# Arrogant Freeloading "Information" Seeking Asshats! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 12, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115 "2009-05-12T00:39:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/61 "2009-05-12T04:57:59Z")
> [@nyctea scandiaca](#): > > It strikes me as if the attorneys think they have a monopoly on freely available information (_The Law_ is published and made available to every citizen by state and Federal government. Why do you think one should have to pay in order to obtain extensive and useful knowledge of it?) To be fair, I readily acknowledge that it’s not simply knowledge of law that makes one a good lawyer. It’s the intellectual ability to grasp it, understand the concepts and interpret it, and to have good debating and persuasive skills and other numerous talents and instincts that you cannot achieve merely by reading the law by yourself in a library or on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/62 "2009-05-12T05:02:14Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Low cost to free legal services are readily available in the following areas: > > Divorce and custody > Domestic violence > Immigration > Landlord-tenant/other housing > Public Benefits > Disability > some basic employment and health > And of course, criminal issues. > > So if someone has an issue that falls outside of these areas, what would you recommend that they do? (It’s a serious question. I’ve been trying for months…) Hire an attorney of course. If your case is judged a likely winner, and there is a snowball’s chance in hell that you can collect a judgment, and the reward (roughly 30%) is worth the time needed to put in, then you can surely find an attorney willing to finance the case for you and take it on contingency. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/63 "2009-05-12T05:07:09Z")
> [@nyctea scandiaca](#): > > This attitude strikes me as seriously pretentious. Just because you have an expensive degree doesn’t mean you own the information you were taught, and that laypeople have no right or ability to learn it on their own if they need to. **Stoid** has plenty of access to a top university law school library. She is free to draw whatever conclusions she likes from the same information that the lawyers have access to. And IANAL. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/64 "2009-05-12T05:08:29Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > And if you don’t have the money to hire a lawyer? Bluff it and negotiate. That is what a lawyer is going to do for you anyway. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/65 "2009-05-12T05:19:20Z")
> [@nyctea scandiaca](#): > > That’s from an opinion of the Illinois State Bar Association - a professional association - not a lawmaking/legislative body. Nor is it case law. This is beyond ridiculous. If you’re this uninformed about how lawyers are regulated, why do you think you have enough of a command to post in this thread about lawyer malpractice issues? The bar isn’t a professional organization like the Kiwanis club. It’s a quasi-governmental organization that has the ability to set rules for lawyer conduct. And clients can complain to the bar, and the bar can discipline you and disbar you, and if they disbar you, you can’t practice law. This opinion can and will be cited in any malpractice claim covering internet opinion, and your hand-waving dismissal of it is nothing more than silly argumentation. > [@](#): > > I was looking for actual statute or case law showing that information given in an online message board such as this constitutes a legitimate client/attorney relationship that would be upheld by a court in a lawsuit. You’ve already been given adequate cites to establish that there is a risk of malpractice liability. If you don’t want to accept it, I’m not going to try any further. You are simply incorrect in the way to interpret risk here, and I’m done trying to argue with someone who wants to hand-wave away things he/she clearly doesn’t understand. > [@](#): > > Just to correct you, I am not demanding, or even asking, for any legal advice here, or anywhere… > > My opinion is that it’s not the risk of a malpractice lawsuit that is at issue here. That is a smokescreen. I think it’s exaggerated professional pride and pretension. An unspoken attitude that since you paid a venerable school of law to teach you the information you know, that no one should ever presume to ask you to share that information for free. You worked hard to learn that information, and why should you just give it away for free? Especially to people like **Stoid** who dare to presume they are smart and capable enough to learn the law without the same prestigious and expensive education? The person in this thread who is being pretensious is you. You’ve been given a clear statement of the malpractice risks for free, and instead of learning about it, you hand-wave it away. What you really mean is that you want lawyers to appear on the internet to confirm your own made-up theories about the law. Have fun. > [@](#): > > I can’t read your mind, so maybe I am wrong, but that is how it appears to me when I read your statements. It strikes me as if the attorneys think they have a monopoly on freely available information (_The Law_ is published and made available to every citizen by state and Federal government. Why do you think one should have to pay in order to obtain extensive and useful knowledge of it?) I’m done here. Nobody requires you to pay anything. All of the court cases and laws are available on the internet for free. You can represent yourself all you like in court for free. You can get low-cost and free legal services if you are poor. You’re assertion that I think you should “have to pay” for something is dishonest bullshit, and I’m done playing. ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/66 "2009-05-12T05:28:25Z")
