Bonus Question- if you won the case, why couldn’t you then represent others?
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Poorly, generally.
The information is out there, but there’s a reason why legal training takes years: the law is big and complex, and while you may strike upon the perfect argument, you also need to know the formalities of what you can and can’t do in order to make your case or else risk having your evidence thrown out altogether. As the saying goes, a man who represents himself has a fool for a client.
As to why you’re allowed to, it’s because you can’t be forced to let anyone else speak on your behalf; it would fly contrary to pretty much every principle of free speech to say that you can’t speak in your own defence when accused of a crime. That’s why you can… even though it’s generally not considered a great move.
An individual has the right to a qualified legal defense of some kind, but that also means the individual has the right to forego that qualified legal defense, regardless of how much you know about the law. That is your right because you can’t be expected to give up some amount of free speech to a third party to speak for you at a trial.
If somehow you did win the case, that doesn’t mean you are qualified by government standards to practice law. There are many ways a person defending his or herself could win a case without knowing a single thing about the law.
The same can be said about medicine – you can disinfect a wound, but that doesn’t make you a qualified surgeon.
The court can’t forbid you from representing yourself. But they can forbid you from representing anyone else unless you have the proper qualifications.
Had a crazy neighbor who did everything *pro se* as a stalling tactic. The court gave her lots of procedural leeway which she actively used against opponents to delay, cause extra motions etc which made going after her ridiculously expensive. Most would then offer to settle.
For low level things it is fine, but if you are being sued or find yourself being charged with a felony then the judge will often insist that a court appointed or personally hired lawyer to sit second chair. You *do have the right* to represent yourself but the judge has to make sure that you are getting effective assistance of counsel.
It’s a backwards way to look at the problem.
We started from the idea that a person should be responsible for defending themselves. It quickly became apparent that a person who did so – usually with no training or knowledge – was at a severe disadvantage. So the courts ruled that everyone should be given a lawyer in an attempt to make things fair.
So representing yourself came first, and only later did the idea of lawyering come about. Another way of looking at it might be to assume that representing oneself is the default, and it is only recently that lawyers became de facto mandatory.
If you are injured, then you have every right to patch yourself up as best you can. But if someone wants to heal injuries professionally, then we insist that they go to medical school and get a professional license.
Similarly, every competent adult has the right to represent themselves in court. In fact, the word “represent” here is almost meaningless — you *are* yourself, and you are definitionally capable of speaking for yourself. But we have strict standards for speaking for *other people*, just like we have strict standards for performing surgery on other people, and for the same reason: the consequences of doing it badly are potentially life-altering, and so we demand a high baseline degree of competence.
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