The following are links will aid you in  your research and preparation of your own legal documents, or to help prisoners with their legal documents.   If you are helping a prisoner, the following authority will help you in that process.   As Supplemental Brief was prepared for the Third Appellate Court, by laymen under the authority of  Johnson v. Avery , 393 U.S. 483 (1969), which states as follows:

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.

        "We think of claims as grist for the mill of the lawyers. But it is becoming abundantly clear that more and more of the effort in ferreting out the basis of claims and the agencies responsible for them and in preparing the almost endless paperwork for their prosecution is work for laymen. There are not enough lawyers to manage or supervise all of these affairs; and much of the basic work done requires no special legal talent. Yet there is a closed-shop philosophy in the legal profession that cuts down drastically active roles for laymen. It was expressed by a New York court in denying an application from the Neighborhood Legal Services for permission to offer a broad legal-aid type of service to indigents:

         . . .That traditional, closed-shop attitude is utterly out of place in the modern world where claims pile high and much of the work of tracing and pursuing them requires the patience and wisdom of a layman rather than the legal skills of a member of the bar. The plight of a man in prison may in these respects be even more acute than the plight of a person on the outside. He may need collateral proceedings to test the legality of his detention or relief against management [393 U.S. 483, 493] of the parole system or against defective detainers lodged against him which create burdens in the nature of his incarcerated status. He may have grievances of a civil nature against those outside the prison. . ."

   You can access the entire case at the FindLaw Supreme Court link posted below.

        If you are helping a prisoner or working on a case for yourself, you should read all the codes that apply, learn the Rules of Court, procedure is different in every court.  Educate yourself by reading and studying everything you can find on the subject case.  Remember the time lines, there are very set times that appeals must be filed, learn the procedures, call the Clerks as they can be helpful to those that are learning.  They can't give legal advice, but they can help with procedure, like what color and how many copies, and when they have to be at the court.

        The following links are a start in the education process.  There are many others, and from these sites you can follow other paths.  From the main FindLaw page, you can do subject searches, sometimes you will come up with just the case you are looking for.  Some of the schools also have sample appeal cases, that will give you format and structure.