Representing yourself in court: What's involved?

Attending court in person

When you’re represented by a lawyer, you can sometimes choose to be absent from the hearing because your lawyer is present to speak on your behalf. Without a lawyer, you have to be available to go to the courthouse whenever your ex or a judge requests your presence.

Appointments at the courthouse are scheduled on weekdays, during the day and can last for several hours.

You could end up going to the courthouse for different reasons, for exemple if:

• you have an urgent application to present to a judge
• you have to file documents related to your case
• you want to require a person to hand over a document to you
• you want to examine a witness before a hearing.

Communicating directly with your ex

When you’re represented by a lawyer, you can ask him or her to handle all communications with your ex or your ex's lawyer or to accompany you when you have to be in the presence of your ex in court.

Without a lawyer, you'll have to communicate directly with your ex or his or her lawyer because you’ll need to have discussions to move your application forward in court.

For example, you’ll have to communicate to:

• send documents to each other
• make a list of issues to be decided by the juge
• confirm your mutual availability for the purpose of setting a hearing date.

You may also have to cross-examine your ex during a hearing, but in some cases – for example, if you’ve been charged with committing domesic or family violence or if there is an order against you for that reason – the judge will require you to use a lawyer for that stage.

Dealing with complications in your file

When the unexpected happens, a lawyer is there to advise and guide you on the next steps to take. This doesn’t prevent you from starting the process on your own and checking to see whether you can manage everything by yourself. When you’re alone, you have to come up with your own solutions and submit the appropriate documents at the right time.

The legal process often becomes complicated when the person receiving the judicial application decides to contest it. That’s when it becomes difficult to predict how your case will evolve or to decide on a strategy.

Conversely, the judicial process is usually easier if you know that the application will not be contested or if you separated by agreement, for example by filing a “joint application for divorce”. 

Preparing you witnesses and gathering your evidence

If your ex contests your application, you’ll eventually have a hearing to decide your points of disagreement. In anticipation of this hearing, a lawyer can help you prepare to testify before the judge. A lawyer can also help your witnesses and anticipate the type of questions your ex or his or her lawyer may ask.

Without a lawyer, you’ll have to call your witnesses and ensure that they appear in court and are ready to testify on the day of the hearing.

You’ll also have to gather and organize all the evidence that you wish to present to the judge. The procedures for obtaining certain documents can be complex and information on how to obtain them can be difficult to find.

Finally, on the day of the hearing, you’ll have a major role to play because, during your own testimony, you’ll have to raise the necessary objections to the questions the opposing party will ask you, or in other words, you’ll have to object to these questions being allowed.

Did you know?

If you choose to represent yourself in court, please note that there are resources to help you.

Bear in mind that you may hire a lawyer at any stage of the process or mandate a lawyer to handle only certain tasks instead of the entire file.

Representing Yourself in Court in Family Matters (Fondation du Barreau)