Who Wrote That Up For You?

Robert Songer is a private investigator with L and S Investigations, serving the east Tennessee metro area. He described his law enforcement background and the types of services his agency works on, from computer forensics to process serving. Robert emphasized the need for private investigators to prioritize ethical behavior, and he shared his efforts at time management to minimize costs for his c...

Daniel Medwed is a distinguished professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University School of Law and the author of "Barred: Why the Innocent Can't Get Out of Prison." He shared the procedural hurdles faced by the wrongfully convicted in getting new trials, even when they have proven their actual innocence. The criminal justice system values the finality of criminal trials over all e...

Wanda Singleton is the lead private investigator and owner of FYI Private Investigations in the Atlanta (GA) metro area. Wanda shared her experience as a correctional officer in California and the process of becoming a licensed private investigator. In Georgia, she also became a certified process server. She has additional certifications as a criminal defense researcher, which is a specialty area...

Frank Patka IV is a founder of Changing Patterns, providing education, mentoring, and resources for citizens returning from incarceration. He credits the mentoring he received while incarcerated on an armed robbery conviction many years ago. Frank witnessed many of those who'd been released with him fail at re-entry, and he realized they'd been denied the knowledge on re-entry that he'd learned. C...

Eric Peterson at Peterson Investigations shared his background as an LAPD detective and his evolution to a private investigator. He discussed the need for private investigations in collecting and authenticating evidence for a wide variety of civil claims. While his agency is usually retained by a law firm, some pro se litigants have used him to catch cheating spouses or prove that certain environm...

Jessica Bednarz runs the Chicago Bar Foundation's Justice Entrepreneurs Project (JEP), an incubator for small and solo law firms providing greater access to justice in the Chicago metro area. Jessica discussed the requirements for firms joining the incubator, as well as the entrepreneurial training offered to them.   JEP is part of a law firm incubator movement aiming to improve the prospects...

Jazz Hampton, CEO at TurnSignal, shared the frustration he felt at hearing of traffic stops that ended in the death of innocent motorists. His legal career in BigLaw gave him little opportunity to address these concerns, so he left to create an app that ensures the safety of both police and motorists during traffic stops. TurnSignl allows drivers to bring a local attorney into interactions with po...

Ken Friedman is the general counsel and chief industry officer at Divorce.com, a low-cost online alternative to messy litigation for dissolving a marriage. He is a former vice president of legal at LegalZoom and is the founding chair of Courtroom5's advisory board. Ken first coined the term "justice tech" to distinguish consumer solutions from other forms of legal tech that more commonly serve the...

Dan Culhane, CEO of Discovery Genie, had difficulty responding to discovery requests as a new lawyer. He also had trouble understanding his cases without organizing his evidence first. Those experiences led him to create Discovery Genie, a document production technology tool that levels the playing field for small and solo law firms competing against larger firms. – Connect on Facebook: https://ww...

Melissa Franca and Emma Hawley are law students (3L and 2L, respectively) at the University of Wisconsin School of Law. They are currently enrolled in the school's Law & Entrepreneurship externship course, led by previous “Who Wrote That Up For You?” guest, Professor Charles Von Simson. The course pairs them with startup companies and entrepreneurs, and the two students have chosen to complete...

Olivia Miller, a junior partner at the Chad Barr Law Firm in central Florida, described the pro se litigants she sees in small claims courts. In her experience, judicial assistants and clerks offer valuable information to help pro se litigants understand the process. Judges go the extra mile to ensure pro se litigants have time to express themselves and get a fair hearing. Still, most pro se litig...

Samuel Tate worked as a court administrator for many years and witnessed the inefficiencies of court clerks and other staff answering the same questions from people with business in the courts. "What should I bring for jury duty?" and "Where do I park?" were among the daily questions that took time and resources away from other important duties and services, but people often used different words a...

"Who Wrote That Up For You?" co-hosts Sonja Ebron and Debra Slone discuss cases in the news involving pro se criminal defendants. The case of Darrell Brooks, the man convicted of murder by driving a car through the Waukesha, Wisconsin Christmas parade, drew particular umbrage due to Brooks' pro se defense of sovereign citizenship, the notion that the court lacked jurisdiction over him because he h...

