If your recent court case almost drove you crazy, congratulations.  You're normal.

Going to court can be so traumatic for one and all that the courtroom experience has given birth to its very own documented illness - the Legal Abuse Syndrome.

"I've been a marriage and family therapist for 20 years, and it eventually dawned upon me that my clients who had to go to court - for whatever the reason - experienced certain common symptoms," says Karin Huffer, M.S., a Las Vegas therapist and author of Overcoming the Devastation of Legal Abuse Syndrome.

"The legal system is very easily abused in this country and all too frequently, victims of one type of crime wind up being victimized in court all over again.  In court, ridicule is standard technique.  Attorneys use it and judges use it.  Although any legal professional is quick to agree that our legal system is a stinking morass, they still have utter contempt for those who can't navigate it.  So if you're getting ready to go to court for whatever reason, get ready to be humiliated because that's how our adversarial system works."

Huffer believes that both judges and attorneys, whom she characterizes as the gatekeepers to the legal system, are at fault.

"In the old days, the law books were written in clear language, so that the average person could understand them," she says.  "You were only able to bring a lawyer to court if you were somehow unable to defend yourself.

"Today, the law is purposely written by attorneys in a language that only other attorneys can comprehend.  It's all doublespeak and legalese, obscure jargon that even most college graduates can't begin to understand."

Not being able to understand the legal system leads to a feeling of utter helplessness and hopelessness among the court-going masses, whether they be plaintiffs, defendants, or witnesses.  In the event of a lengthy case, this feeling of helplessness can degenerate into sheer, heart-pounding terror.

Bankruptcy attorney and ASU College of Law professor Dale Beck Furnish has witnessed that terror first hand.

"I've seen people who had to do nothing more than give a deposition shake so badly they could hardly remain in their seats," Furnish says.  "And heaven help the poor defendant who shows up in court without an attorney!  If he's not already terrified, at that point, he'll probably have a heart attack.  Most judges are not at all sympathetic to their terrors."

For further evidence of the courtroom shakes, just look in the hallways of any court house.

During a recent visit to North Mesa Justice Court, the waiting room proved to be filled with people wearing the stunned expressions of hit and run victims.  They clung to their attorneys as if to Emergency Medical Technicians dispensing free pain-killers.

One man who looked tough enough to go a few rounds with Mike Tyson couldn't even bring himself to comment on his feelings about his experience.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice hoarse.  "But I'm just too (expletive) miserable to talk."

Joe Delbarto, 29, of Mesa, who was there for sentencing in a DUI case, was still able to talk, but he admitted his experience was like living through a nightmare.

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said, "That was three months ago.  Today is when I finally find out what they're going to do to me.  I've never been in trouble before, and I've been scared to death for the entire last three months.  I don't understand anything about what's going on or what's liable to happen."

The legal waiting game is more frequently played out in large population centers, Furnish says.

"In big areas like the Valley, people too frequently get a cookie cutter justice, but it's not out of maliciousness.  It's a problem of time and scheduling.  Then when people finally get to court, things go by in a rush.  What happens is they get a judge who knows he has to deal with 20 motions and a few cases which will take all day and well into the next - plus readings on the weekend.  Those judges don't have patience because they don't have time.  When I litigate in smaller towns, people are allowed to take as much time as necessary.

"The whole situation is sad.  Many judges, when they start out, are full of compassion.  They've practiced law recently themselves so they take plenty of time to consider the ramifications of a case.  But a year later, they're cranking them out like everybody else.."

At Superior Court of Arizona the misery begins right at the door.

Court security officer Joe Parra, of Mesa, said wistfully, "This is not a happy place.  People have to go through security screening here, and they start getting really scared right then.  We try to make it as pleasant for them as possible by joking around, but most people look pretty sad when they come in and a lot of them look even sadder when they leave."

Bear in mind it is our legal system itself that causes much of this misery - not necessarily the negative outcome of any particular case.

One woman at Superior Court confirmed this by saying, "Yeah.  I won my case, so big deal.  It's taken me four months, and the whole thing started me smoking again after 12 years' abstinence."

The fact that most cases take time to resolve makes many victims of Legal Abuse Syndrome suspicious - they believe that attorneys (many of whom charge by the hour) want cases to drag on as long as possible to fatten

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but that's a fallacy, says a Mesa attorney.

"By the time a person contacts an attorney, he's already had something bad happen to him - that's why he contacted the attorney," says Christopher D. Hossack, who specializes in personal injury law.  "He's in an emotional state, filled with grief and anxiety. Unfortunately, because of some of the big cases and settlements reported in the media, he may also have some very unrealistic expectations.

"Remember that our legal system is set up with the presumption of innocence for everyone.  A client may know that he personally has been hurt by a certain person, but I can't forget the inscriptions I saw on four tombstones up near Holbrook - Hung by mistake as rustlers.  If you want real justice, you have to be ready to take the time to pursue it."

The very fact that so few people lining the courthouse hallways wish to see their names in print proves another indictment of our legal system.

Said one man, a sizable employer in the Mesa area who was simply in court to act as a character witness for one of his employees, "Being in court has a negative connotation, period.  I've done absolutely nothing wrong, but I certainly don't want people to know I'm in court today because people might take it for granted I'm in some sort of trouble."

Although being hauled through the legal process can certainly cast a dark shadow over anyone's life, Hossack has one final thing to add about our court system.

"As Winston Churchill used to say about democracy, "It's the worst system in the world - except for everything else."  Well, there you have our legal system in a nutshell.  It creates a lot of problems for a lot of people but I don't know of anything better."