Crazy intense day today. Long story short my mom has been in a property damage case with a local contractor. His employ was pushed onto the trunk/hood of her '71 Karman Ghia during a gang fight. The contractor accepted responsibility and promised to pay the damages but he's been trying to dick her over the estimates he got vs. the ones she got. For his estimates, he didn't even have anyone look at the car, he showed them two pictures. He hadn't even seen the damage since today. Anyway, she needs roughly $2000 for repairs and the guy said he'd only pay 1400 which was over his illegal and inadmissible in court estimates. So after a super long discussion where I cited legal precedent that showed that she would get everything she asked for if it went to court he was adamant that he would win and said that he would just let us contact his lawyer.

I looked at him and said "we're going to take you to small claims court." he says well you can tell my lawyer so I say "it doesn't matter because only you can represent yourself in small claims court, no lawyers." he actually tried to stare me down but I held stead fast. He was standing up on a 6inch curb and I was in the street and was still looking at him eye to eye. Then I dropped the bomb, he had already claimed responsibility for the incident via-email and in person, in small claims court this is admissible evidence and he would not win. After a few intense moments he decided he was willing to settle and we settled for $1800 which is most likely enough to fix it.

In other words, it pays to do your homework. Does anybody know of any good public law schools?