When a question relating to a legal matter arises on the SDMB, it is normal for many words to be devoted to disclaimers about how a poster is not a lawyer, or not qualified to practice in a particular jurisdiction, or how the OP should consult a lawyer, etc. In this thread, this is taken further: the thread is locked because a mod feels that a lawyer should be consulted.
I’m wondering why legal questions should have this apparently special status on SDMB. There is obvious potential for problems if in a thread relating to a legal matter random speculation is taken as gospel, but the same thing can be said about advice relating to medical, automotive, computer, electrical, plumbing and indeed a great many other subjects. Is it not reasonable to assume that an SDMB poster understands the nature of an Internet discussion board, in particular that there is no magic by which any response is guaranteed to be correct? If we are to have routine & extensive disclaimers for one class of questions, why not for others?
Medical questions are also often routinely closed. Misinformation about medical and legal questions has much more potential for serious consequences than the others you cite. While I agree that misinformation about electrical systems and cars *could * be life-threatening, in the context of most of the questions I have seen on the board it has not been. However, I have seen threads asking about particularly dangerous actions related to these subjects locked as well.
As a lawyer, I worry about this issue whenever I think about answering a legal question. The problem with legal (or medical or electrical or any other professional) advice over the internet is that someone following that advice without fully understanding its limitations can really injure themselves (whether physcial injury, financial injury or both).
I see legal questions ranging on a spectrum from “tell me about this general legal issue” to “how should I handle this specific legal problem.” It’s the difference between “what are the rights of the police to inspect a car’s trunk in a traffic stop” and “the cops busted me for pot in my trunk–help me get off.”
The first of these any lawyer or knowledgeable lay person should be able to discuss as a general matter. The second, any responsible lawyer would avoid, unless the poster was his or her actual client (and most likely a paying one at that). However, there is a serious risk that someone who is not a lawyer could post serious misinformation.
I see three legal threads on the front page of GQ right now (New Bankrupcy Laws, illegal names in Europe? and Transsexuals and same-sex marriage) and they are all of the “general legal issue” type. If I had knowledge of the subject matter of them, I would most likely answer them. On the other hand, there are many questions (like the one linked in the OP) that I would absolutely avoid, except to tell the poster to get qualified legal advice (as many lawyers in that thread did). Paridoxically, I also avoid several of the general questions that are squarely in my areas of specialty and/or my geographic area of practice because I want to avoid any suggestion that I am giving actual, qualified legal advice, rather than a general discussion.
Frequently, when I see threads about legal subjects, I see posts that are astoundingly, mind-bogglingly and dangerously incorrect. I don’t recall ever seeing one of those posts by someone I know to be a lawyer here on the Boards. However, some of the lay posters here can make definitive statements of purported facts when they don’t really know (i.e. have no fucking clue) what they are talking about. When I see one of those posts, I’ll jump in to correct them, as will many of my colleagues, but you don’t know whether any of the readers have believed or followed the bad advice.
It just seems to me to be good policy to close threads where no responsible professional should give an anwer, but many irresponsible non-professionals would be tempted to.
Thanks, Billdo, for a thoughtful post. I think your point about general vs. specific advice is apt.
My general point would be that on a message board, any advice on any subject is inherently suspect, and anyone who believes otherwise is either astonishingly naive or a real fool. But that doesn’t mean that message boards should be shut down, nor does it mean you can’t obtain some very useful information on a wide variety of subjects (by no means all of which will come from experts).
And since pretty much independent of the subject there is potential for harm when blindly following random advice, there appears to be no compelling case for treating any particular category of advice differently with regard to disclaimers.
We tend to take the same approach towards many other types of questions, but medical and legal tend to spring to mind. First, there is the danger of misinformation (whether well-intended or deliberately malicious or somewhere in between). Second, there’s a risk of misinterpretion, even if the information is generally correct.
Billdo has expressed, very well, the difference between a general question and a specific situation. The problem is the missing information. In a medical situation, for instance, a doctor examining the patient would ask about past history, allergies, etc. And would also be looking at the patient (is that a rash? why is the hand shaking? why is the pulse elevated? etc). So, our fear is that someone will attempt to short-cut getting a doctor’s (or lawyer’s) advice, and that could be verrrrry dangerous.
On a personal level, I had a cousin who died from prostate cancer that would have been treatable if he had gone to a doctor. I therefore urge people with problems to seek medical help, and early.