when the law is on your side!
That is, of course, unless you let yourself get lost in the dog & pony show crooked lawyers try to drag you into so you will imagine winning is about “engaging with the opponent”. It is not about engaging with your opponent.
It is pushing your case forward one step at-a-time, step-by-step. You make a move then force your opponent to respond to your move. Force him to do what you want him to do, just like a skilled tennis player knows how to keep his opponent dancing around the other side of the net to return balls until the opponent hits the net or knocks the ball out-of-bounds.
It’s so very much easier to understand and win your legal battles once you think of them this way.
Get the upper hand and keep it! Force your opponent to respond to everything you do. Push him unmercifully. Drive a procedural nail in his head and watch him struggle.
If you’re one of the “good guys” (i.e., if the law is on your side) the rules of court will work for you, unless you let your opponent get ahead and make you play defense. Don’t go there! When he tries to wrestle, you know you have him on the run.
Drive another nail in his head!
Jurisdictionary®
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