If you don’t have money to hire a lawyer you don’t have rights in America, it’s that simple.
Sure, poor people get “public defenders” when they’re accused of crimes, but for other legal actions, like defending yourself from criminal defamation, or suing a media outlet, like Jake Eaton tried doing, you either need money, or you need to be a lawyer yourself (or married to one, like Eaton).
For a quick look at Jake Eaton’s case, here’s some context on the dismissal and subsequent awarding of lawyers fees by the judge to Eaton’s media adversary:
A state court has dismissed a lawsuit filed in May against a Montana news outlet over its reporting on a complaint about a political consultant, citing a new Montana law designed to protect press freedoms. The judge also awarded attorneys’ fees to the defendants.
The 13th Judicial District Court dismissed the lawsuit from Republican political consultant Jake Eaton in an order dated Oct. 6. The order was distributed to defendants on Friday, Oct. 30. Attorneys’ fees haven’t yet been calculated.
The state law at the root of the decision is the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, passed by the Montana Legislature in 2025 as the state’s first anti-SLAPP law. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.”
What are anti-SLAPP laws? Great question. To better understand this acronym, here’s a description I found useful:
If you’ve ever hesitated before posting a review, signing a petition, speaking at a school board meeting, or calling out a powerful person online, you already understand the basic goal behind a SLAPP lawsuit.
SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation. These lawsuits weaponize the legal system against free speech. People file these cases to punish and intimidate critics, not to win on the merits. The point often sounds simple: Make speaking up feel too expensive, too stressful, and too risky.
Journalists, activists, neighborhood leaders, researchers, whistleblowers, and everyday residents can all end up in the crosshairs of a SLAPP lawsuit. Even if the defendant ultimately wins, a SLAPP can still drain time, money, and energy along the way.
Have I been drained of time, money, and energy? Yes, and worse, but so far I haven’t inspired people to donate large sums of money to my cause, unlike the young man facing felony charges for shoving some Indians and telling them to go back to their country.
How much has THIS dude raised so far? About twenty grand in the first 24 hours.
Impressive.
A fundraiser for a Helena man accused of shoving a man of Indian descent and telling him to “go back to your country” raised more than $20,000 in its first 24 hours, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement supporting the charges.
Jaxton Tayte Collins, 21, was arraigned Oct. 27 on one felony count of malicious intimidation or harassment relating to civil or human rights and one misdemeanor count of assault.
An account on X, formerly known as Twitter, started the fundraiser last Wednesday on the platform GiveSendGo, a Christian-focused online crowdfunding website. The account, using the name Tom Hennessey, describes its owner as a “demonetized white independent journalist.”
What’s the secret sauce for inspiring people like this? Is hating foreigners more profitable than exposing local corruption? I guess it is, though I’m not doing what I’m doing to get money.
Speaking of hating foreigners, I wouldn’t say John Velk hates foreigners, because he’s a lawyer who could sue me, but what I will say is there does seem to be a political theme to his Facebook postings recently, like these two posts he made between “suing” and “grooving”:
One critical skillset lawyers must possess is the ability to communicate effectively, since their whole job is making legal arguments with words, but when I shared John Velk’s post about a Municipal Court judge’s controversial decision regarding a Congolese “woman beater”, the words I got from former Oregon lawyer, Kevin Hunt, were immediately condescending and dismissive.
I guess pointing out how John Velk was one of the many lawyers in Missoula who I tried reaching out to was somehow triggering to this member of the gatekeeping legal community, since Mr. Hunt immediately (and grotesquely) misrepresented what I consider to be “problems” in Missoula with this comment:
Am I upset that I can’t find a lawyer who will take my case “for free”? Of course I’m frustrated, but taking a case pro bono, or on contingency, isn’t simply doing legal work with no chance of financial compensation, it’s just more of a risk because the potential for compensation is deferred to either a settlement determined by a jury, or a judgement determined by a judge.
There’s also the risk of doing pro bono work if your client is a woman who turns around and files a complaint against you for not keeping her informed about her case.
Right, Kevin?
After looking at this reprimand, it appears that Mr. Hunt was so busy working the system that he forgot about the human he was ostensibly “helping” through the process, which is its own form of punishment when you’re dealing with lawfare.
Which brings me to the gatekeeping of the entire legal profession, a function I hope AI will destroy.
Are lawyers worried that their entire business model could be wiped out? You bet they are, so let’s look at how this problem is being framed, since the idea of freeing up MORE time (which you can bill for) should be seen as a mostly POSITIVE impact derived from AI-driven efficiencies. From the link:
Lawyers are expected to gain five hours per week from AI-driven efficiency, according to recent Thomson Reuters research; however, nearly two-thirds of them now view AI as a threat to their jobs or livelihoods.
This paradox exists because AI does not just make legal work faster, it also changes which work exists, who gets to do it, and most consequentially, how the next generation of lawyers develops the capacity to do it well.
Over the past year, a convergence has emerged among interdisciplinary experts within the legal profession. Technologists, legal executives, law firm leaders, academic researchers, and legal reformers — individuals who rarely share a stage — have independently arrived at the same diagnosis, which is that AI is hollowing out the developmental pipeline through which capable lawyers have been built for generations. What is alarming is that the profession is making this worse by treating this as a technological problem, when it is, at its core, a human and lawyer formation problem.
