With the Temporary Injunction hearing behind me, I made what turned out to be one of the most momentous decisions of my life: I decided to file a libel lawsuit by myself, without the benefit of legal counsel. Instead of being represented by a lawyer, I would be acting pro se, a Latin phrase that means “on one’s own behalf.”
I was living on my Social Security income, and I didn’t have a couple of hundred thousand dollars lying around to hire a libel lawyer. But that didn’t mean that somebody could falsely accuse me of a sex crime and not expect to suffer any consequences.
I couldn’t imagine not trying to do something about it, even if the odds were stacked against me. How could I live with myself if I let somebody do something like that to me and I didn’t even try to fight back?
Resources
If it were easy to figure out how to file a lawsuit just by Googling it, nobody would bother to go to law school.
Google did turn up a couple of references that I knew would come in handy: the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code (which told me what I could sue people for) and the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure (which told me how I could sue them).
But I knew that I’d need more information, so I looked around for additional resources. And here’s what I found.
O’Connor’s
It was obvious to me that I would need more details about the intricacies and implications of arcane legal procedures than I was likely to find in the official Texas Rules. The best resource I found was O’Connor’s Texas Rules: Civil Trials, a thick paperback that was available for sale on the website of publisher Thomson Reuters for the attractive price of only $450. Thomson Reuters also offered what they called a “subscription” plan, which basically allowed me to make monthly payments on the book for two years, as if I were financing a small car. I chose the monthly payment option.
Looking back, I’d say that O’Connor’s proved to be an invaluable resource – but only for a few months. After that, I found that it had provided me with such a good foundation that I was able to Google my way to further procedural knowledge, and I rarely needed to open it at all. It was probably worth the money, but I admit that it was frustrating that I had to continue to pay the monthly subscription fee for two years, even though I rarely used the book.
Casetext
I did find documentation about a few Texas libel lawsuits via Google, which only served to make me realize that I had to be able to analyze and cite previous Texas court decisions. I needed access to some kind of legal research service.
I checked out LexisNexis and Westlaw, the best-known services, only to find that they catered to “legal professionals” (which is a lawyer’s way of saying “lawyers only”). Then I stumbled across Casetext, a service that was available to non-lawyers and offered everything I needed. It seemed pricey at $100 a month, but I didn’t see how I could sue somebody without it, so I bit the bullet and subscribed to Casetext.
I used to believe that I could prevail in a lawsuit as long as the facts and the law were on my side. That’s true as far as it goes, but my understanding of the word “law” was too restrictive. It turns out that “law” isn’t merely encapsulated in legislative acts. Judges rely extensively on “case law,” which is the interpretation of those legislative acts contained in decisions that have been rendered by courts over the decades and centuries. Without the ability to access those decisions, it would have been impossible for me to have created legal documents that would have had any impact on the courts.
In other words, I can now see that there’s no way I could have pursued the lawsuit without a subscription to Casetext.
(Update: I’ve just learned that Casetext will be discontinued on March 31, 2025 [sigh]. I hope I can find a cost-effective replacement. I’ll check back in at some point to let you know what happens.)
eFile Texas
I could file motions and responses by driving to the Collin County courthouse. But that’s more than an hour’s round trip, and it’s a nightmare in bad weather and during rush hour. And the District Clerk’s office in the courthouse is open only until 4:30 PM on weekdays, and not at all on weekends and holidays.
What if I finished creating an important response to my opponent’s motion at 4 PM on a Friday? That wouldn’t leave enough time for me to drive to the courthouse and get there while the clerk’s office was still open, so I wouldn’t be able to file my response until Monday morning. As an alternative, I could do it the old-fashioned way: I could print the response and drop it into the US Mail. But that still wouldn’t reach the court in time to be filed on Friday, even if I sent it overnight via FedEx.
Luckily, the courts have implemented 21st-century technology, so it’s now possible to submit documents electronically via the eFile Texas website. The first few times I did that, I was incredibly nervous when I was about to click the Submit button. But now that I’ve been doing it for a few years, I find that the procedure is relatively straightforward. And even when I’m afraid I’ve messed something up, telephone support from eFile Texas (and from the clerk’s office) has always been friendly, professional, and helpful.
re:SearchTX
I was pleased to learn that I could file court documents without having to change out of my PJs and drive to court. But how could I retrieve copies of the documents that were filed by my opponents?
In the old days, I would have been “served” copies of an opponent’s filings via US Mail – and maybe I’d have received a “courtesy” copy via email if my opponents were in a courteous mood. But now I can receive notifications of court filings directly from the court. The catch is that I can’t download those documents from the court’s website. So if I were notified that an important document had been filed, I wouldn’t be able to read it unless I drove all the way to the courthouse and bought a copy from the clerk’s office at 10¢ a page.
Luckily, eFile Texas has a sister company called re:SearchTX that allows me to download those court documents, also for 10¢ a page, with an additional $15 monthly subscription fee tacked on. And because I don’t have to drive to the courthouse, the savings on gas and tolls more than covers the subscription fee.
When I started using re:SearchTX in 2022, I could download almost every document – except court orders, which were not available. So if I were to learn from the court’s website that an order had been issued, I wouldn’t know what that order said until the post office dropped it into my mailbox a week later. That frustrating loophole was closed by the Texas Supreme Court in October 2024, so now all court documents should be available for download from re:SearchTX. I’m skeptical, but I’m hopeful.
I should mention that I could download documents directly from the court’s website if I were an attorney. But non-lawyers are not afforded the same consideration. Is that fair? Of course not. Is it legal? Well, Article I of the Texas Constitution says that all men have equal rights, and that no man or set of men is entitled to exclusive separate privileges. So the Texas Constitution mandates that if lawyers are entitled to the privilege of being able to download documents from the court’s website, that privilege must be extended to non-lawyers as well.
Lawyers already have enough advantages over non-lawyers in legal proceedings. Denying non-lawyers easy access to cases in which they are involved feels like a deliberate insult from the Texas system of “justice” and a clear case of Tex Abuse. It appears that the courts, which are supposed to enforce the Constitution, feel like they’re free to ignore it.
Get to Work, Hank!
Finally, I had all of my resources lined up, and I was ready to find out if I could beat the lawyers at their own game. I knew I was right, but that didn’t mean I was going to prevail.
I hate to sound like a cynic – but in real life, it seems to me that, more often than not, Goliath wins.
But win or lose, I didn’t really feel like I had a choice.
I had to try.
“Defeat is not the worst of failures.
Not to have tried is the true failure.”
– George Edward Woodberry
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