> [@nyctea scandiaca](#): > > To be fair, I readily acknowledge that it’s not simply knowledge of law that makes one a good lawyer. It’s the intellectual ability to grasp it, understand the concepts and interpret it, and to have good debating and persuasive skills and other numerous talents and instincts that you cannot achieve merely by reading the law by yourself in a library or on the internet. But at the same time, you are ignoring what the _Bar itself_ says, declaring that you are the sole arbiter of the rules, and bashing a bunch of professionals who actually have a stake in the outcome. Your words and your actions (actually you other words) don’t line up. You asked for cites, and then are unconvinced by the cases because there are some “magic words” that you think make you right. The idea that statements by the Bar aren’t “statutes” or “case law”, and thus are not important, demonstrates that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the system. Let me make it really simple for you by asking you a yes or no question: Do you think you are better at lawyering than every lawyer who has posted in these threads, and every judge who wrote the decisions I linked to, and the Bar that is responsible for clarifying and enforcing many of the ethical rules? That is what you are implying; and therefore you are wrong unless your answer is no. You can claim there is some sort of conspiracy, or that lawyers are just bred and brainwashed into all agreeing on a way to screw the poor, but that would make you a fucking crank. So, are you a fucking crank? ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/67 "2009-05-12T05:53:55Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > Doctors do the same thing (they write prescriptions, we write briefs), and I am pretty sure they don’t like to talk about your rash at a cocktail party, either. **They, of course, also have to be careful about giving advice because of those pesky ethical considerations.** > > Furthermore, there is this whole class of people called “consultants” who do nothing but dispense advice. Those sons of bitches must be total dicks for not giving away advice for free – **they don’t even have ethical rules** and malpractice to worry about! Wait, what do ethics have to do with it? > [@BrightNShiny](#): > > And finally, yeah, sometimes people cause you a harm and they get away with it, because you can’t afford to sue them. This happens to the richest corporations too, except we say “it’s not worth it to sue them.” I have several clients who didn’t sue when they had a right to, because the guy who caused them harm is a deadbeat, and even if all the attorney services were free, the court fees alone would make suing uneconomical. It’s not fair, but it happens. HAHHAHAHAHA. “We have the right to sue them, but the schmuck has no money to recoup our costs.” Yes, _that’s_ the POV from which the system is unfair. hahaha. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/68 "2009-05-12T05:55:03Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > So, are you a fucking crank? I suppose I must be a fucking crank, especially since I came into a thread to argue against lawyers. How stupid must I be?? ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/69 "2009-05-12T06:01:36Z")
> [@nyctea scandiaca](#): > > My opinion is that it’s not the risk of a malpractice lawsuit that is at issue here. That is a smokescreen. I think it’s exaggerated professional pride and pretension. An unspoken attitude that since you paid a venerable school of law to teach you the information you know, that no one should ever presume to ask you to share that information for free. You worked hard to learn that information, and why should you just give it away for free? Especially to people like **Stoid** who dare to presume they are smart and capable enough to learn the law without the same prestigious and expensive education? > > I can’t read your mind, so maybe I am wrong, but that is how it appears to me when I read your statements. It strikes me as if the attorneys think they have a monopoly on freely available information (_The Law_ is published and made available to every citizen by state and Federal government. Why do you think one should have to pay in order to obtain extensive and useful knowledge of it?) I can’t speak for the motivations of any of the other attorneys in either thread, but I will say that this is in no way true of me. First off, I am actually doing almost exactly the same job now that I was before I went to law school (having been working in one of, if not the only, areas of law where appropriately qualified non-lawyers may practice), so I never saw law school as some