Judge pls tell me magic words
In their defense, a judge probably would try and answer basic legal questions to support a defendant who for some reason didn’t have a lawyer to ask, unless that defendant had already gone out of their way to antagonise the judge.
Sadly, I suspect there’s a lot of overlap between people who are representing themselves and people who have annoyed the judge
I was under the impression they’re not allowed to provide legal advice, but IANAL.
They’re not, but there’s a difference between providing legal advice and explaining necessary procedures the pro se individual must follow, explaining that a necessary form is available online in their bank of forms, explaining that something they did is procedurally improper, etc etc. The latter is actually pretty common, just out of necessity really.
Wow… I feel like “substance over form” contradicts a core sovcit belief: That there are specific magic phrases and processes that must be executed precisely to be valid. The systems in place intentionally hide, obscuring, and otherwise make it as difficult as possible for the sovcit to perform the rituals correctly. But if they do, they will “win”.
Of course, leave it to a sovcit to find another contradictory concept to shove into the rest of their contradictory beliefs.
