Pro Se Skillset → Guides
What actually happens, phase by phase
If you are representing yourself, one of the worst parts of the first month is not knowing the shape of the thing. You know something has started. You do not know how many moves it has, which ones are yours, or how much of it is still ahead.
This is the shape, in eight phases. It comes from one arbitration — mine — so read the timings as one case’s timings and not as yours. The phase names are mine too; your forum will call them something else, or nothing at all. What travels is the sequence, and the fact that each phase hands something to the next one.
One — Filing
You produce the document that opens the case: a demand, or a complaint. Then, usually, a fuller statement of what you say happened and what you want.
What comes back at you is the other side’s answer, and — this is the part people do not plan for — any counterclaims against you. A case you started as a claimant can turn into a case you are also defending. Mine did.
This phase ends when the case is accepted and it is settled which set of procedural rules your matter runs under. That sounds administrative. It is not. Everything after this is measured against those rules, and I filed under one set and was placed under another.
About three months, in my case.
Two — Scheduling
You produce your positions for the first conference, and your terms for a protective order if one is going to exist.
What comes at you is the scheduling order, and this is the single most important piece of paper in the case. It sets every later deadline. When it issues, every deadline you could possibly miss is already written down and already running.
Read it the day it arrives. Put every date in it into one list, each with the paragraph it came from. If you do one thing from this page, do that one.
About a month.
Three — Discovery
You produce written questions, requests for documents, deposition notices, subpoenas, and a great deal of email trying to get the other side to hand things over.
What comes at you is their responses and objections, their production, transcripts, and rulings about what has to be produced. Also, often, far more paper than the dispute deserves.
It ends at the discovery cutoff, and the cutoff does not move because you were not ready.
About six weeks.
Four — Motions
If your rules and your scheduling order allow one, you produce a motion that could end all or part of the case — or you produce the opposition to theirs, and then a reply.
What comes at you is their motion, their opposition, the sworn statements underneath it, and eventually a ruling.
The ruling is what tells you what is actually left to try. Until it lands, you are preparing for a hearing whose shape you do not yet know.
One thing worth knowing before you file anything here: a motion provokes a response, and the response costs you time you had budgeted for something else. Budget for the reaction, not just for the motion.
About five to six weeks.
Five — Pre-hearing
You produce witness lists, exhibit lists, whatever facts both sides will agree to, outlines for questioning, and an opening.
What comes at you is their lists, their motions to keep your evidence out, the rulings on those, and a time budget — how many hours you actually get.
It ends at the final conference, the point at which the format and the clock stop being arguable.
Under three weeks.
Six — The hearing, or the trial
You produce your own testimony and your witnesses’, the exhibits you offer, and your examinations of their witnesses.
What comes at you is their case, their objections, and a list of what was actually admitted — which is not the same as what you brought.
It ends when the evidence closes. From that moment, only what was admitted may be argued. This is where inexperience costs the most. I knew my material. What I did not know was how to get testimony admitted, and knowing the material is not a substitute for that.
Two days, in my case. Yours may be an afternoon or a fortnight.
Seven — Post-hearing briefing
You produce a closing brief, and then a rebuttal to theirs. Some decision-makers prefer closings spoken aloud instead.
What comes at you is their brief and their rebuttal, often landing the same day as yours, which means you write your rebuttal fast and under pressure.
It ends when the hearing is formally declared closed. The clock on the decision starts then.
About three weeks.
Eight — The decision, and fees
You produce a fee or cost application, if the rules that govern you allow one.
What comes at you is the decision itself, a short window in which corrections can be asked for, and — set by law rather than by your forum — deadlines for going to a court about it.
Those windows are short and they are not forgiving. This is one of the places to ask a lawyer rather than to work it out yourself.
Open-ended.
What runs underneath all eight
Four lists, started in week one and kept for the life of the case.
What is due, and when — every deadline, each carrying the document and paragraph it came from. Not your memory, not your inbox.
What you have verified — every fact, with the document that proves it, or the words “not confirmed” where nothing does.
What not to say — a standing list of things you will not say, write, or agree to, read before every letter, call and filing. One careless sentence can be kept and used for the life of the case. I know, because I volunteered things I did not have to.
Who is who — every person in the matter and what they are to it.
These four are not paperwork for its own sake. They are what lets you answer a question in February about something that happened in October, which is the whole game.
Before you use any of this. This is one person’s account of one matter. It is not legal advice, and it does not tell you what the law is or what to do in your case. Your timetable is set by the procedural rules that govern you and by the orders issued in your case — go and read those, and where they differ from anything here, they win. Where something is irreversible, or a deadline is running, or you cannot tell what a rule means, that is a question for a lawyer, and there is a list of low-cost places to find one in the free kit.
If this was useful
The First-Week Kit sets out the seven things to do before you do anything else, and The Case Snapshot is the form that gets a matter out of your head and onto paper. Both are free.