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> Not a lawyer. Not your lawyer You don't need this. "IANAL" was just a (partly tongue-in-cheek) way to provide context so people didn't mistake a poster for a
by handrous 5y ago
> Not a lawyer. Not your lawyer
You don't need this. "IANAL" was just a (partly tongue-in-cheek) way to provide context so people didn't mistake a poster for a legal expert if they're writing with an otherwise authoritative tone, but really that's just assumed unless stated otherwise, and "I am not your lawyer" is part of a common disclaimer by actual lawyers to make it 1000% clear that they're not providing legal advice in their official capacity and so creating a lawyer/client relationship, when posting their opinions online. No part of this is even maybe needed if you're not a lawyer, and even the "I am not your lawyer" thing is probably an example of excessive ass-covering (but the law's all about that, so, no surprise there)
- aaron-santos 5y agoThank you. It's a tough habit to break after reading it for so many years.
- handrous 5y agoOh, I get it. It's a weird self-reinforcing meme (in the classical sense). People see it, so they write it, so others see it, so they write it, some of the ones along the line think there must be a good reason so they're really careful to write it, and so on. Really similar to how language evolves generally, through misunderstandings or misappropriated terms that come to actually mean the thing they were initially mistaken to mean (possibly losing the original sense entirely, sooner or later), except that in this case it's not actually signifying anything. Just a linguistic tic.
- c22 5y agoIs this legal advice?
- handrous 5y agoI am a fake lawyer. I am not your fake lawyer. This isn't not fake legal advice.