I am going pro se in a child visitation case as the petitioner. My question is how to go about properly gathering document evidence from ent...

Question

I am going pro se in a child visitation case as the petitioner. My question is how to go about properly gathering document evidence from entities such as Child Protective Services, Kids Exchange (a supervised visitation facility), and personal character witnesses. Would simply gathering and presenting the documents from these entities be admissible as evidence, or is there a resource that outlines the procedure for gathering and presenting said documents?

Answer

First of all, you are going to lose. Well over 90% of self-represented litigants lose when faced with an opposing party who has an attorney. The rules of civil procedure and evidence are very, very complicated.

But if you insist on going pro se, you should subpoena the records you want and have them provided in a self-authenticating form. The easiest way to do this is to contact a firm like "Written Deposition Services" and have them subpoena the records for you. You will need to file them with the court and provide notice of the filing to opposing counsel.

Plain old documents and affidavits from witnesses are not admissible as evidence.