all right so today’s question comes from How to Negotiate a Settlement Without a Lawyer from Dallas and Joanne wants to know is it possible for a pro se plaintiff that somebody that’s representing themselves not an attorneyis it possible for a pro se plaintiff to negotiate her own settlement or should I hire an attorney for this limited purpose all right this is an interesting question so apparently Joanne is pro se meaning she’s representing herself in a legal matter and she’s at a point here where there is the potential the possibility of negotiating a settlement
and she wants to know if she needs to hire a lawyer for that so let me start off by saying that there are legal matters and and you’ve heard me say this on this show many times before there are legal matters that you can absolutely handle by yourself you don’t need an attorney to do it you know you can get a little guidance you can use some of the resources that you might find out on UTL radio comm and you can honestly successfully represent yourself there are times when you don’t want to represent yourself
right it’s not a good idea it’s too personal or just just not appropriate to represent
yourself in certain matters so you know here with negotiating a settlement is it possible
to represent yourself yeah I’m gonna say yes if you are the right personality and you
have some skill can you know when it comes to negotiation and what we’re gonna do
after this this question our next segment we’re going to actually talk about some
strategy and and tips for successful negotiations whether it’s in
your personal life business or for a legal matter but getting back to Joanne for a second you know sometimes when you negotiate directly with another attorney and I’m assuming that the other side has an attorney you might be at a slight disadvantage for two reasons the first reason is that that attorney has probably negotiated more deals and settlements than you have secondly you are going to be working off of a lot of emotion and I think sometimes attorneys who are going up against the pro se plaintiff they know that and they almost
How to Negotiate a Settlement Without a Lawyer
do things on purpose some of them to fluster you maybe they’ll say things to you about the quality of your case and another attorney hearing that might just blow it off and say yeah whatever you know it doesn’t matter what you say to me I believe in my case but sometimes with a pro se litigant you know somebody representing themselves they hear that they’re like oh maybe I don’t have a good case he’s an attorney and I’m not and he’s telling me my case is no good maybe I maybe I should just settle for
whatever he’s going to give me so that’s you know a potential problem and the other
issue is that there’s no buffer there’s no way to say to the other attorney hold on I’ve
got to convey that offer to my client and then you know that buys you some time there’s
a discussion between you and your attorney and ultimately you can make a decision as
to whether you want to counter or accept the offer or reject it completely so you know
tough
if you’re the right personality and if you understand some of the basics of negotiation so listen to the next segments that you can pick some of those up if you’re somebody who is super emotional and gets very angry or upset or flustered or nervous or cries then it might make sense to bring in an attorney to help you negotiate the settlement now if it is some sort of large money liability issue right we’re we’re talking about 25 30 40 50 you thousand dollars or upwards and you’ve got a lot to lose here then it might
make sense to retain an attorney for the limited purpose like you said of representing you in the negotiations you don’t have to make that attorney necessarily attorney of record you’d hire that attorney for a limited scope engagement and that would be for the purposes of helping you negotiate a settlement so the answer the question little complex little little little gray but yes if you’re the right person you have a little bit of know-how know if you’re overly emotional or if you don’t
How to Negotiate a Settlement Without a Lawyer
really know what you’re doing okay so Joanne thank you for your question and I wish you the best of luck with this if you do have additional questions please give me a call nine seven three nine four nine three seven seven zero I’d be happy to talk to you privately about some of that
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