# Arrogant Attorney Asshats

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-attorney-asshats/494476>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [April 27, 2009, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-attorney-asshats/494476 "2009-04-27T08:11:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 86

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**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-attorney-asshats/494476/86 "2009-04-27T21:01:32Z")

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**Stoid** , I’m not sure you realize that the term “legal advice” is itself a legal term of art that has been interpreted by courts, bar associations and other relevant authorities. In general, something becomes legal advice when it is given to an individual for her individual situation. Although a lawyer may write to educate the general public, whether via a website or otherwise, when the lawyer provides individual information to a person about her particular situation, it bears the significant risk that a court or ethics tribunal will consider that an attorney-client relationship has arisen and the lawyer could be liable for malpractice if the information is not actually relevant and complete.

Association of the Bar of the City of New York Formal Ethics Opinion [1998-2](http://www.abcny.org/Ethics/eth1998-2.htm) discusses some of these issues:

> [@](#):
>
> Ethical Consideration 2-5 is also pertinent to an Internet discussion area:
> 
> A lawyer who writes or speaks for the purpose of educating members of the public to recognize their legal problems should carefully refrain from giving or appearing to give a general solution applicable to all apparently similar individual problems since slight changes in fact situations may require a material variance in the applicable advice; otherwise, the public may be misled and misadvised. Talks and writings by lawyers for non-lawyers should caution them not to attempt to solve individual problems upon the basis of the information contained therein.
> 
> The dynamics of written legal discussions on the Internet are different from those of oral public discussion, in part because the written word is generally given more weight, and may benefit from longer retention and study, than the oral word. Accordingly, if Law Firm does establish a discussion area, substantial caution and vigilance are advised.
> 
> Law Firm has noted that “if specific legal advice is sought, we will indicate that this requires establishment of an attorney-client relationship which cannot be carried out through the use of a web page.” While this Committee does not opine on matters of law, we note that this disclaimer may not necessarily serve to shield Law Firm from a claim that an attorney-client relationship was in fact established by reason of specific on-line communications. Caution particularly given the multi-jurisdictional reach of the Internet is again advised in this area. See, e.g., Ethics, Malpractice Concerns Cloud E-Mail, On-Line Advice, 11 ABA/BNA Laws. Man. Prof. Conduct 3 (1996).
> 
> It might be argued that almost any question and answer may in fact constitute legal advice, even if the questioner does not appear to be seeking “specific” legal advice.

As such, most lawyers are rightly gunshy about answering specific questions posed by an individual about their particular legal situations.

Although you might not consider something to be “advice”, the more specificly related to your particular situation the question is, the more likely the law of legal ethics is to consider any question and answer “advice”. Further, most lawyers are reluctant to take the risk of getting into the grey areas of whether or not something is or is not “advice” when dealing with particular situations. Even the question of whether a lawyer has encountered any cases with a particular bunny/pancake result could well be considered legal advice, whether or not you think it to be merely a request for non-advice “information.”

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