kind of arcane ticket to join the elite club. I went for the coldly practical reason that my income would go up dramatically once I had that diploma (and eventually passed the bar, but I got the raise as soon as I graduated). But you know what happened? Law school made me a better advocate. It turned out that the reason my income went up is because I was actually worth more, because of that education. As you acknowledged in a later post, it had nothing to do with information - law school actually teaches you relatively little about the law. It had to do with learning advocacy - the “how to think like a lawyer” that every law school promises, and that sounds so hokey before you learn it. Skills, not information. Unfortunately, you can’t get skills by reading about them. You have to do it. One of the major things law school does is provide a forum where you can practice advocacy under pressure, without actually risking screwing up people’s lives. Since that time, I have put in my pro bono hours, and have further helped friends, family, and strangers whenever I could within the boundaries of my ethical duties. I am in no way jealous of the information or even the skills I obtained in law school. I do my best to pass on what I can of both. But I don’t stick my hand in the crazy, and so far, **Stoid** looks to me like the crazy. Her post that proudly stated “that’s how I practice” showed a profound, fundamental misunderstanding of how to advocate for a cause, and I haven’t seen any sign that she’s willing to accept that maybe she has that misunderstanding. So why should I [beat my head against a brick wall](http://xkcd.com/386/)? ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/70 "2009-05-12T06:02:52Z")
Btw, **BrightNShiny** , would you say it is unfortunate that malpractice suits exist and can even target unwitting, casual advice givers? Would you change the system (if it is in fact the system), if you could? ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/71 "2009-05-12T06:16:40Z")
> [@](#): > > HAHHAHAHAHA. “We have the right to sue them, but the schmuck has no money to recoup our costs.” Yes, that’s the POV from which the system is unfair. hahaha. One of my clients was a small business owner and a contractor fucked up several orders and cost him a huge amount of money. I’m sure he was laughing right along with you as he had to put his business into bankruptcy protection. I’m sure all of his employees were laughing too when they got laid off. I know I was certainly laughing when I didn’t get paid for my services. What a fucking asshole you are. > [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Btw, **BrightNShiny** , would you say it is unfortunate that malpractice suits exist and can even target unwitting, casual advice givers? Would you change the system (if it is in fact the system), if you could? If you’re a lawyer, you should already be able to reasonably judge the risks related to malpractice claims. I don’t see how a reasonably competent attorney could claim to be unwitting, but things happen, and that’s what malpractice insurance is for. Every activity has a risk, and some lawyers will choose that risk freely, while others will make that calculation differently. Someone I know claims she got a ton of lawyers volunteering free advice to her in an effort to get her business in a divorce case. I don’t know how true it is, but it wouldn’t surprise me. My point is that it’s not unreasonable to avoid that risk. As for changing the system, I’d need to see what the proposed change is. ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/72 "2009-05-12T06:21:52Z")
> [@nyctea scandiaca](#): > > I suppose I must be a fucking crank, especially since I came into a thread to argue against lawyers. How stupid must I be?? As long as you’re aware that you’re admitting you think that you are better at being a lawyer than a bunch of people who all went to law school and who practice law as a living. (ie: a crank.) > [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Wait, what do ethics have to do with it? I’ve never thought you were the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but this? Really? > [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Btw, **BrightNShiny** , would you say it is unfortunate that malpractice suits exist and can even target unwitting, casual advice givers? Would you change the system (if it is in fact the system), if you could? I’m not **BrightNShiny** , but I’ll take a shot. The answer is “Hell, no, I wouldn’t change the system”. The last thing we need in our society is a bunch of people like **Stoid** or you telling people how to practice law, just like we don’t want believers in bloodletting practice oncology or random citizens acting as police, or self-trained engineers designing skyscrapers and bridges, or even people driving cars without checking to see that they have a minimum level of competency. Malpractice exists because we want to ensure that people don’t get fucked by bad advice, even when they are too ignorant of the subject matter to know what bad advice is. Why the hell would we want to remove penalties for representing yourself as an expert, except in some sort of crazy conservative laissez faire caveat emptor world where we want all expertise to be replicated? ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/73 "2009-05-12T06:36:39Z")
