Representing Myself in Court: What I Learned When There Was No Other Way Forward

Recently, I represented myself in court.

It is not something I ever imagined I would do. In fact, if you had told me five years ago that I would one day be standing in a courtroom, advocating for myself in a complex legal matter, I would have laughed politely and changed the subject. While I am a lawyer, I did not have the opportunity to practice law due to a lengthy legal challenge, and so I had no training in legal strategy or courtroom procedure. So, I found myself in this position, with no other viable option through circumstance rather than choice.

For a long time, I resisted even engaging with the idea. By the time the trial date approached, I was exhausted in a way that is hard to explain to anyone who has not lived inside a long-running legal dispute. This was not a sharp, dramatic crisis. It was a slow, grinding, five-year process that drained energy, money, and hope in equal measure.

There were moments when I seriously considered simply deleting the correspondence as it arrived—emails from the plaintiff, formal letters from the court, communications from the judge’s associate—and letting the case land wherever it landed. Even if that meant bankruptcy. Even if that meant losing everything. There is a particular kind of fatigue that makes catastrophic outcomes feel almost peaceful, simply because they would bring an end.

In the early stages, I did what most people do: I hired lawyers.

At first, they were confident and encouraging. They told me they couldn’t wait to tell my story. They framed the situation as David versus Goliath. They assured me that I had a strong case, or that the plaintiff had no case at all. Some of them even seemed excited by it. But words, I learned, are cheap. And optimism does not pay invoices.

Each time money ran out, the lawyers disappeared. Not dramatically, not unkindly—but definitively. The pattern repeated itself over and over. A new lawyer would come on board, review the situation, express confidence, and then—when it became clear how much work was required and how little money remained—they would quietly withdraw.

What I did not understand at the time, and only fully grasped later, was that the nature of the case itself would not be revealed until we were sitting in court.

At one point, my final lawyer directly asked the plaintiff what their case actually was. The response was that they would not reveal it before trial. This meant that trying to “nut out” the claim required combing through the 4,500 documents the plaintiff had submitted to the court. No lawyer, understandably, had the time to do that with the limited funds available. And so, each one, after quoting approximately $250,000 to represent me at trial, received my stunned rejection of that “offer.”

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was not just unrealistic—it was absurd in the context of my life. And yet, without that money, I was effectively unrepresented.

The moment it truly hit me came one afternoon when I was sitting on the gravel roadside near my home. I remember the physical sensation clearly: the rough stones under my hands, the feeling of being grounded and completely unmoored at the same time. I wondered whether to call my brother. When I did call him, he didn’t answer.

I remember thinking, very plainly: Who can I turn to?

And then, unexpectedly, a name appeared in my mind.

Years earlier, when the court action was first taken against me, a lawyer I didn’t know had reached out via LinkedIn. He had asked if I was okay and whether I needed help. At the time, I replied cheerfully that I was fine and already had a lawyer. It felt polite, responsible, even optimistic.

Two years later, when all the lawyers had deserted me, I reached out to him again. I told him I had no money and asked whether he had any suggestions. He spoke with me at length, talked through the situation, and again explained that full representation would be around the $250,000 mark. He also suggested some alternative paths. Then the call ended, and life carried on.

But sitting there on the gravel, his name came back to me with clarity.

I rang him and told him, once again, that I could not pay legal fees. I told him the court date was approaching and that I didn’t know what to do. I admitted that I was considering walking away entirely—but that I was afraid the court might impose a fine that could not be extinguished in bankruptcy, and that such a fine could follow me for the rest of my life.

He listened. And then he said something I will never forget.

“Merri,” he said, “that is right. And you seem like an intelligent lady. I will support you to represent yourself.”

Just like that.

For $5,000, this man read and commented on my submissions to the court. He was on call throughout the trial, offering practical tips and calm suggestions. He helped me understand process, timing, and tone. But perhaps most importantly, he was unwaveringly positive about what I was doing.

In his view, I was not being reckless or irresponsible. I was utilising the Australian legal system as it was designed to be used—by ordinary people pleading their own case when no other path was available.

That reframing changed everything.

Representing yourself in court is not something I would recommend lightly. It is demanding, confronting, and often frightening. You are exposed in a way that feels deeply personal. Every mistake feels amplified. Every silence feels heavy. You are acutely aware of what you don’t know.

But I also discovered something unexpected: clarity.

When you represent yourself, you are forced to understand the case at a fundamental level. You cannot outsource comprehension. You must read every document, follow every argument, and articulate your position plainly. There is no buffer. No interpreter. No one else to absorb the emotional weight.

That is both the hardest part and, strangely, the most empowering.

I learned how the system actually works, not how it is imagined to work. I learned that access to justice is not evenly distributed, but that there are still cracks through which determined people can move. I learned that preparation matters more than polish, and sincerity more than theatrics.

I also learned how easily people are pushed out of the legal system—not because they are wrong, but because they are tired, poor, or overwhelmed.

There were moments during the trial when I felt utterly out of my depth. There were also moments when I realised that no one knew my story better than I did. No one cared more about the outcome. And no one was going to save me.

Standing there, speaking for myself, I felt fear—but I also felt agency.

I do not know what the final outcome will mean in the long arc of my life. What I do know is that I did not disappear. I did not delete the emails. I did not walk away simply because the process was punishing.

Instead, with a small amount of support and a great deal of resolve, I showed up.

If there is one thing I hope others take from this, it is not that self-representation is easy or ideal. It is that the legal system belongs to people, too—not just to those who can afford to navigate it comfortably.

And sometimes, when there is no other way forward, you find yourself doing something you never imagined you could do—and discovering, in the process, that you are more capable than you were ever led to believe.

Finding One Another in the Gaps

My aim in speaking openly about representing myself and being forced to navigate complex legal processes —without money, representation or the deep knowledge I thought I would need was confusing, exhausting, and frightening. There was the persistent sense of being left behind by a system that claims to serve everyone.

What strikes me most is how isolating these experiences can feel while they are happening, and how unnecessary that isolation is. There is strength in knowing that others have stood where you are standing now. There is relief in hearing, “This was hard for me too,” and hope in learning how someone else endured it.

I believe there is value—real, practical value—in sharing these stories. Not to offer legal advice or false reassurance, but to support one another through processes that can otherwise feel dehumanising and overwhelming. When formal help is unavailable or unaffordable, connection becomes its own form of assistance. Knowing you are not alone does not fix the system, but it can make surviving it possible.

If you are moving through a legal process without representation, or have done so in the past, your story matters. It deserves to be heard—not just as a cautionary tale, but as evidence of resilience, ingenuity, and quiet courage. In telling these stories to one another, we create a small counterweight to a system that too often relies on silence and attrition.

Sometimes support does not come from institutions at all. Sometimes it comes from recognising ourselves in each other—and choosing, together, not to disappear.

If you would like to share your unrepresented story, please reach out to: merri.m@princeville.com.au