Jurisdictionary Reviews #1 – My Honest One Year Review Of How To Win In Court

At the time of writing this, I’ve been in the Dr. Frederick D. Graves Jurisdictionary online law course called How To Win In Court Without A Lawyer (Affiliate Link) for a little over a year now.

Here’s a link to my My Quick Initial Impression Of The Training Program after only being in the course for about a week.

I first bought the course as a birthday present to myself to celebrate my 33rd birthday and within about three month, I had a client present me with an opportunity to get real in court experience because the client committed a BREACH OF CONTRACT.

Link to YouTube video of my first SLAM DUNK WIN IN COURT.

See property seizure order here.

The quick story on how client breached our contract.

For a living, my profession is to write blog articles and make it so your website ranks #1 in Google search for your most valuable keywords for your company using Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Client (Fast Flower Farms) orders four articles from me and gives me half the money down. Client completely changes the project scope at least three times. I was VERY accommodating to these changes without asking for more money because I was under the reasonable assumption this was going to be a long term client.

Upon the final shift in project scope, the client finally decides he wants four articles for his website. Client delegated the editing of these articles to his co-worker. Co-worker approves articles after two in-depth back and forth feedback to polish certain technical details. Co-worker says we did a GOOD JOB multiple times.

I request payment and client essentially ghosts me.

Client was ALWAYS to busy to follow through with any decision he made.

During trial, client even tells the judge that he’s TOO busy to deal with this court stuff. WOW. You said that to a judge? What? Seriously?

It wasn’t until I provided client with legal notice that client VERY QUICKLY responds. Strange how that works.

Client refuses to pay because there’s some abstract unclear undefined “quality” issue that no one in his organization is able to articulate. Even during the trial, the client is unable to coherently communicate his specific measurable points of contention with any of the four articles I created for his website.

Even though we contracted to have four document created, the client received close to 15 documents, plus technical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to boost the loading speed of his website, plus I actually connected his website into the Google search engine so his website could actually be found by users searching for his website.

And much much more.

How I prepared for to win in court for breach of contract.

After being in the How To Win In Court Without A Lawyer (Affiliate Link) for over a year now, I started finding and networking with a TON of other like minded people who have similar interest in learning and teaching the law.

One particularly interesting community I found outside of Jurisdictionary was the Rule Of Law Radio with Randy Kelton, Deborah Stevens, and Eddie Craig.

The show involves us average people with legal problems calling into the show and asking for advice on how to navigate some of the more technical sequences required.

What I started noticing was the first thing Randy Kelton would ask for was the timeline of events that documents critical dates, actions, etc.

TIMELINE FOR MY CLAIM – BREACH OF CONTRACT.

• Existence of a contract between the parties.
  • On or about August 31, 2021, Nathan Niehuus contracts Joseph Powers $780 to write four articles and optimize technical fundamentals on the website.
  • Nathan agrees to pay Joseph 50% ($390) down and 50% upon deliverables received.
  • Nathan pays Joseph 50% ($390) on September 1, 2021.
• Terms of the contract require the performance of a certain action.
  • Joseph delivers the first draft of three articles on Oct 4.
  • On Oct 4, Nathan authorizes Jessica to review articles.
  • Joseph delivers the next drafts of all four articles on Oct 11.
  • Jessica approves the final drafts on Oct 14.
  • Joseph sends Nathan the final 50% invoice on Oct 15.
• Party breached the contract.
  • On November 24, 2021, Nathan is 33 days overdue on paying the final 50% ($390) invoice.
• The breach caused the other party injury.
  • Total damages $451.04 = $390 contract + court fees ($30 filing + $31.04 service)

In addition to creating a timeline of events, I also sat down and brainstormed any and all potential possibilities for client’s AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE.

There wasn’t technically too many possible defenses the client could have thrown at me. However, here were the few possible defenses client could have used. Once I knew what the possible defenses were, I then strategized on how to respond and overcome these possibilities.

Potential defenses for breach of contract included.

• The contract could have listed terms of agreement in the ORIGINAL CONTRACT that could have warranted client ending contract without payment. This was not the case.
• Client could have communicated to me what his specific points of contention were and detailed specific steps to be taken once the poor workmanship or service was identified. Client did not do this.
• If there was a specific quality issue, the client is suppose to communicate his concern in writing by clearly identifying the area(s) of concern and expectations based on our original agreement. Client did not do this.
• Client could have allowed me to cure the situation. Client did not allow me to cure situation. Even during the trial, I told the judge that the client still technically had one more edit that I’m here and now still offering him to satisfy the contract. Client tells judge he doesn’t want it because my work is allegedly subpar, even though he can not articulate any quality issue. Just because you say there’s a quality issue, you have to prove it. Of which, the client did not do.

During the trial, I communicated to the judge exactly what the client failed to do. Client quite literally did not say anything that helped his case/claim. At no point in the trial did the client present any legal argument.

What I learned from How To Win In Court is to FOCUS ON THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT.

Knowing this, the very first thing I said to the judge was me listing the four elements of BREACH OF CONTRACT by simply reading the timeline of events (listed above).

I truly believe that I won the case by first presenting to the judge a timeline of events satisfying the four essential elements of the claim that a court in my jurisdiction can provide relief.

By providing the judge everything I needed to fulfill the four elements requirements of proving BREACH OF CONTRACT, and the fact the client never even attempted to attack (defend against) any of these four element, was the reason I believe I won without reasonable doubt or via weight of admissible evidence.

Now. The funny thing is that the only thing the client SHOULD have done was attack the four elements of breach of contract. (which he did not do).

