I guess there is some kind of lawyer personality disorder that would have prevented any of you from simply posting in the original thread:
Fear Itself is essentially right, but there are some very obscure and extremely unlikley conditions that might prevent you from quitting and working for your company’s client. It’s virtually inconceivable, but not impossible, that you’d be held liable personally. Of course, for actual legal advice you should see a lawyer specializing in this area.
I get some of my best advice from a little hunch back at the office…
And as the various lawyers have thoroughly explained, Fear Itself was not “essentially” right or any other kind of right. That’s why we value people with expert knowledge of such subject matters, because legal or, say, medical advice from laypeople is so often not right. It’s unfortunate for you that you’re unable to tell the difference between what Fear Itself said and what the actual lawyers said.
I didn’t know if he was essentially right – still don’t, for that matter. I knew his statement was too broad to be acceptable without knowing more than we knew then, and I was concerned that BUNNY might read it and think FEAR knew what he was talking about, when at that point he couldn’t possibly know what he was talking about.
I would no more have posted to say he was essentially right than I would have posted to say he was probably wrong. I didn’t know either way. Feel free to consider that a personality disorder if you like.
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You’d be amazed how often this happens. I see it all the time. The employee signs a bunch of papers as part of his new job in 1992, and has no real recollection of what they were 6 months later, let alone 15 years later. People don’t read what they sign. Yes, that’s idiotic, but that’s what many people do.
Tell me, did you read the contract last time you rented a car?
Yes, I would. Not every supervisor does this, though. To many supervisors, contract language is something that the big boss had the legal department draft. All the mid level supervisor cares about is getting a signature on the form and having his new salesman (or whatever) start as soon as possible. Read a contract? We’re too busy.
A lot higher than 0%.
I’ve often mused over what it is about the law that seems to make people without legal training or experience think they can confidently make declarations about what the law is. It seems to be that this is usually what they think it should be. Sometimes this is a good faith misunderstanding other times it’s bloody minded ignorance.
This phenomena isn’t limited to this board I come accross it regularly in the real world, often from people who should know better.
Part of it I think may relate to the desire for simple answers and the fact that the law often doesn’t provide clear black and white answers resulting in legal advice being often filled with conditional statements and qualifications ie IF, MAY, MIGHT rather than IS, WILL, SHALL
In the UK there is a split civil and criminal system between Scotland and England. A considerable amount of the law is identical in terms between the two jurisictions. I’m qualified in Scotland but even with a degree, post grad and a number of years experience I wouldn’t contemplate giving advice about English Law. As I understand it the situation is similar in the US between the states.
I think part of the source of the willingness of non lawyers to give advice on legal matters and the way that erroneous declarations get’s lawyers backs up is connected with the fact that Lawyers have it hammered into them the consequences of giving erroneous advice. As a Lawyer if you give erroneous advice your client will have to live with the consequences and the situation is likely to become distinctly unpleasant for you.
Non lawyers on the other hand who make declarations on legal issues aren’t cultured to think of consequences of giving bad advice and are to an extent insulated from repercussions.
Part of me can see how Fear Itself came to the conclusion he did, can understand why on reading the cite he used thought it backed up his statement and became defensive when challenged on it. However persevering in the view when challenged on it by people who clearly knew/know better than him strikes as arrogance and bloodyminded.
Nice tangent. It comes at my statements so crookedly it almost misses completely. I have no intention of going to law school. I am a licensed professional though, and have on a number of occasions disagreed with laymen and others in my profession in GQ discussions. I can’t remember ever having a need bounce over to the pit and have a hissy fit over it.
And my lawyer loves lawer jokes.
BTW - I don’t care if you have a degree. I enjoy your participation in SDMB.
Then maybe people don’t rely on the advice given in your field to thier very significant detriment. Since I don’t know what your professional license is in, I can hardly speculate as to why you would not object to persons giving bad advice. Maybe you just don’t give a shit; I do. And if you think this is a hissy fit, you haven’t read enough Pit threads.
