Our legal system allows you to represent yourself but it may be unwise to do so. Recall the proverb: “he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.â€Â Read this do-it-yourself bankruptcy horror story. A Kansas woman can never discharge her debts because of mistakes she made in representing herself in a series of bankruptcy filings. We know of many instances where people tried to avoid the cost of an attorney and lost hundreds or thousands of dollars of property because they did not know the law.