Representing yourself in court can be a tricky endeavor. There are confusing legal terms to learn, strict procedures to follow and volumes of case law that often need to be understood to prepare a case. Lake County officials and a private agency that assists indigent litigants in Illinois want to make the practice easier by creating a self-help center for people who choose to represent themselves in legal matters. The center, which will be housed in the law library at the main courthouse in Waukegan, could open later this summer. "I think it's going to be extremely helpful," Court Administrator Bob Zastany said. "There is a population out there that will take advantage of this resource." The self-help center will be the only one of its kind in the county. Only a few operate nationwide, officials said. The project is the work of Lake County circuit court officials and Prairie State Legal Services, a statewide agency with an office in Waukegan that provides information and legal assistance to poor and elderly Illinois residents. The organization has received a $25,000 grant from the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds programs designed to increase access to legal information and assistance, to help pay for the effort. Prairie State will share the money with the county. The county's law library is on the first floor of the governmental center at 18 N. County St. The new self-help center will be designed to help litigants find the information they need to properly represent themselves in court, an undertaking that can be complicated and confusing. "Some people can do OK on their own, and some people can do OK with some help," said Linda Rothnagel, the managing attorney for Prairie State Legal Services. "But other people can't do it. It's not always easy." Self-representation is a right affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The practice is far more common in civil matters than in criminal cases. In fact, self-represented litigants - formally called "pro se" in Latin, or "for oneself" - in criminal defenses are so rare that statistics about the practice generally are not kept, legal experts say.

Question: "Why can representing yourself in court be "a tricky endeavor"?"

Response: "Because of the legal terms and strict procedures involved as well as volumes of case law to understand"

A: yes

At length, as I entered the pass, the huge rocks began to close around in all their wild, mysterious impressiveness, when suddenly, as I was gazing eagerly about me, a drove of gray hairy beings came in sight, lumbering toward me with a kind of boneless, wallowing motion like bears. I never turn back, though often so inclined, and in this particular instance, amid such surroundings, everything seemed singularly unfavorable for the calm acceptance of so grim a company. Suppressing my fears, I soon discovered that although as hairy as bears and as crooked as summit pines, the strange creatures were sufficiently erect to belong to our own species. They proved to be nothing more formidable than Mono Indians dressed in the skins of sage-rabbits. Both the men and the women begged persistently for whisky and tobacco, and seemed so accustomed to denials that I found it impossible to convince them that I had none to give. Excepting the names of these two products of civilization, they seemed to understand not a word of English; but I afterward learned that they were on their way to Yosemite Valley to feast awhile on trout and procure a load of acorns to carry back through the pass to their huts on the shore of Mono Lake.

Question: "What were the strange creatures?"

Response: "Mono Indians"

A: yes

Clarifying the Record The defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11 was not conducted in accord with preexisting training and protocols. It was improvised by civilians who had never handled a hijacked aircraft that attempted to disappear, and by a military unprepared for the transformation of commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, the NEADS air defenders had nine minutes' notice on the first hijacked plane, no advance notice on the second, no advance notice on the third, and no advance notice on the fourth. We do not believe that the true picture of that morning reflects discredit on the operational personnel at NEADS or FAA facilities. NEADS commanders and officers actively sought out information, and made the best judgments they could on the basis of what they knew. Individual FAA controllers, facility managers, and Command Center managers thought outside the box in recommending a nationwide alert, in ground-stopping local traffic, and, ultimately, in deciding to land all aircraft and executing that unprecedented order flawlessly. More than the actual events, inaccurate government accounts of those events made it appear that the military was notified in time to respond to two of the hijackings, raising questions about the adequacy of the response. Those accounts had the effect of deflecting questions about the military's capacity to obtain timely and accurate information from its own sources. In addition, they overstated the FAA's ability to provide the military with timely and useful information that morning. In public testimony before this Commission in May 2003, NORAD officials stated that at 9:16, NEADS received hijack notification of United 93 from the FAA. This statement was incorrect. There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time. In this same public testimony, NORAD officials stated that at 9:24, NEADS received notification of the hijacking of American 77. This statement was also incorrect. The notice NEADS received at 9:24 was that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, D.C. In their testimony and in other public accounts, NORAD officials also stated that the Langley fighters were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77,178 United 93, or both. These statements were incorrect as well. The fighters were scrambled because of the report that American 11 was heading south, as is clear not just from taped conversations at NEADS but also from taped conversations at FAA centers; contemporaneous logs compiled at NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD; and other records.

Question: "Who needed to clarify the record of the U.S. defense of 9/11?"

Response: "FAA"

A:
no