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honorable judges and justices ladies and gentlemen I do want to say that it's also a real honor and a privilege for me
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to be here although I will say that I woke up around 3 o'clock this morning thinking I need my head examin because
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most people are nervous about going in front of one judge and I'm going in front of a hundred um but I'm not here
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to make a motion or an argument I just would like to make some observations and I hope you'll bear with me on these
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um I don't know how many of you know that um I started off as a lawyer I practiced law for a few years and just
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kind of fell into journalism um I'm older than a lot of people here and it was tough in the
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midwest to be a woman a female lawyer and so I ended up in journalism but I had a little bit of trouble adjusting
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and I was working in Chicago as a Consumer Legal correspondent and and I got a call from a viewer and
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the viewer calls me and he said I filed a claim in small claims court against a plumbing company but they just filed a
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motion and asked it to be kicked up to the Circuit Court and if they do that I'm going to have to drop the case
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because I don't have the money to hire a lawyer what do I do and I said well sir
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go to that hearing and tell the judge I me I'm sure the judge is going to understand Go I mean it's not something
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I can do anything about but then I worried great about it so I walked over to the court and went to the hearing and
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I saw the company argue and then I saw this viewer this may get up and arguing he didn't do a very good job and the
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judge said you know it's going to go into circuit court now I have no idea what possessed me I'm in the back of the
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courtroom and I stand up and I go your honor I object and everyone look you object I
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mean actually I didn't even realize I had said it and then I realized I had to keep going and so the judge said what do
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you object to and I said look if this company really had this counter claim that was so high exceeded the the the
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small claims court then they would have filed it I mean I really believe that this was intended to make this consumer
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drop the case and let's be honest then if you if you send this to Circuit Court then aren't you defeating the whole
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purpose of small claims now I should tell you that the company's lawyer is just going crazy saying your honor and I
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also should tell you I did preface it saying I am not a member of the Illinois Bar I was very
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worried so um and so the judge looked very amused and he said okay I think you're
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right and he did send it and keep it in small claims court he also gave me a lecture never to do that again in his
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court and I wish the story Had A better ending because in fact the viewer did go
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to small claims court and he lost but I tell you that story because I did have some trouble adjusting to where my role
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was as just a journalist and also it will give you a little bit of a sense of who I am and what kind of stories I like
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to tell I want a story that makes a difference that really really counts and and sometimes that's not so easy