Speaker 1: If you had to represent yourself in court, would you know what to do? When you represent yourself in court, it's called appearing pro se, which is Latin for on one's own behalf. Unfortunately, I've watched countless pro se litigants ruin winnable cases because they didn't know how to testify, object, or present evidence. So I'm gonna teach you how testimony is different when you represent yourself, three of the most common objections, and how to get most evidence admitted. Obviously, I can't squeeze three years of law school and my 12 years of trial experience into this one video, but these few tips will either help you when you appear pro se in court or convince you that hiring an attorney is in your best interest. Evidence in our adversarial legal system is routinely provided through live witness testimony. This means that someone will take the witness stand and answer questions. When you're representing yourself pro se, the responsibility for asking questions of the witnesses, including yourself, will be all on you. When you're representing yourself, your testimony is extremely important, but it is often the most overlooked portion of pro se trial prep. I'm gonna warn you, it is going to feel incredibly awkward, but this is normal. I'd rather you prepare to feel awkward rather than you be surprised when you're hit with those feelings on the stand. When you testify pro se, you're allowed to testify in the narrative. That means you'll be giving testimony that is not in direct response to questions. This is much more difficult than simply answering questions by an attorney because two heads are better than one. If you misspeak, lose your place, or forget a necessary fact, you don't have someone else keeping you on track or helping you to remember. When you're preparing your testimony, take the time to write out questions for yourself along with your answers. Then roll your questions into your answers. Instead of what is your name, John, it becomes my name is John. It might seem easier to just skip this step, but you first need to go through the exercises of writing out the questions because it will keep you focused on your evidence. When you're testifying pro se, your natural reaction is to just tell your story. Well, that's not how trial works. Rather than just telling your story, you need to focus on giving the judge or jury specific evidence that proves all the elements of your case. Alternatively, if you're the defendant in the case, then you need to know the elements of the plaintiff's case so you can provide testimony that disproves those elements. When you're being cross-examined by the other side, remember that you can still make objections to their questions just like an attorney representing you could do while you're testifying. More on objections later. When the witness is friendly to you, meaning that they are there to offer evidence that is beneficial to your case, then your questions can't be leading, but must be open-ended. If the question calls for a yes or no answer, then it's probably a leading question. Open-ended questions usually begin with who, what, when, where, why, or how. Keep your questions simple so that the answers are only about a sentence or two long. Talk to your witnesses in advance to let them know the questions that you'll be asking and to make sure that their answers are what you're expecting them to testify to. When the witness is hostile to you, meaning that they are there to offer evidence that is beneficial to the other side's case, only then are you allowed to ask leading questions. This is known as cross-examination. Your goal when asking leading questions is to get the witness to say the word yes as many times as possible. Ask questions that begin with, isn't it true that, or you would agree with me that. The best cross-examination only asks one fact per question. Remember, you want as many yes answers as possible, which means that it is better to ask more questions rather than fewer questions. When the other side is asking questions of their friendly witnesses, they aren't allowed to ask those leading questions. Yes, even when appearing pro se, you have the right to make objections. If you hear them asking their own witnesses leading questions, make sure that you object. That's your bonus objection, which brings us to the three most important objections that you need to know. The tough reality is that every single rule of evidence is a potential objection at trial. Since it is impossible for me to teach you all of the rules of evidence in one video, I'm going to discuss the three most important objections that you'll need to know before you appear pro se. Before we discuss those objections, here's how you make them. When you realize that you need to object, you stand up and say, objection, hearsay, or objection, speculation, or whatever other objection that you think is appropriate. Your objections are always addressed to the judge and not to the other party or attorney. The judge may ask the other side to respond, but you need to ensure that the judge actually rules on the objection so you have a clear record. If the judge says sustained, then the judge agrees with the objection and the evidence is excluded. If the judge says overruled, then the judge disagrees with the objection and the evidence comes in. Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered in court to prove the truth of the matter asserted in that statement. In simpler terms, it is an assertion made by someone who is not testifying in court, and it is being presented in court to prove that the statement is true. For example, if the witness testifies that the police officer at the scene of the wreck told him that the light was green, and that statement is being offered to prove that the light was in fact green, then that is hearsay. Hearsay is generally considered unreliable evidence because it is not subject to cross-examination, and the person making the out-of-court statement is not under oath or subject to the scrutiny of the court. You can make this objection both when the question specifically requests the witness to give hearsay evidence, what did John tell you, and when the witness starts offering hearsay evidence on their own, even though the question didn't call for it. You should familiarize yourself with the exceptions to the hearsay rule. Hearsay evidence may be admissible if it falls within one of the recognized exceptions. Common exceptions include statements made by an opposing party to the case, statements against interest, present sense impressions, excited utterances, and statements made for medical diagnosis or treatment. Something that most people who appear pro se don't realize is that documents can also be objectionable as hearsay. If a bystander at the rec wrote in their witness statement that they saw the light was green, and that written statement is being offered to prove that the light was green, then that would also be hearsay. When considering your own evidence and testimony, you should avoid trying to offer hearsay evidence unless an exception applies in order to avoid the other side objecting during your presentation. The non-responsive objection is typically raised during a trial when a witness fails to directly answer the question posed to them or provides additional information beyond what the question requested. The purpose of this objection is to bring focus back to the specific question asked and to prevent the witness or opposing party from providing extraneous or unhelpful information. Making this objection draws the court's focus to the fact that the witness avoided answering the question because you're going to have to re-ask the question to get a direct answer. This is an important objection because if you didn't get a direct answer, then you'll need all of the extraneous information to be kept out of evidence. Then you need to re-ask the question in order to get a straight answer. These are technically two different objections, but they're so closely related that we can cover them both here. These objections aim to prevent witnesses from offering opinions, guesses, or speculations about facts or events that they do not have direct knowledge or expertise about. You object both when the question requests the witness to speculate about events or outcomes, and when the witness starts offering evidence that is beyond what they saw, heard, or experienced. Here's an acronym to help you remember how to get evidence admitted, R.A.M. If you want to get evidence admitted, you have to RAM it in. I know that sounds dumb, but hopefully it helps you to remember. RAM stands for relevant, authentic, and material. Evidence is relevant if it makes a fact of consequence more or less probable than it would be without the evidence. Evidence that you use at trial must be authentic. That means you need to be able to show that the evidence is what you say it is. To authenticate evidence is to show that the evidence is genuine, not fabricated or altered. Evidence is material if it is related to the issues that the judge or jury will have to decide. That might sound really complicated, but it really isn't. Let's discuss some examples. I'll go in depth with pictures and then just cover the nuances when it comes to video recordings, audio recordings, and text messages. To provide relevance, you need to give testimony about the event that is depicted in the picture. If it is a picture of an injury, then you should first give some testimony about the injury and the fact that you took a picture of it. That way the picture is relevant because it makes a fact of consequence, the injury, more or less probable than it would be without the evidence. To prove authenticity, you need to give testimony that you were present when the picture was taken, that the picture accurately depicts the scene as it existed, and that your exhibit is a true and accurate copy of the original without any edits, deletions, or alterations. To prove materiality, you need to give testimony to show that the picture of your injury is related to the issues that the judge or jury will need to decide. For example, explain that the injury in the picture is the same injury that you're seeking compensation for in the lawsuit. To get an audio recording admitted, you need to follow the RAM procedures, but with some extra testimony for authenticity. With audio recordings, you need to give testimony that you were competent to operate the recording device, that you've reviewed the recording, that the recording accurately recorded the events, and that you can identify the voices in the recording. To get a video recording admitted, you need to follow those same RAM procedures, but for authenticity, you need to give all of the same testimony as you would for both pictures and for audio recordings. To get text messages admitted, you need to follow the RAM procedures like you would for pictures, but for authenticity, you need to also establish authorship. Because text messages and social media messages are so prevalent, we've covered them in an entirely separate video that we'll link in the description. Now that we've covered testimony, objections, and exhibits, here are some rapid fire bonus tips before your pro se court appearance. Always stand up when addressing the court. Don't refer to the opposing attorney. They are just a representative and not a party, but instead refer to the plaintiff or defendant. Ask for permission to approach the bench or witness before leaving your seat. Don't get upset or show emotion at the judge's ruling on an objection. Accept it and move on. Print, label, and number all of your exhibits before the hearing. No one likes waiting while you scribble on exhibits. Don't try to hand the judge an exhibit that you haven't first shown to the opposing counsel or party. Always print an exhibit list of all of your exhibits before the hearing so the court reporter will know which exhibits you're referring to, and it will also help the judge to keep track. Now that you know how testimony is different when you represent yourself, three of the most common objections, and how to get most evidence admitted, you have a pretty good idea on how to represent yourself in court if you had to.