Excellent pitting. What Fear Itself did in that thread is one of my own pet peeves, whether it’s a thread about the law or about sea slugs: pull a bullshit answer out of your ass and then even worse, when called on it, continue arguing against expert opinion.
From the original thread:
If anybody is going to get discussions of legal questions banned in GQ, it’s idiots like you who shoot off their mouths when they have no idea what they are talking about, and then don’t have the common sense to admit it when they are called on it.
They point of course is *not *that anyone should trust legal advice given on a message board, but that people who respond to questions in GQ should actually know something about the subject matter.
From the original thread:
I certainly hope the Fear and like-minded individuals take this warning to heart.
Yes, I’ve heard that many do. I can’t speak for Jodi, obviously, but I’ve been reading her posts here since she was jodih with her .sig line, fiat justitia*. I had the impression in the linked thread that she was being quite civil in her attempts to set the record straight, until Fear Itself got nasty. She seemed to be cautioning against giving too much weight to the reliability of a politically-charged generalization from a layman, and also to be cautioning Fear Itself to reconsider how responsible his sweeping statements were (or were not). In the beginning, she was even allowing as how she shared Fear Itself’s view as to the likelihood of the questioner’s liabillity, and tried to make it clear that her only objection was to the oversimplification brought in by framing it in terms of the sweeping statement.
As I saw it, Jodi’s sharpness with Fear Itself began after he tried to defend himself against the suggestion that he had posted irresponsibly, with the implication that Jodi was being too timid to be any help at all, while he was being all noble and authentic and free-thinking, slicing through the Gordian knot of Nutty Bunny’s problem with quick and decisive action. I found it a bit grandiose, myself, and I don’t really think in those circumstances, that Jodi’s response to it rose to the level of hissy fit.
The above is entirely my opinion, based on how I read the thread, but I found her behavior to be consistent with what I have noted of her postings for the past seven years. If you read it differently, well, reasonable people can differ.
Why, thank you. 
That’s very kind of you to say. I enjoy my time here as well.
*I’m going to be really embarrassed if it turns out that this is a different Jodi. Please don’t anybody tell me if I screwed it up.
I think that jodih took some bad legal advice from Fear Itself and had to fork over the h after losing a civil suit.
:d
Crap.
You don’t know the half of it! Before her legal troubles, she was known as jodihowareyoudoingcaniofferyousomethingtodrinkormaybeabrownie. It’s tragic, really.
1 counter example from google:
"An appellate court has validated a company’s noncompete agreement and has upheld an injunction against a former employee who, after being fired, went to work for a competitor. The court determined that the agreement was legally enforceable and necessary to prevent the former employee from luring former customers to his new company.
In January 2000, Kevin Hennkens was hired by Safety-Kleen Systems Inc. as a vacuum sales and service representative at the company’s Caseyville, Illinois, branch. …"
Clearly, Kevin Hennkens did not have the right to accept any job, any where, any time.
I guess it could be worse. My wife’s cousin was both an insurance guy and an evangelical christian of the prosyletizing type. You can bet we hid behind furniture when he rang the doorbell.
Yeah, I’m that Jodi, and thank you, Dad of Kayla, for your quite flattering defense.
I thought so too. That’s why I enjoy disagreeing/agreeing with kaylasdad99.
But be carefull Jodi, IANAL but you thanking him for his defense may have opened the door to some legal issues like:
1- If he’s defending you is he practicing law without a license?
2- Did your admission open the door for him to bill you for his services?
3 - Wouldn’t Jodi and the Bubbadogs be a great name for a band?
It’s good to know that I will be legally protected when I hire on as Crackwhore, or Hitman.
What you (and some others) continue to ignore is that this Pitting would be amply merited even if there was no legal issue at all involved. Fear Itself was talking out of his ass, was wrong in his initial blanket statement, offered a cite that didn’t actually back up his initial statement, and continued to attempt to defend his initial wrong statement against expert advice both in the GQ thread and here. This is bad behavior in GQ no matter what the subject. The fact that it is a legal issue makes it more serious, but it is not the most fundamental reason to Pit him.