Lawyers giving legal advice on call-in radio shows

[Northern_Piper]

@bordelond

I tell you what – if I were a judge, and I were to hear “on a messageboard” from the plaintiff’s mouth in a suit regarding legal malpracctice … I think I’d be inclined to summarily throw the case out. I’d be completely uninterested in any facts about the case at all.

“On a messageboard”, “on the radio”, “on TV”, “conversation at a bar”, “shooting the breeze at the neighbor’s babrbecue”, etc. should all be ironclad and unassailable defenses against the charge of “initiating an attorney/client relationship”. But of course, they aren’t. :smack:

But you can’t just have a black and white rule like that - it depends on the context, as always.

Suppose a poster starts a thread asking about inheritance issues. I respond. It becomes clear that the poster isn’t asking a general question, but is asking about his own legal rights in a particular case. The more detailed factual explanations the poster gives, the more detailed my answers become, down to citing statutes and case law, and suggesting possible lines of inquiry he can try, or types of filings that he could make in the relevant probate court.

That might well constitute a solicitor-client relationship, triggering my professional obligations. The fact that it happened on a message-board doesn’t take it outside the principles of my code of professional obligations. What’s important is what the two parties did, and the reasonable interpretation to put on their interaction. The medium used is simply one factor to take into account in that assessment.

[bordelond]

@Northern_Piper

But you can’t just have a black and white rule like that - it depends on the context, as always.

Understood – I’m only thinking wishfully. I just believe that an attorney-client relationship shoudln’t be something that can be entered into accidentally … any more than one can enter into marriage accidentally, or adopt a child accidentally.

[Acsenray]

@bordelond

I tell you what – if I were a judge, and I were to hear “on a messageboard” from the plaintiff’s mouth in a suit regarding legal malpracctice … I think I’d be inclined to summarily throw the case out. I’d be completely uninterested in any facts about the case at all.

And I think that if you were to ask actual judges you’d get approximately zero responses like this.

@bordelond

Understood – I’m only thinking wishfully. I just believe that an attorney-client relationship shoudln’t be something that can be entered into accidentally … any more than one can enter into marriage accidentally, or adopt a child accidentally.

There is a key difference between these situations and the one at issue. Here you have a (1) person seeking advice regarding consequential matters (2) from a person who seems to have the expertise to dispense such advice.

It’s a consumer protection issue. The person giving the advice is in possession of all kinds of information that the person seeking advice does not have, including the question of how good the advice is likely to be. It’s incumbent upon the advice-giver, especially in a profession subject to standards of practice, to ensure that there are no misunderstandings.

The same is true of health care professionals, financial advisers, and the like. It’s the person with the greater knowledge who is liable. If you simply want to avoid liabiliy, it’s incumbent upon you not to say anything that might be construed as advice.

[Cliffy]

@ivn1188

it’s pompous (Protect these morons from themselves) and invites form over function, and distrust of the profession.

I’ll have you know, I was this pompous before I went to law school.

Further, there is real value in getting more accurate information about our legal system to the public. There are some crazy urban-legend-type theories about the law out there, and it’s good to be able to counter them.

Absolutely true, but it’s a collective action problem. I’m not going to hang my ass over the edge to educate someone when society at large isn’t willing to pay my costs of litigation when it backfires.

–Cliffy

[Cliffy]

@ENugent

we have to assume that we’re dealing with that stubby-ended crayon that got wedged down in the bottom of the box and then melted in the back of the car.

And given the way threads requesting legal advice tend to go by about post 10 or so, this actually seems a very safe assumption.

@bordelond

“On a messageboard”, “on the radio”, “on TV”, “conversation at a bar”, “shooting the breeze at the neighbor’s babrbecue”, etc. should all be ironclad and unassailable defenses against the charge of “initiating an attorney/client relationship”

No, they shouldn’t. I appreciate the impulse, but there’s a reason I can form a att’y/client relationship at a barbecue, and the reason is that if I’m careless, I can ruin a dude’s life by giving him five minutes of shitty advice at a barbecue. As ascenray says, the guy asking for the advice isn’t in a position to evaluate it. So he could rely on what appears to be thoughtful advice from what appears to be a sage and deliberate thinker in possession of the required knowledge. And if doing so ends up costing him, then it’s legitimate that I pay for putting him on that trail.

–Cliffy

[ivn1188]

@Cliffy

Absolutely true, but it’s a collective action problem. I’m not going to hang my ass over the edge to educate someone when society at large isn’t willing to pay my costs of litigation when it backfires.

Agreed. It’s a societal and professional problem, at least partly caused by the profession itself. I’m not a big fan of bright line rules unless they are appropriate; the idea of “it’s on the internet so it can’t be legal advice” isn’t a good one.

The problem, as I see it, is that if we tailor communications to the least common denominator, we lessen the quality and quantity of discourse in society. However, it is still more than reasonable to lessen your own personal risk, and a disclaimer is one way to do so, and better than not participating at all.

The funny thing is that a lot of the people who bitch about lawyers being lawsuit happy often seem to be the same ones that feel that someone else must be at fault and hire those same lawyers. I suspect there is some confirmation bias there.

This isn’t really GQ territory, but I believe the OP’s question has been adequately answered.

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