Acting as your own
lawyer can be disastrous

Ask the Lawyer
By Stewart J. Berger

All of us have heard TV and radio announcements about how to be your own lawyer. They tell you how to write a will or how to form a corporation.
Then comes the disclaimer that the form sellers are not lawyers and they are not giving legal advice.
This is great. This is freedom of advertising at its best. Every American has a right to act like and be an idiot. Only an idiot would write their own will, set up their own corporation or try to engineer their own divorce. It takes an idiot to buy one of these forms and then pretend to be his own lawyer and thereby potentially screw up his life — sometimes big time.
This is as dumb as going to a paralegal who is no more than a secretary and have that paralegal perform serious legal work. A paralegal is not licensed in Pennsylvania. A paralegal who pretends to be a lawyer may screw up your life and then never answer the phone when disaster strikes.
Let me give you some real-life examples.
Buy a form to fill out and write your own will. Why not leave everything to your sister Beatrice "because she knows what I want." Right on, honey. Beatrice keeps all the money for herself. The rest of your heirs are disinherited. You are 6 feet under, so why worry about it?
The will kit usually costs about $69. A simple lawyer-drawn will costs under $100. Why pay for competent professional legal advice when, for about the same price, you can do it yourself. You’ll be dead anyway, so who cares about your estate?
A paralegal will fill out the forms to get you a divorce. Your house is in joint names. You think that upon divorce, the mother always gets the house. Think again.
The divorce goes through. Your former husband now owns one half of the house. He can throw you and the children out of the house, and there is probably nothing you can do about it. Your only recourse is to sue the paralegal who messed up your life. However, you were a co-conspirator in the lunatic legal misadventure.
It’s not all that complicated to form a corporation. But if the corporation does not function as a corporation, then the protections of corporation law might be destroyed. This is called "piercing the corporate veil."
When you are sued personally because the corporation did not provide the proper protection, go find the person who sold you the legal form and demand protection. Somehow or another, I do not think the form seller will answer the telephone.
Everybody in this country has an absolute right to be stupid. But if you buy legal forms to try to solve your own serious legal problems, or if you consult a paralegal for the same purpose, then I suggest one thing. You are going to get exactly what you deserve — possible legal disaster. ••
Stewart J. Berger is an attorney with offices at 7207 Rising Sun Ave. Questions and comments may be addressed to Ask The Lawyer, c/o The Northeast Times, 2512 Metropolitan Drive, Trevose, PA 19053