What are the chances of the court granting his stay simply because he is pro se and he is asking for lawyer(s)? My understanding is that courts are very willing to grant leeway for people to get lawyers. Is Hardin pointing out Greer hasn't actually taken steps to get these lawyers likely to be enough to get the court to rule in Moon's favor?
I
want to believe he's got poor odds in this motion.
This isn't a criminal trial where he'd have a right to counsel and he'd get a public defender appointed for him if he was indigent.
He brought this case, he chose freely when, where, and how to file it; it's civil, and thus he doesn't have a right to legal counsel; he's welcome to retain counsel, but he has no
right to it - he opted to dive into this pro se, and nobody forced him to do that but himself. The saying, "your lack of planning is not my emergency," applies to the situation quite well. The time for Russ to delay to find and retain legal counsel was
before he filed the suit; to delay the suit for that reason
now is prejudicial to the defendants. What's more, forcing the court to rule on motions that Russ now feels necessary purely due to his own previous unpreparedness is a waste of judicial time and resources, and the defendants are also forced to expend money responding to them.
If Russ
hired a lawyer, paid them some de minimis retainer, and then
the lawyer filed an appearance and requested a delay for the purposes of getting up to speed on the clusterfuck that they're now responsible for salvaging, that would almost certainly be granted (and you know they'd undoubtedly still want that delay, if Russ managed to succeed in hiring them). But delaying
before the lawyer is even retained - and for the specific reason of "I can't afford this lawyer, but in 60 to 90 days I might" - is putting the cart before the horse.
All of that aside, I hold little optimism for the legal system to do the sensible thing here, so I'll hedge my bets and say that the court might tell Russ he has 60 days, not 90. If it gives Russ any less than 60 days, I'd consider that a win. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than be let down by the order...
edit: I might add, the fact that Russell's lawyers haven't agreed to represent him for $1 now and a promise to pay them more in 60 to 90 days - which would be sufficient for them to get their foot in the door and request a delay for that reason - is indicative of
their level of confidence in his ability to raise the money.