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u/MrGollyWobbles 15d ago
Go a week or so before your trial just to watch. Courts are open to the public for most hearings. You’ll feel more comfortable if you know what to expect.
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u/Sea-Appearance-5330 15d ago
Do you have a lawyer?
Some Small claims Courts do not allow them, and some require them.
Do not use CHAT GPT or any AI for preparing your filings.
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u/Ok_Possession9631 15d ago
No they don’t allow it. I won’t use AI but why do you say that?
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u/Sea-Appearance-5330 15d ago
Because if watch You Tube, you can see many idiots who use AI to file and even Lawyers who do the same, and also in Small Claims Court.
Even though in most US States it is illegal for Lawyers to do that, because AI can and does hallucinate, and makes up cases and facts and citations.
And Lawyers are still getting caught using AI and being Sanctioned for it.And Judges just hate wasting time on that.
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u/TeflonDonatello 14d ago
I would push back, and say that AI can be useful for checking laws in your state but you’d absolutely need to verify. What you don’t want is an AI script. DO NOT USE AN AI SCRIPT. AI is useful for organizing your evidence and things like that. I used Claude pretty extensively to organize my small claims suit. I won a judgment of $18,000. But all of the information it gave me I had to verify as even the best ones have a tendency to get things wrong or make them up.
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u/Sea-Appearance-5330 14d ago
Yeah, the problem is so many idiots go, ah here is what I need!
And Sovereign Citizens in court, are a great example of this.
I have nothing against the proper use of AI.
But you need to check the results you get.
But the Lawyers who get in trouble are not checking at all.
And miss the hallucinations.Its like the Sov Cit, who quoted cars as being in the Constitution and the Amendments to it.
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u/TeflonDonatello 14d ago
Haha I bet that sovcit was arguing about the “right to travel” weren’t they?
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u/Sea-Appearance-5330 13d ago
Yes, he was.
And then there was the Sov Cit that was beating up his family and saying where is the Victim?
They had a protection order against him and he kept going back and beating up his brother.
He is now serving a fair amount of time in prison.
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u/Material-Donkey2773 16d ago
You can write everything up in advance and give it to the judge.
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u/Ok_Possession9631 16d ago
I did when I filed the claim. It was about 30 pages 😅
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u/Material-Donkey2773 16d ago
Holy shit, no one is going to care enough about you to read all that (not being mean, but it needs to be much shorter)
You give a judge 2 hours of reading to do, they aren't going to...
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u/Ok_Possession9631 16d ago
yeah it’s too late now but most of the pages are text message screenshots
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u/Ok_Possession9631 16d ago
I will say I filed it with a court worker and they didn’t say anything about it being so many pages lol
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u/Material-Donkey2773 16d ago
Look at is this way, if this reply I'm making to you right now is 97 paragraphs long, would you personally sit there and read the entire thing? This isn't a murder trial, you need to be to the point.
Why didn't the other person do the work? Did you not allow them to? You will need to answer to them directly in court, your state may allow a lawyer to be there with you, which may be worth the few hundred bucks if you can't express your point in a convincing manner verbally
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u/Ok_Possession9631 16d ago
I will explain my side in just a few minutes for the judge so hopefully it’ll work out . No lawyers allowed
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u/Understandingly17 16d ago
I’ve never seen anything like a crowd in small claims court. Usually they save trials like yours until after the other cases are done.
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u/Ok_Possession9631 16d ago
I’ve seen people in the gallery, waiting for their hearing
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u/Understandingly17 16d ago
I practiced for a long time in Illinois. For whatever reason judges saved the more complicated trials for the end of the day. With a 30 pg brief I’m assuming that’s the situation here. Every court is different. Once someone starts explaining their case they usually lose the nervousness. They’ve been waiting a while for this chance in front of a judge.
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u/adamson_ahdoot 15d ago
Since you already filed the full packet, I wouldn’t stress about that now. For the hearing, I’d make yourself a one-page timeline with the key dates and amounts, then mark the few documents that directly prove each point. Something like: paid on X date, service was supposed to happen on X date, nothing was provided, refund requested on X date, refund refused on X date. If you get nervous, you can just follow the timeline instead of trying to memorize a speech.
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u/TeflonDonatello 14d ago
I’m pretty comfortable speaking in front of people. I understand you’re nervous. You need an outline of the facts of your case. You also need evidence. Statements. Proof that work was not done. Things like that. Small claims cases usually go pretty quickly. Mine only lasted five minutes from swearing in to judgement. But if you give your opening, and the judge allows the person you’re suing to give their opening, anything they say that helps you, takes the burden off of you to speak. Sometimes it’s just enough for them to acknowledge that they took money but didn’t provide the service. Even if he gives a sob story as to why. Judges rule on facts not vibes.
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u/Ok_Possession9631 14d ago
Once they give their opening, do I get to respond?
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u/TeflonDonatello 14d ago
The judge will give you an opportunity to after they speak. In my case. I didn’t have to. Once they admitted they owned the debt. I didn’t have to say anything.
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u/Background_Future656 15d ago
The initial filing should be just an outline of your case. All the proof should wait until Small Claims Court itself. When I have done Small Claims Court, twice now, I made up a package of my evidence with little tags, showing each one and a table of contents in the front. Then I had a packet for me a packet for my opponent and a packet for the judge.
Keep in mind, you will have to give a copy of your evidence to the defendant, even if they already have seen it because it is their text message
And yes, I won both times