Can a Lawyer Take Over My Trial If I’ve Been Representing Myself? California’s Pro Bono Jury-Trial Program for Self-Represented Plaintiffs

Every year, Californians carry their own civil cases all the way to the courthouse steps — through pleadings, discovery, and a failed settlement conference — and then face the part of the case that is least forgiving of inexperience: picking and persuading a jury. Most lawyers will not touch a case a week before trial. This office built a program that operates exactly, and only, there: in rare, carefully selected California civil cases, Attorney David L. Milligan — Board Certified in Civil Trial Advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy — will substitute in as attorney of record for one limited purpose: to prepare over the final days and try the case to the jury, through verdict, at no attorney’s fee.

This article explains how the program works in plain terms. The controlling description — every criterion, exclusion, and condition — lives on the program page itself: Pro Bono Jury Trials for Self-Represented Litigants. If anything here and there could ever be read differently, the program page controls.

Who qualifies — every one of these must be true

• A California civil case set for a jury trial — not a bench trial, not an arbitration — with the jury already demanded and the advance jury fees already paid (Code of Civil Procedure § 631), verified from the court’s docket.
• You are the plaintiff, representing yourself in propria persona.
• The mandatory settlement conference has already been held and failed.
• Your court’s pre-trial document deadline has not passed and is at least five days away — the firm needs that window to prepare, file, and serve the trial brief, motions in limine, jury instructions, verdict forms, and witness and exhibit lists. A passed deadline almost certainly disqualifies the case.
• The case is small: genuinely preparable in days — roughly a one-to-three-day trial, a short witness list, a manageable set of exhibits.
• Every trial subpoena is already served — witnesses, records (subpoenas duces tecum), and foundational witnesses such as records custodians. Serving subpoenas is, and remains, entirely the client’s responsibility; the firm serves none.

What the engagement is — the trial, only the trial

If the firm accepts a case, the representation is a written limited-scope engagement: the client and the firm sign a substitution of attorney bringing the firm in solely so the jury trial can be conducted by counsel, and at the same time the client signs a second substitution restoring self-representation, filed promptly when the trial ends — however it ends — or if it is continued. The firm prepares, files, and serves the court-required pre-trial documents, completes trial preparation over the final weekend, and conducts the trial: jury selection, opening statement, examinations, closing argument, through jury verdict. Discovery, dispositive motions, post-trial motions, costs, enforcement, appeals, retrials, and continued trial dates are all outside the engagement — once that second substitution is filed, the case and its deadlines belong to the client again.

The condition that surprises people: the firm does not fix cases

A lawyer who came into the case earlier, or under a bigger engagement, might seek a continuance, cure subpoena problems, ask for expert-designation relief, or move to reopen discovery. This program categorically does none of that — for anyone. It is the engagement’s defining condition, and every client instructs the firm in writing not to attempt repairs, after the alternatives are spelled out: retain full-service counsel (the State Bar of California’s Lawyer Referral Services, (866) 442-2529, can connect you with one), seek a continuance yourself while you are still your own lawyer, or continue representing yourself. The case the firm tries is the case you hand it: expert opinion may be subject to mandatory exclusion when the predicates of Code of Civil Procedure § 2034.300 are met (subject to statutory exceptions), and this program will not seek relief from, or attempt to cure, an expert-disclosure failure; excluded evidence stays excluded, deemed admissions stand, and prior rulings stand. No outcome is promised, predicted, or implied.

What “pro bono” covers — and what it does not

No attorney’s fee is charged for the trial. Costs are different, and they are all the client’s: jury fees (already posted, plus the daily fees during trial), the court reporter (arranged and paid in advance by the client), witness fees, exhibits. The firm pays and advances nothing. And the program exists to try cases — not to raise settlement offers: inquiries must state their settlement history and confirm a genuine intention to try the case to a verdict. The decision to settle always remains the client’s, at every stage; offers are relayed promptly, and if the client settles, the engagement simply ends.

How to ask — and what to expect

Inquiries are accepted in writing only, through the confidential contact form, with “PRO BONO TRIAL” at the start of the message — promptly after the settlement conference fails, and no later than five days before the pre-trial document deadline. Because of the volume expected, the firm responds only to inquiries it is actually considering: if you do not hear back, the firm is unable to take your case, and no reply is coming — please do not follow up or call. An inquiry creates no attorney–client relationship and affects no deadline; keep preparing to try the case yourself, and do not wait on this office for anything.

Common questions

Full criteria, scope, and conditions: Pro Bono Jury Trials for Self-Represented Litigants.