Speaker 1: Hey there. In this video, you'll learn a secret that I guarantee will help you win your restraining order hearing, how to present your evidence. My name is Veronica, and I'm a domestic violence restraining order hearing attorney here in California. I help people put their cases behind them so that they can enjoy their lives and their freedom. I'm also the creator of a course called Defeat the DVRO, in which I teach you everything that you need to know, all my best tips, secrets, hacks that you won't even find here on YouTube about how to win this thing. You can find your first free class down below. It's in the description box, defeatthedvro.com. Now, this video is part two of a series that I'm publishing this week on the top three things that you need to know if you are going to represent yourself in court. So let's dive right in, and I'll show you how to present your evidence. Secret number two, understand how to present your evidence. Now, the main idea here is that if you have evidence on your side, it doesn't do you any good unless you can actually show it to the judge. So, you need to know how to show the judge your evidence. Evidence is called when you present an actual document in court, exhibits. When you are preparing your exhibits, first, you're going to want to prepare any text messages. Text messages are present in almost every domestic violence restraining order hearing. Now, make sure they're relevant before you think about presenting them, but what you're going to want to do is be sure to capture the time and date as much as possible. This can be tricky. If you have an iPhone and you have access to a Mac, you can sign into iMessage, and if all of the messages were iMessage, you can save as a PDF. There are some apps that do this. If you're not able to do that, or if you don't have a whole lot of time before the hearing, of course you can take screenshots, but make sure that they have the time and date. Number of copies. You should bring three copies to be safe. Don't only bring one copy. You're going to need a copy for the judge. You're going to probably need a copy for the other party. Many times. The judge will force you to give a copy to the other party, and if you fail to do so, you won't be able to use it, and then you want a copy for yourself so you can show the judge and be able to explain the exhibit without trying to blindly describe a document. If you have audio or video, first of all, to be very safe, I would have a transcript of it. There's actually a rule of court in California that says that you need to have a transcript of any audio that you're going to be playing unless you have good cause not to do so. Now, maybe you have a video recording that does have audio, but you don't need the audio. It's not necessary, or there's no dialogue or something. Of course, that's fine. If you do have a lot of audio that you're trying to use, then I would recommend using a service like rev.com. It's pretty fast, and they'll create a transcript for you. So if it's something that's like a half hour long, that's going to take you a really long time to transcribe, so I recommend using them. They have a version that just has AI do it that's pretty quick and cheap, and they actually have. I don't know, maybe up to 10 minutes. But I recommend doing the version that starts with the AI and then actually has a human going through it. They're really good. And then be sure that you are not recording illegally. So if you're in California, it's a two party consent state. There is an exception for if, for example, you are recording evidence of a crime or if the recording took place in an area where the other person would not have an expectation of privacy. So ring video cameras, for example, that are outside of a house, commonly that will come in. But if you had a camera in your living room that the other party didn't know about, then you're probably not going to be able to use that. But if they knew about it, they installed it, or it was obvious that it was there, then you have a decent chance of being able to use it. If you do have a lot of exhibits, a lot of text messages, then binders might be helpful. As an attorney, I prepare binders. If you prepare binders and you bring in three binders, the judge will be impressed with you. The judge is impressed with attorneys who do this. So for sure, the judge will be impressed. That can be really, really helpful. And making sure that the judge has all of your exhibits, that everything is really well organized and that you think through also, you know, hey, in what order am I going to present these exhibits? I recommend chronological order. If you have audio or video, especially video, my recommendation is to call the courtroom in advance and ask them about how to present video. Here in California, even just within the county of Los Angeles, some courtrooms have great AV systems. They have some of the most expensive audio visual systems. Some of them don't have any at all. I usually will call in advance, but I'm also bringing two laptops. I'm bringing an HDMI cord. I've had to buy and bring in a speaker once, actually, for a murder trial. Because that court's particular AV system was horrible and I had really important audio to play in defense. So yeah, you do want to figure that out before. Don't come just with a bunch of exhibits on your phone. That's probably the worst thing you can do. There's a decent chance that you won't be able to use them. So that's one thing. them at all. When to present exhibits. Okay, so there are two times when you can present your exhibits. The first time and the order of this restraining order is going to be that the petitioner goes first and then the respondent goes. So the petitioner gives her statement, then you get to ask the petitioner questions. So you can present your exhibits when asking the other party questions. So if you're using it to discredit the other party, there is actually a way where you can bring it up and kind of pull it like a rabbit out of a hat during your questioning of her. Now, if you don't know how to do this, and I explained this in the full length course, but it is pretty long. So I'm not able to do it in this one. If you don't know how to do it, then I recommend not doing it just skip that part. Don't try to do it clumsily, especially because you know, tensions, emotions are high during these restraining order hearings, but you can use it when you give your statement and I will move myself out of the way here. I recommend that you do present your evidence. During your statement, even if you already used it when you were asking the other side questions, and you want to make sure that when you're using it, you explain to the judge what the exhibit is. For example, these are text messages exchanged between the petitioner and me on whatever date. And I took screenshots of these text messages from my phone. And then you end with, and this is a true and accurate copy of the text messages. And that's really important. And that is what I'm going to do. I'm going to use the exact script. And that is one thing that I do teach you in the course. I give you exact scripts because there are lots of these weird, like who would know just without learning anything about this, you're supposed to say true and accurate copy. There's all this like lingo and legalese that sometimes you can get away with not knowing in court because the judges are a bit more lax for these restraining order hearings when people represent themselves. But if you can use it, you pretty much guarantee that it's going to go smoothly and you impress the judge and as the respondent, that is what you want to do the entire time. Again, if you're considering representing yourself, I encourage you to take the free class. You're already here watching videos. You're trying to learn, take it, see if this seems like something that you can do yourself. You know, many people can do it themselves. They just need the right tools. And that is exactly what I give you. Now, if you find this helpful, don't forget to subscribe, ring the bell and stay tuned for part three.