What's with the Waiting?!
July 14, 2014
It never ceases to amaze me how people can wait to do somethings and it, seemingly, doesn't faze them until they get down to the absolutely last day/hour/minute/second it's due and then they're all frantic about getting it done. For instance, your car registration is due in May. You get your car registration tags in the mail in March and don't affix it to the car until July. How many times do you have to be pulled over by the police before you affix your tags to your car? 3? 12? 250? When they finally ticket you and you have to go prove you paid your registration?
Here's another one. You get a new puppy from a neighbor. When do you register and license your pet? When it bites someone? When it runs away? After you become emotionally attached to it and you have to go to the pound knowing the odds of finding it in the sea of animals is like 1 in 1,000,000?
One more? Say you've been sued after your dog bit someone (you know, the one you haven't licensed yet). Let's say you think to yourself, I've got lots of time to answer this complaint. Lots of time. 30 days later, with the clock ticking down to the 11th hour you realize the day of reckoning is upon you and you need to file that answer TODAY!!! Sad thing is, at this point there is nothing that will save you. Had you, at least, merely gone to your local county law library the day before, you might have had time to take a look at California Forms of Pleading and Practice (Lexis) or California Practice Guide (Rutter): Civil Procedure Before Trial (West) or even Win Your Lawsuit (Nolo Press), you might not now be sweating bullets.
Yep, had you just given yourself some time to read and digest the information on how to answer your legal problem, you would have been able to withstand the legal onslaught. Next time, might I suggest running over to the Riverside County Law Library and seek the assistance of one of our several qualified library employees. We will, in the very least, be able to point you in the right direction before you absolutely, positively have to have whatever it was you were looking for.