Because this thread will appreciate it… I just made SUCH A SCORE!! The full 10 Volume 10th edition of Witkin’s California Civil Procedure with all supplements and updates through 2007. Guess. No, really… guess how much. C’MON~! GUESS! FIFTY BUCKS. Nope, not lyin’. And that’s not $50 per book, that’s fifty total. For everything. That’s like…free. the same set through 2004 on Alibris is $245. SCORE!!! ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/74 "2009-05-12T06:41:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Who the hell asks for “massage advice”? Is the preferred term nowadays release or happy ending? Also, how much should I tip? ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/75 "2009-05-12T06:46:58Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > If you’re a lawyer, you should already be able to reasonably judge the risks related to malpractice claims. I don’t see how a reasonably competent attorney could claim to be unwitting, but things happen, and that’s what malpractice insurance is for. Every activity has a risk, and some lawyers will choose that risk freely, while others will make that calculation differently. Someone I know claims she got a ton of lawyers volunteering free advice to her in an effort to get her business in a divorce case. I don’t know how true it is, but it wouldn’t surprise me. My point is that it’s not unreasonable to avoid that risk. > > As for changing the system, I’d need to see what the proposed change is. Ok, so scratch the word “unwitting” (even though the targets of prior suits probably were.) So you wouldn’t change the system? You like it the way it is? Do you perhaps cherish the thought that your peers aren’t able to casually undercut you and take away your business? Do you? (To be clear, if it could possibly not have been before, “changing the system” simply means taking away the risk of being sued for informal advice. That’s what the “proposed change” would be. I also take issue with the entire system of malpractice and having fucking _ **insurance** _ against it, but that’s totally beside the point right now.) **ivn888** , malpractice suits (in the context of this thread at least) don’t apply to non-lawyers, so i have no idea wtf you’re rambling about. Also, a personal insult doesn’t explain how it’s unethical to give advice without getting money for it. (Especially in the colloquial use of the word, but also in any jargon I can imagine.) ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/76 "2009-05-12T07:05:23Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > **ivn888** , malpractice suits (in the context of this thread at least) don’t apply to non-lawyers, so i have no idea wtf you’re rambling about. Also, a personal insult doesn’t explain how it’s unethical to give advice without getting money for it. (Especially in the colloquial use of the word, but also in any jargon I can imagine.) I’d assume that making trained lawyers specially accountable gives their advice a special weight — hence, it hurts cranks, even if it doesn’t provide for suing them. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/77 "2009-05-12T07:10:32Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > **ivn888** Malpractice suits (in the context of this thread at least) don’t apply to non-lawyers, so i have no idea wtf you’re rambling about. Also, a personal insult doesn’t explain how it’s unethical to give advice without getting money for it. (Especially in the colloquial use of the word, but also in any jargon I can imagine.) Malpractice risks certainly apply to other professionals - physicians carry malpractice insurance, engineers carry errors & omissions, and I imagine that most other licensed professionals assumes additional legal liability as a result of their license. It’s also not unethical for a lawyer to give advice without being paid - _pro bono_ work is encouraged by the profession. Instead, it’s unethical to provide legal advice outside of an attorney-client relationship. Rather than placing the burden on the (potential) client, who may or may not realize the full implications of entering such a relationship, the ethics of the profession assume that such a relationship is automatically created by a lawyer giving legal advice. It’s not defined that way to protect attorneys - it opens them up to a whole host of additional risks and forces them to carefully consider what they say in a lot of situations that we wouldn’t even think twice about. It’s set up that way to protect morons who might think that complicated legal questions can be answered definitively during a cocktail party. ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/78 "2009-05-12T07:20:50Z")
