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Ten Tips for Staying Sane in Court
Here are some suggestions that will help you keep your mind clear and calm during a lawsuit.
Going to court initially evokes strong emotions: anxiety if you're the one being sued; hope and excitement if you're the one bringing the case. But once the battle begins, the court experience commonly causes both sides to experience another set of emotions -- anger and depression.
Here are ten tips to help you avoid these states of mind.
1. Don't Take Your Rights Too Seriously
Our culture often leads us to believe that we have highly valuable rights and that every minor violation of these rights means we can go to court and be awarded a pot of gold. Not only does this rarely happen, but going into court with this worldview usually means that if we are unsuccessful in vindicating our "rights" by getting a big judgment against the other side, we feel doubly betrayed by the system. It is more conducive to long-term sanity to forget about "rights" and to think instead of our true needs. In this context, it may help if you remember the old Gypsy curse: "May you be involved in a lawsuit in which you know you are right."
2. Court Is the Wrong Place for Revenge
If your goal is to go to court to punish someone for what they have done to you, remember there is a good chance he or she will fight back and try to punish you. As the old saying goes, "If you seek revenge, first dig two graves."
3. Mediate, Don't Litigate
Litigation is trial by combat. Mediation, on the other hand, is much more likely to be a healing process. Mediation focuses on ending a dispute by finding a solution both sides agree on. By getting disputants working together to find a solution both can live with, it gets away from the idea that one side should win and the other lose. Instead, it presupposes that disputes almost always have a point of resolution that allows both sides to come away with their minimum needs being met. For more on mediation, see Mediate, Don't Litigate: Strategies for Successful Mediation, by Peter Lovenheim and Lisa Guerin (Nolo).
FAQs
- How is the court system structured?
- What if I am selected as an alternate juror?
- What happens after each side has presented all its evidence?
- Are there limits on the power of the courts?
- What if there are other claims or parties that should be involved in the litigation?