Preparing for Court: What To Bring, What Not
Are you heading to court and you’re not sure what you should or shouldn’t bring? My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m with Wirth Law Office and I want to try to help make law easy by helping you figure out how to navigate the court system and your role in it. Today I want to talk about what should you or should not bring to court.
A lot of these videos in this series are going to be something that might seem like common sense, but honestly, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. The obvious ones, don’t bring guns, don’t bring knives, don’t bring incendiary devices or drugs or anything like that into the courthouse. That’s not going to get you very far. You can bring your phone, and keep it silenced. You can bring your purse, your wallet, things like that. Just make sure that there’s nothing dangerous in any purse or handbag that you’re bringing.
What Your Attorney Recommends
What you really need to be focused on bringing is whatever your attorney has told you will be helpful in court. I’ve had a lot of cases where I’ve told my clients, I need you to bring printouts of screenshots of text messages. I had a case a couple of years ago where I really needed a client to bring proof that certain deeds for land that he had purchased had been recorded with the county clerk. Didn’t bring it, couldn’t get it to me ahead of time, and didn’t bring it with me to court. It made my job a lot more difficult trying to get through that particular hearing.
Just check in with your attorney. If you’ve got court coming up, let’s say you’ve got court coming up next Monday, by the Wednesday before that, touch base. Hey, I have court coming up. Do I need to bring anything? Is there anything that I need to be aware of? Is there anything that I need to say? That will really guide you better than anything else.
Prepare Yourself for Court
But if you’re unsure and you haven’t gotten real clear advice or let’s say you’ve got court tomorrow morning and it’s 9.45 the night before court, obviously you can’t call your lawyer and ask. If something comes to you where you’re thinking, maybe I should have brought that up, just think to yourself, is it relevant to the case? If it is relevant to the case, how is it relevant to the case? And if it’s relevant and you think that it’s going to be beneficial, go ahead and bring it. I tell my clients all the time, that it’s better to have it and not need it than it is to need it and not have it.
Contact Us for Help Getting Ready
We want to make sure that you are as equipped as possible to get the result that you’re going for. Your attorney is going to do everything that they can to make sure that they’re prepared on their end, but make sure that you are checking in and following their advice on what you need to bring on your end to make sure that you are absolutely prepared. If you have any questions about what to do to get ready for court or what to bring to court, please feel free to contact me, Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office. I’m here to make law easy. Thank you.
