People come to lawyers believing the courtroom is where truth lives.
Where justice shines, and lies are punished.
They walk in clutching their pain and say,
“I just want the truth to come out.”

And every time, I have to take a deep breath because that is not how it works.

The courtroom is not a confessional.
It is not a therapist’s chair.
It is not the voice of God deciding right from wrong.

The courtroom is a stage.
And like every stage, it runs on performance and proof.

You can be telling the truth – painfully, sincerely, even tearfully – but if you can’t prove it, it doesn’t matter.

In court, evidence, not honesty, wins cases.
Documents, Credible Witnesses, Exhibits, Proper Procedure;
These are what justice feeds on.

Justice does not feed on emotions or convictions. Justice feeds on proof.

I’ve seen the most truthful clients lose everything because their truth came without receipts or witnesses.
I’ve also seen master manipulators walk free
because they understood how to package lies within the rules of evidence.

It’s disheartening – this realization.
The realisation that sometimes, justice isn’t blind.
It’s just bound by paper.

So this is what I tell my clients now:
You don’t go to court to find the truth.
You go to court to prove it.
And proving the truth takes more than conviction.
It takes preparation.

The law rewards diligence, not emotion.
You can cry, you can beg, you can even be right but if your rightness isn’t documented,
you lose.

It’s a cruel kind of lesson.
The kind that leaves you questioning the word “justice.”
Because in the courtroom, justice isn’t what happened.
It is what you can prove happened.

And when the gavel falls,
it doesn’t care who suffered the most –
only who put a better case forward.

This is why I spend time educating people freely.
It is why I tell anyone who will listen: “Keep records. Take pictures. Save messages. File documents.”
Because when the truth is under attack, evidence is your only voice.

– Lawyer Fredericka