Delaney Edge has wanted to be a lawyer for many years. She's a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a U.S. history major. In high school, Delaney shadowed a judge and a solo lawyer. In college, she interned with Courtroom5 and worked at the civil legal clinic on campus. She's now taking the LSAT and preparing applications for law school.    Delaney understa...

Bernice Smith lost her daughter to a failed dialysis procedure. No lawyer would seek justice for her medical malpractice claim because her daughter's lengthy illness lowered expectations of a big payday. But Bernice wasn't interested in money. She was interested in finding out what had happened to her daughter and in making the people responsible acknowledge their mistakes. So she sued them on her...

Miguel Willis is executive director of the ATJ Tech Fellows Program and Innovator in Residence for the Future of the Profession Initiative at Penn Carey Law. Miguel returned to "Who Wrote That Up For You" to discuss his vision for the future of law and the legal profession, one that broadly guarantees access to justice and the rule of law while protecting the mental health of lawyers and reflectin...

"Who Wrote That Up For You?" co-hosts Sonja Ebron and Debra Slone discuss the case of a homeowner who sued the company responsible for collecting his trash. Many have expressed surprise that someone would file a lawsuit over such a minor complaint. There are many seemingly trivial issues that could be resolved in the courts but are rarely viewed as causes of legal action. In fact, the latest "Just...

Mike Whelan, Jr. is the author of "Lawyer Forward: Finding Your Place in the Future of Law," a guide for solo law firms struggling to build sustainable practices in a fast-moving legal industry. Mike sees the future of law from a supply-chain perspective based on his experience in logistics and as the owner of a solo law firm. He wants law firms and their clients to recognize that lawyers shouldn'...

Jim Gibbs is the co-founder and CEO of Meter Feeder, a mobile app that automatically pays for parking when you park your car. The app was inspired by Jim's inability to find coins for parking meters, resulting in costly parking tickets and unwanted interactions with local traffic courts. Jim recalled his last corporate job and the moment his boss persuaded him to become an entrepreneur, reminding...

Patti Mazurkiewicz is a nurse and certified life care planner. She described the use of life care plans in personal injury litigation and the process of creating them. She explained that certification to become a life care planner includes courses and exams on the purposes, procedures, and ethics of estimating the medical and other needs of an injured person for the remainder of their life. Life c...

Alison Peck is a law professor at West Virginia University and the author of "The Accidental History of U.S. Immigration Courts," an astonishing recollection of the origins and growth of the Justice Department procedures that decide whether immigrants stay or go. Professor Peck described the types of claims heard by these agency courts, the legal authorities relied upon to decide cases, and the ad...

Emily LaGratta at LaGratta Consulting is a lawyer, former public defender, and justice reform innovator. She helps judges and other court professionals reform their operations to benefit court users, primarily pro se litigants. Emily explained "procedural fairness" and its relationship to actual fairness. She also explained the other components of actual fairness in courts and some of the work she...

Mark M. Bello practiced law for 25 years before founding a litigation finance company. In retirement, he began writing about a case early in his career in which he got justice for two victims who'd been sexually molested by a Catholic priest. It was easier to tell the story as fiction, and thus began a new career as a legal fiction writer. Mark is the author of several works of fiction based on th...

"Who Wrote That Up For You?" co-hosts Sonja Ebron and Debra Slone discuss new research on the characteristics of pro se litigants in U.S. federal courts. Law professors Roger Michalski and Andrew Hammond reviewed the dockets of 2.5 million federal cases over a 10-year period to identify the geographic, demographic, and economic backgrounds of the sizable population of people representing themselve...

Kenn Goldblatt, author of "The Pro Se Litigant's Civil Litigation Handbook," discussed his background as a paralegal and pro se civil litigant, and his desire to help others by sharing his knowledge. Kenn shared the benefits of the book for people handling their own litigation, including understanding the process and some of the options at each phase of a case. He often provides direction and serv...