Ok, let’s try this even more slowly. Let’s say I am an unethical lawyer. You, at a cocktail party, ask me: “Hey, so I got hit by this drunk guy last night. How long do I have to sue him?” I, already drunk, and not giving a shit, answer thusly: “Uh, like you can sue for like 12 years. Yeah, 12 years.” (Or even better, because I think you’re a dick, I give you wrong info on purpose.) You, knowing that I actually am a lawyer, accept this. So in year 11, you are eying that new bass boat, and you go to a different lawyer and say “I need to sue this dude that hit me”. Lawyer informs you that you are about 7 years too late. You, **Alex\_Dubinsky** (note how I spelled that right? It’s common courtesy, even towards someone who didn’t read the first umpteen threads about this), just got fucked in the ass because there were no penalties for me giving you bad advice, and because you trusted me not to fuck up. Now imagine the same situation, except that you’re asking a doctor about that lump on your neck, and he says “Uh, you need to, like, get more salt in your diet”. Right before you die of cancer, you might be pissed at the doctor. Now, the real question that pops up here is threefold: A) How reasonable was it for you to rely on the cocktail party advice? B) How much does society want to protect you from bad advice? C) How difficult is it for the advice giver to defend herself? A is debatable, but it is rarely clear-cut. It depends on the exact facts and there is no such thing as a bright line rule for “reasonable”. The answer to B is “A lot”. We don’t want lawyers to give out bad advice, ever. It hurts everyone. We also would prefer that morons not give bad legal advice either, but unlike morons, we have a body that regulates our behavior and gives us ethical guidelines, _and enforces them_. C, in the United States, is “Difficult enough that I’d rather stay well in the clear rather than risk that some jackass from a cocktail party will sue me, because even though I will win it’s still a pain in the ass.” So, since you still don’t fucking understand it, the problem is not giving free advice. The problem is giving wrong advice. The wrongness and the freeness of the advice have nothing to do with each other, because as a profession we have decided that even someone getting charity deserves to get the the same goddamn quality of advice as someone paying full price. But, since we get sued for providing wrong advice, we’re not going to go around giving out advice indiscriminately, because law is difficult and _we might get it wrong_. So when you ask for advice, free or not, you are asking for us to put it on the line, and open ourselves to liability, and you can bet your ass I’m not going to expose myself for someone calling me an arrogant asshat or someone who thinks that they can read the internetz and know more about my job than me, as opposed to someone who understands they are not competent to practice law, and comes to me for help. (Like in the case I’m working on, _for free_, that I mentioned earlier.) ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/79 "2009-05-12T07:45:52Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Ok, so scratch the word “unwitting” (even though the targets of prior suits probably were.) > > So you wouldn’t change the system? You like it the way it is? Do you perhaps cherish the thought that your peers aren’t able to casually undercut you and take away your business? Do you? If this is going to devolve into some libertarian-esque argument (which I don’t know if it is, but your comment about “undercutting” makes me think it might), then, as I’ve made it clear in other threads, I favor economies that are largely Pareto efficient, which would lead to the conclusion that a number of business practices should be regulated, including practices related to the legal profession. If you are making an argument against having a licensing requirement for attorneys in general, then no, I am in favor of having a licensing requirement, although I think the current way in which lawyers are licensed should be revamped. > [@](#): > > (To be clear, if it could possibly not have been before, “changing the system” simply means taking away the risk of being sued for informal advice. That’s what the “proposed change” would be. I don’t see how your previous paragraphs relate to this change. What does taking away the risk of being sued have to do with “casually undercutting me and taking away my business?” People go all sorts of places for legal advice now. And lawyers give out free legal advice all the time right now. Your proposed change doesn’t change any of that. Instead, it shifts the risk of bad legal advice from the attorney to the person seeking legal advice. As for the proposed change itself, I wouldn’t agree to this change. 99% of the time, you need to have a detailed conversation with someone to give them reasonable correct legal advice, and by the time you’ve done that, it’s reasonable to assume that an attorney-client relationship has been established. And a lawyer shouldn’t be giving legal advice without doing a reasonable determination of the facts of the situation. > [@](#): > > I also take issue with the entire system of malpractice and having fucking _ **insurance** _ against it, but that’s totally beside the point right now.) I’m not in the mood right now for a thread on tort law economics, so I’ll just agree to disagree with you. ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115/80 "2009-05-12T07:53:46Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > I’m not in the mood right now for a thread on tort law economics, so I’ll just agree to disagree with you. Heh, nice. (ETA: because it says so much with so few words) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrogant-freeloading-information-seeking-asshats/496115.md?page=5)