Pagans and the Law

 

INTRODUCTION

As you will see in the following chapters, the court system was not created for laypeople. Figuring out what court you are in might be tough enough, but figuring out how to proceed can also be quite difficult, and you have not even gotten to the substance of your legal matter: that is, to the actual meat and potatoes law of why you are in court. Even if you are savvy enough to have gotten to the right place on the right kind of pleading, representing yourself pro se can become a weighty challenge, and to be frank, many judges are not that tolerant of pro se parties. If you are in danger of losing your children, a  significant amount of cash, your home, your job, or anything else that you place great value on, you are probably going to need a lawyer.

THERE IS NO PAGAN NETWORK OF FREE PAGAN LAWYERS

I have been on the Internet since the late 1990s working with several Pagan groups. I have yet to find an established network of Pagan lawyers who are in active practice and willing to take cases for free. There is no master list of practicing lawyers in the 50 states who are Pagan. Attempts have been made to create one, but to date those efforts have not been successful. There is no list of practicing lawyers in the 50 states that are both Pagan and who are willing to take your case for free.

Furthermore, if you are lucky enough to find a Pagan lawyer on the Net or anywhere else and ask them for advice on your case, it might be difficult to get that advice because some legal malpractice carriers really frown on this sort of thing. Hence, lawyers may be rather reluctant to dispense free legal advice on the Internet or in an e-mail. You might be fortunate enough to get some rather broad statements of the law, and then the person you are corresponding with will probably say, "You need to find a lawyer and raise these matters with her/him." Additionally, there are dangers related to protecting client confidentiality through the use of e-mail as a form of communication between lawyer and client. The danger of e-mail interception prompted the Missouri Bar Association at one time to issue a warning regarding e-mail as a form of client communication. At one time, the warning was located at www.pw1.netcom.com/~jrossgood/warning.htm.  

However, I was aware of one list whose members were mostly Pagan legal professionals: The Pagan Bar Association. At one time, they were located at www.groups.msn.com/PaganBarAssociation. There, matters were discussed among the members in a scholarly manner, and then some networking usually occurred in an attempt to find a needy party a lawyer. A lawyer might not necessarily be Pagan, but that is fine. What is important is that the lawyer is competent, local to you and to the legal venue you will be in, and has some expertise in the matters that concern you.

Additionally, there are some legal professionals who, from time to time, discuss current events and share their thoughts with AREN (Alternative Religious Education Network). The posting of a request for assistance or of information regarding a certain set of circumstances to the AREN Website (www.aren.org/) will probably find its way to that list. Once a situation is made known to this list, the list members discuss the matter amongst them in a scholarly manner, and may be able to network such that a referral to an attorney is made. Most Pagan legal professionals are willing to share any expertise they have with attorneys who contact them for help; for example, supplying resource and reference material such as reading lists, helpful Websites, case law, and the names of potential expert witnesses.

Usually, when I get a plea for a Pagan lawyer, I find out what state, town, or county the inquiring person is located in. Then, I go to one of several groups that I work with and put out a call for a lawyer in that area to contact the inquiring person. More often than not, there are just not enough openly Pagan lawyers networked into the Pagan community to satisfy the need for representation that exists. Even if a lawyer is found in the same state as the inquiring person, that lawyer may not be able to help the inquiring person. The lawyer may not be sufficiently proficient in the specific area of law that the inquiring

person is dealing with, or the lawyer may not be close enough geographically to do the inquiring person any real good. For example, an attorney in Chicago, Illinois, may not be of much help to a potential party down in Mount Vernon, Illinois. Illinois is a big state, and it simply is not cost effective for a Chicago lawyer to drive the six or seven hours it takes to get to Mount Vernon for court appearances and discovery matters such as depositions. Even if you are fortunate enough to procure the services of a lawyer who is a Pagan, do not assume that those services will come for free. Pagan lawyers went to law school and incurred huge debts in order to get through school. They have homes, families, and other financial obligations just like everyone else does. They will probably charge a fee of some kind for their services.