Running with scissors

How many times did your mother tell you not to run with scissors?  Frankly, I quit counting after 1,000,000,000.  Thing is, I don't know what the allure was all about.  Running fast and carrying something sharp.  Must have been the feeling of living dangerously.  Yeah, that must have been it - knowing that at any time you could fall and poke your eye(s) out or slice off a body part.  What a rush!

Strange how some people never really get over this feeling of living dangerously.  For example, the other day I was talking to a person who had just lost his case in Superior Court.  Seems until he lost his case (which, incidentally, never made it past the filing of the complaint stage), he thought he could prepare his case from stuff found on Wikipedia and Google.  Imagine his surprise, then, when he got blown out of court in a matter of minutes because his complaint, in the words of the judge, was woefully inadequate.  Inadequate?!  How can that be?  Isn't Wikipedia the repository of all legal knowledge?  News flash - no, it isn't.  In fact, it is my humble, slightly biased opinion that 99% of everything on the Internet is bunk.  BUNK, I say!

Had this guy just spent some time at his local county law library, he might have avoided the embarrassment of getting rejected in court.  Had he just taken the time to talk to his friendly neighborhood law Librarian, he might have been exposed to California Forms of Pleading and Practice (Lexis), California Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial (West), or even Represent Yourself in Court (Nolo Press), and he might not now be singing his own swan song.

The moral to this story might be if you need help finding things legal - DON'T rely on the Internet to save your neck.  Your local law Librarian is who you want to see because, often times, we know what you need before you need it.  Yes, we are that good.