Four element of breach of contract.

• Existence of a valid contract. (YES. NO DISPUTE)
• You performed your part of the contract. (YES. I DELIVERED, CO-WORKER AFFIRMED WE DID A GOOD JOB MULTIPLE TIMES).
• The defendant failed to perform their part of the contract. (CLIENT FAILS TO PAY REMAINING 50% DUE).
• You sustained damages caused by the defendant’s breach. (DAMAGES WERE THE REMAINING 50%).

Furthermore, I compiled all of our text and email communications into one easy to access file. And I consolidated all of the evidence that included everything from beginning to end organized in chronological order. Image below of the evidence outline.

How I collected payment after I won in court

Client had seven days to appeal decision.

Right after the judge ruled in my favor, I sent client a message asking him if he was going to appeal or if I should send invoice.

Client quickly responded that he was going to appeal.

Naturally, client was always too busy and didn’t file an appeal.

According to the court order judgement, the client had 28 days to pay the invoice.

If client did not pay within 28 days, I could collect in one of four ways. All three ways I could have collected were also written clear as day on the court order.

Four ways I could have collected were.

• Wage garnishment. Since he was CEO business owner, this didn’t make much sense.
• Collect via income taxes. No, that was going to take too long and didn’t seem that fun.
• Take from bank account. Maybe, that didn’t seem that fun either.
• Property seizure. HEY! NOW THIS SOUNDED LIKE THE MOST EXCITING OPTION!

After 28 days, the too busy client didn’t pay the invoice. I was already prepared with the property seizure documents to file with the court.

However, upon getting ready to file, my ethics required me to (yet again) tell client exactly what I was going to do before I did it.

I messaged him about three times telling him I was going to send the sheriff out to have them physically seize his property. How I understand this process is the sheriff would show up to his business and take as much valuable property as was necessary to satisfy the court order.

This would have been SUPER expensive because the client would have had to pay for.

• Sheriffs time to come out there and take the property. It probably would have been multiple police officers doing this.
• Storage fee for holding assets.
• Auction fees.
• Marketing fees letting the public know about the auction.
• Etc.

Before I filed paperwork with the clerk of the court, I made sure to quickly call them and make sure there wasn’t anything else I needed to do before I filed paperwork to seize client’s property.

And yes, there was one more step.

In order to file the paperwork to seize property, I obviously had to have a court order to do so. I also needed to have the name of a court bonded officer that was willing to do the actually seizing of property. The clerk of the court was nice enough to give me the name and phone number of their go to person for the job.

I called the court bonded officer, he agreed to do the property seizure.

I put his name on the paperwork to seize proptery.

I filed the paperwork with the clerk of the court.

And within a few days, the judge signs the court order to seize clients property!

What happened after the judge signed the paperwork to seize client’s property?

As exciting as this story is building up to, I was REALLY hoping to have the client’s property physically taken from him.

After talking to the court bonded officer, the officer essentially was going to simply show up to clients business with a tow truck and haul off his car for auction.

HOWEVER. I’m thinking because of DUE PROCESS (which is extensive) that the client got a final final final notice that he was going to have the officer seize his property.

I’m not 100% sure whether or not the client was notified beyond the judge’s signed paper for property seizure, because about three or four days after judge signed property seizure document, the client paid the invoice!

BUMMER!

I’d honestly would have rather had the client have his property seized.

What else could I have done that I did not do throughout this process of Winning In Court?

In hindsight, I could have asked for more money.

After client did not pay original invoice on time, I could have charged interest and asked the court for this extra money.

I’m not 100% certain, but I do believe I could have asked the court for reasonable attorney’s fees (my time) for a reasonable amount of time it took me to put this case together and follow through.

This process probably took me a few dozen hours to put together, however, I know the next time won’t even take a fraction of the time.

So, I’m wondering if I could have asked for 10 hours at $100-$300 per hour time damages? It doesn’t hurt to ask the judge?

In addition, I probably could have asked for more money for every time the client changed his mind. Quite literally every time the client changed his mind, was AFTER I delivered him completed documents.

Final Thoughts

As much as I learned in the How To Win In Court course, I learned WAY more through this real world in court experience.

Like I said in my original blog post from last year, I feel like I got my money’s worth after the first few hours of going through the course. IT’S LITERALLY THAT GOOD!

The amount of stuff I didn’t know I didn’t know IS BEYOND MIND BLOWING.

And after I knew a few little things, it’s crazy to think how simple some of these legal solutions are.

After I won this case with this client, my mother in law got her identity stolen and the thief took out loans in her name. This is another BIG story (coming soon) that took close to a year to resolve. However, the point is, once we realized what to do to put the final nail to win for mother in law’s ID theft case, we learned how useless every lawyer is that we spoke to.

Quick story. Mother in law went to about half a dozen lawyers. No one would take her small claims case. And the only lawyer that did anything was take her $70 and advised her to ONLY send the plaintiff her evidence. What! NO! You learn this is STUPID advise after your first few hours of going thru Dr. Grave’s course. Lol. Seriously.

Anyways. Once we took a step back and stopped trying to make things more complicated that they were, we won via one little email to the plaintiff. Long story short, we had over 70 discovery admission questions to start appeal. Plus we were going to DEMAND he prove that his LOAN COMPANY was in full compliance with local, state, and federal law. Regardless if he was compliant, this was going to be a TON of work for him to prove, and was probably not worth the battle.

In short, my 2nd win involved Plaintiff actually winning in small claims court. And then accepting a settlement of zero dollars and zero cents ($0.00).