Being the Plaintiff

Throughout this semester, I have been on the Defendant's side--the one receiving a Complaint from the Plaintiff and must now go to Court. The lawyer I worked with is mainly a Defense Attorney, but he does work the other side too.

Recently I have become the Plaintiff in a case. I won't go into detail about exactly what it is since I have not had my hearing yet, but I will give an overview of what is going on and what I have had to do.

Being the Plaintiff means that you are the one who filled out a Complaint for something against the Defendant. The Plaintiff is the one who takes the other side to Court to resolve an issue. The first step is filling out a Complaint form. In this form, you write your name, address and phone number under the Plaintiff, and you write the person's information who you are taking to Court under the title of Defendant.

Then, you write exactly why you are taking the Defendant to Court. You must be specific in this part because if you are not and you go to Court and lose, then you won't get what you wanted. For example, if you are taking someone to Court for a replacement of a security deposit, you must specifically write that in the Complaint. Once you go to Court, if you lose and you realize that you went to Court for the wrong thing, you have to start all over again.

Once you have filled out the Complaint or "Civil Summons," as it is also known as, you have the option of filling out a form to waive all fees. You can do this if you don't have enough money to pay for Court costs or anything else. I did this because I'm a student and have no source of income; therefore, I filled out a form to waive all fees. So, now going to Court won't cost me anything whether I win or lose.

Now that I have done this, I wait for a hearing date to be scheduled. All conversation or new information about my case is first sent to my lawyer. Even if someone wants to talk to me about the case, they must talk to my lawyer first. I've gathered all the information I need in order to win this case. This means anything related to my case--i.e. documents, video recordings, photos etc.--I have kept to bring to Court so that I have evidence that can back up my side of the story and, hopefully win the case.

It's frusterating not knowing exactly what is going on with my case, since I am not working with my lawyer anymore. You only know what you know until your lawyer contacts you with new information. Until then you must wait.