My story is not any different from anyone else’s. We all wake up in the morning with any number of challenges – the daily trials and tribulations – some lingering and some not that, for the most part, can compound as the day progresses. What may be interesting about my struggle is that I am a non-lawyer living in the Latinate and alien world of lawyers. And everyday since that fateful decision to assert my rights – to seek justice; to right a wrong; and to heal myself, it has been the fight of my life. It has been excruciatingly painful and sometimes incredibly crushing. I live in poverty and outright deprivation, but I would never trade the education that I am acquiring. It’s knowledge by immersion and baptism by fire that someday I hope to use to advocate on someone’s behalf whom not unlike myself was aggrieved or wrongly and unjustly accused.
It was 2003 and that year I was training for the “Suzuki Rock and Roll Marathon” in San Diego in June and the “Maui Marathon” in September. There was a stalker living in our apartment complex and during one of my training runs, I became a victim of mistaken identity, as I appeared to be running from a scene. I was stopped and questioned. And from that moment on, I became a marked man. After a series of mini-interrogations over the next months that was countered with spirited resistance and combative exchange seeking the release of the accuser’s name and all information about the incident including records, security logs and the like. What followed was a sophisticated cover-up that effectively denied me an opportunity to directly examine the evidence and question the accuser. To this day, all that information has been fiercely protected and has not been released. Using the power of the courts, it became my mission to finally gain access to the information.In one fell swoop, my life as I had worked hard to create it was no longer. I was not only out of a place to live but also the business that I had been operating out of my home was scuttled and effectively became insolvent. It has been a daily struggle since just to get back the life that I was accustomed to.
For some time after that harrowing ordeal - of being branded a deplorable and an unwholesome man – the injury laid undiscovered. And as in any wound underneath a person’s flesh, deep in a person’s heart and mind, it took a long while for it to percolate until finally the effects were obvious to see. It wasn’t until Christmas of 2006 that it finally rose to the level of outrage resulting in a letter entitled “Notice of Impending Lawsuit” that was mailed to Shea Properties Management, the company that built the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. What followed was a “Formal Complaint” with the California State Bar Association for the malicious conduct of the lawyer and finally, because of what amounted to deference to the civil court by the bar association, a case filed in the Superior Court of California, Central Justice Center – Santa Ana.
Before the end of 2007, I had filed three separate cases against companies and individuals for a variety of causes. By the beginning of the year 2008, unlike all the years previous, my New Year’s Resolution was to start a new life and rid myself of all those odds and ends that had anchored me down. For that purpose, my tool was the rule of law. Thus, my life as a Pro Per Litigator had began.
Through my blog, I will let you enter a world so unusual and yet so vital for civilized society that fighting for its purity, beneficence and equal access to those who seek justice is a worthy cause. Unlike certain institutions that have failed to advance with the times, this critical area of social exchange is worth promoting to the level of simplicity, easy understanding and approachability. For with its prescriptions, the order of law is one cornerstone of a life that is well lived