The question facing law schools, law firms, and the broader legal ecosystem is whether they can protect and deliberately cultivate the distinctly human capacities — which include judgment, fiduciary care, business acumen, and client trust — that AI cannot replicate. The five hours gained each week represent a choice, and what the profession does with them will determine whether lawyers remain essential or start to become, gradually and by their own hand, redundant.
Before I get to the legal case John Velk brought to my attention with his Facebook posting–the case I agree sets an insanely bad precedent by Municipal Court judge, Jake Coolidge–I want to highlight some of the posts I have written about lawfare and our totally fucked criminal justice system.
“My Marsupial Court Marijuana DUI Final Report” (January 27th, 2025)
“Will I Abide By A Plea Deal That Torches My First Amendment?” (March 12th, 2025)
“The Relationship That Nearly Ended My Life” (April 16th, 2026)
“Lawsuit Gatekeepers, _______, And The Bias Of Selection” (April 24th, 2026)
“Lessons In Lawfare” (May 22nd, 2026)
“University Of Lawfare” (June 22nd, 2026)
“Friendly Reminder To Local Officials That Open Meeting Laws Are Actual Laws” (August 23rd, 2026)
““Family Justice Center” Or Lawfare Central?” (September 25th, 2026)
“More Lessons From The University Of Lawfare” (October 13th, 2026)
“Does Montana Have A Structurally Misandrist Future Forming For The Victim Industry?” (October 22nd, 2026)
“When Does The System Become The Abuser and The Process Become The Punishment?” (October 28th, 2026)
“Let It Burn!” (October 31st, 2026)
Another impact of lawfare I’m going to highlight before highlighting the case of the Congolese woman beater is the social isolation that results, which is aided and abetted by poverty if you’re not wealthy enough to have private lawyers on retainer.
Those going through similar targeting, like Brandon Bryant, have confirmed how lonely it can be when you do what you think is the right thing, then get punished for it. When I saw someone online post something about loneliness, knowing a small bit of what he’s going through, I took a screenshot.
While divorcing someone I spent 25 years with (we were both 19 at the time) has been bad enough in terms of radically altering my housing, quality of social interactions, and financial resources, the last year has been fucking brutal, and there’s no end in sight.
One of the major differences between my situation and the Congolese woman beater is that legal action against me started as CIVIL actions, which lowers the standards of proof and removes my ability to get a court-appointed lawyer, since civil actions don’t risk jail time, therefore don’t warrant Public Defenders.
The man accused of physically hitting his partner DID face a criminal charge, but a criminal charge posed the additional risk of deportation, which apparently was too much consequence for Judge Jake Coolidge, who dismissed the case. This decision seems VERY wrong and will do SERIOUS damage to the court’s credibility in the larger fight playing out between Justice Court and City/County prosecutors, especially if local media amplifies this story.
Here’s some of the language of the appeal (I’m assuming) explaining the back and forth of this case between the courts:
There is much more at Velk’s original post, so give him a follow if you want the kind of insights we’re not supposed to be making in Missoula, like noticing when you see another act of alleged violence attributed to the same surname, or you find a woman who doesn’t understand that she shouldn’t be outing her clients on social media:
An incident around bar closing time in Missoula Sunday morning ended with gunfire. Now, two men are in custody.
One faces a charge of attempted deliberate homicide.
The other made his initial court appearance today on charges of criminal endangerment and a third DUI.
Court documents state on April 5 around 2:19 a.m., 33 year old Anthony Brodie was standing on the sidewalk of Ryman Street when he was struck by a vehicle.
Police say the vehicle was driven by defendant 36 year old Laurent Mugondozi.
For those keeping score, we’ve got a sexually confused stabber of math teachers getting no charges, a woman-beating Congolese refugee getting seeming special treatment for his criminal act, then felony charges for a shove and some mean words from a drunk kid, and criminal charges against me for the technical violation of a protection order that took civil claims like this:
…and turned them into one of four Travis Exclusion Zones, with my downtown TEZ banning me from this geographic area:
I’m not proud of the time I spent homeless, living in my box truck, but I did lean into it, and much of that conduct has now been cited and referenced in multiple cases against me, but it’s precisely because of my homelessness that a coffee shop like Break Espresso–which opens EARLY and closes LATE–was important to me and other “marginalized” people, like Steven Dailey, who I saw there regularly before he moved to Bozeman, murdered a woman, and then shot himself, allegedly.
In summary, it’s not just the lawfare that can destroy a person, it’s also the psychological wounds that one receives from larger cultural trends that literally allows victim cards to be played for some of the most horrendous crimes, like killing babies, trying to kill someone with a knife, and showing your host nation your appreciation by slapping a woman and clogging up an already fucked criminal justice system.
To counter the threat of total demoralization I have some acronyms I’ve developed, but the time isn’t right yet to share the #HeToo related one I’m still field-testing, so stay tuned.
And, as always, thanks for reading.