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A Fool for a Client: Difference between revisions
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* In the [[GK Chesterton]] story "The Ecstatic Thief", the eponymous thief defends himself successfully.
* In the first [[Tim Dorsey]] novel, a high school student represents himself and his friends on drunk driving and possession of alcohol charges, despite having never once even looked at a law book before getting arrested. He succeeds in getting them all off on a technicality, and grows up to be a DA.
* In the third book in the ''[[
* In ''[[Oh God]]'', Jerry Landers represents himself when he's sued by the Reverend Willie Williams, whom Landers has called (at God's direction) a "phony," sues him for slander, despite the Judge advising him that a lawyer would be "most helpful" to him.
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* Michael Bluth represents his family in a mock trial on ''[[Arrested Development (TV)|Arrested Development]]''. His family mocks him, assuming he only thinks he's a lawyer because he portrayed one in a grade-school play, ''The Trial of Captain Hook'', once upon a time.
* Happens from time to time in the various ''[[Law and Order (Franchise)|Law and Order]]'' shows. This can be especially uncomfortable on ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit (TV)|Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'', when it involves an accused rapist cross-examining his alleged victim.
** It's actually subverted in ''[[Law and Order (TV)|Law and Order]]'' Prime. Defendants will occasionally represent themselves, but rarely to their own detriment. When they are convicted, it is for the same reason the represented defendants are. Some notable cases are [[Magnificent Bastard|Phillip Swann]], [[Off On a Technicality|Marty Winston]], [[Affably Evil|Victor Vargas Moreno]], [[Faux Affably Evil|Richard Morriston]], [[Murder By Mistake|Catherine Waxman]], [[Church Militant|Drew Seeley]], [[Stalker With a Crush|Susan Boyd]], [[Right
*** The last of these had an unusual justification for him defending himself - he was a trained lawyer, but the same mental illness that drove him to kill had prevented him from actually practicing law a day in his life. He thus saw his own murder trial as potentially his only chance to do what he'd always wanted to do.
* This happens in ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'', allowing the setup of the following gag:
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* Serial killer Ted Bundy acted as his own attorney in his 1980 trial. The judge complimented him on doing a good job, in fact, and commented that Bundy might have made a good attorney. Even so, he wasn't good enough to keep himself out of the electric chair.
* When [[Dave Barry]] [[The Trouble With Tickets|got a ticket for driving on an expired registration]], he decided to represent himself before the court with the "strategy" of groveling. He ended up paying a fine.
* [[Moral Guardians]] and dear friend of gamers everywhere [
* Courts, especially lower courts (County, District, Local, Magistrates, etc.) will bend over backwards to accommodate self-represented litigants who at least are trying to get their matter resolved. The rather amusing spectacle of a Magistrate (and sometimes even Police Prosecutors, who while not allowed to directly help may slip them copies of exonerating evidence the defendant has forgotten to bring to the court) actively helping a defendant with their case is fairly common in most court rooms.
* Counter-intuitively, this trope might not be a complete [[Truth in Television]]. The insane [[Complete Monster|Colin Fergusons]] aside, a recent study, [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901610 found here], argues that most pro se criminal defendants are not mentally ill, and don't generally do much worse than represented criminal defendants.
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[[Category:Courtroom Antic]]
[[Category:A Fool For A Client]]
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