Re:Going to court without a lawyer is new normal for U.S. li...
by tialaramex on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:15PM
(#21609586)
This is roughly the fix in place in other systems that inherit from the English system.
The McKenzie Friend rules says if you proceed pro se you can nevertheless have somebody who may or may not be trained as a lawyer present to help you by taking notes, prompting, and giving advice not so different from the way a lawyer might use assistants.
You have to do all the actual talking, most weight is on your shoulders - you can't use this to basically keep all the advantages of pro se (courts give people proceeding on this basis more leeway because they may not know and understand the rules a lawyer must master) while having a lawyer do everything, but you can at least have somebody to help you and it can be someone legally trained.
In the UK this principle is named for a Mr McKenzie who lost a divorce case because the lawyer sent to try to assist him after he lost funding for a "real" lawyer wasn't qualified to appear in front of that court (an Australian lawyer, in an English court), and the court reasoned that lawyer was thus prohibited from attending except to sit in the public gallery. On appeal a higher court concluded that nothing clearly prohibited this lawyer being present as "a friend" of McKenzie and so that's the McKenzie Friend rule.
Since they aren't a "real" lawyer it can be a paralegal working for cheap, somebody who has done a year's law school and dropped out, or even just your actual friend who is better at reading and thinking than you are. It all helps.
Re:Going to court without a lawyer is new normal for U.S. li...
by Gibbon1 on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:29PM
(#21609722)
It sort of makes sense. A lawyer is authorized to represent someone in court, and what they do is binding. But anyone can give you advice in the court house parking lot.
The McKenzie Friend rules says if you proceed pro se you can nevertheless have somebody who may or may not be trained as a lawyer present to help you by taking notes, prompting, and giving advice not so different from the way a lawyer might use assistants.
You have to do all the actual talking, most weight is on your shoulders - you can't use this to basically keep all the advantages of pro se (courts give people proceeding on this basis more leeway because they may not know and understand the rules a lawyer must master) while having a lawyer do everything, but you can at least have somebody to help you and it can be someone legally trained.
In the UK this principle is named for a Mr McKenzie who lost a divorce case because the lawyer sent to try to assist him after he lost funding for a "real" lawyer wasn't qualified to appear in front of that court (an Australian lawyer, in an English court), and the court reasoned that lawyer was thus prohibited from attending except to sit in the public gallery. On appeal a higher court concluded that nothing clearly prohibited this lawyer being present as "a friend" of McKenzie and so that's the McKenzie Friend rule.
Since they aren't a "real" lawyer it can be a paralegal working for cheap, somebody who has done a year's law school and dropped out, or even just your actual friend who is better at reading and thinking than you are. It all helps.