Should I Represent Myself In Court? Written on March 27, 2010, by Tom Doerr.

Some people chose to represent themselves in court for a variety of reasons, low income individuals qualify for legal aid and rich defendants can afford high priced lawyers so the cause for representing yourself in court usually falls down to middle-income people who do not qualify for legal aid but cannot afford the representation required. The common misconception is that it is done out of choice. It takes at least seven years to become a fully qualified lawyer with no experience so consider how well you would trust yourself to perform surgery on yourself after a few weeks research and you are looking at the same sort of impact it might have on your success.