4 ms·

Don't try to apply standards of common sense to legal protections. You and I, and any sensible person, know if would be foolish to interpret a random blog post

by scubbo 3y ago

Don't try to apply standards of common sense to legal protections. You and I, and any sensible person, know if would be foolish to interpret a random blog post as legal advice. But a bad actor acting in bad faith could _pretend_ that they were misled by that advice, and conduct a frivolous lawsuit (or, more likely, the _threat_ of a frivolous lawsuit) for profit. By the simple act of putting ~20 words at the top of the article, the author has protected themselves from this. Simple Cost-Benefit Analysis makes this clearly worthwhile.

eviks 3y ago
> the author has protected themselves from this that's obviously false, nothing could protect anyone from being threatened (nor from some frivolous lawsuit), and to do CBA you'd need to actually do analysis of what the benefit is (also, where is your legal liability disclaimer if it's clearly worthwhile? You've made a public legal assessment of the op's legal liability disclaimer)
- scubbo 3y ago
  > that's obviously false, nothing could protect anyone from being threatened (nor from some frivolous lawsuit) Apologies - I assumed you had the ability to read between the lines that they were "protected" in the sense that they could safely ignore any such threat because they could be confident that it would fail, whereas without this protection they might feel vulnerable enough to need to defend themselves with it.
  - eviks 3y ago
    You could try reading the lines before impugning someone's ability to read between them. Frivolous lawsuit by definition doesn't care about legal merits, including your own fail criterion: "[frivolous litigation] includes presenting an argument with reason to know that it would certainly faill (Wikipedia) So again, no magic disclaimers can help you here, you still face the risks that someone is going to impose (or threat to impose) the burden of legal proceedings regardless of legal merit on you
uxp8u61q 3y ago
Perhaps you should read up on what "legal advice" means. https://www.findlaw.com/hirealawyer/do-you-need-a-lawyer/what-is-legal-advice.html https://www.findlaw.com/hirealawyer/do-you-need-a-lawyer/wha... https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/48016/are-the-abbreviations-ianal-and-tinla-legally-valid-substitutes-for-their-fu https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/48016/are-the-abbrev... > Legal advice requires: > Education, knowledge, and experience in areas of the law > The ability and experience to apply that knowledge to specific fact patterns > An understanding of how the application of the law affects the client's legal rights > Practical expertise in writing legal documents or other documents to support the client's position > State or federal licenses that allow legal representation in court Whether you write "this is not legal advice" or not has absolutely no bearing on whether it actually is legal advice or not. The phrase is used by actual lawyers when they don't want to mislead the general public about thinking that the legal information they provide is legal advice. Non-lawyers use it to feel fancy and sophisticated.
- scubbo 3y ago
  TIL, thank you! Still, though - the original statement wasn't false, it _wasn't_ legal advice, and the clarification did make that clear in such a way that a reader couldn't be confused into thinking that it was reliable. So - it wasn't a _useless_ thing to write, as the original commenter implied, even if it doesn't have legal weight as I mistakenly thought.
  - eviks 3y ago
    Nice goal post shifting, though you're still mistaken in how low you assess the intelligence of the readers (and even real "legal advice" can be unreliable, so you're a bit confused here as well)
scubbo 3y ago
(Can't edit an old comment, but - I have been informed below that this is incorrect! Still, though - it doesn't _hurt_ to clarify that you are not an expert in an area when describing your choices so that a reader can make an appropriate evaluation, even if that clarification doesn't provide legal protection in the way that I mistakenly thought it did)

by scubbo 3y ago

eviks 3y ago

> the author has protected themselves from this that's obviously false, nothing could protect anyone from being threatened (nor from some frivolous lawsuit), and to do CBA you'd need to actually do analysis of what the benefit is (also, where is your legal liability disclaimer if it's clearly worthwhile? You've made a public legal assessment of the op's legal liability disclaimer)

scubbo 3y ago
> that's obviously false, nothing could protect anyone from being threatened (nor from some frivolous lawsuit) Apologies - I assumed you had the ability to read between the lines that they were "protected" in the sense that they could safely ignore any such threat because they could be confident that it would fail, whereas without this protection they might feel vulnerable enough to need to defend themselves with it.
- eviks 3y ago
  You could try reading the lines before impugning someone's ability to read between them. Frivolous lawsuit by definition doesn't care about legal merits, including your own fail criterion: "[frivolous litigation] includes presenting an argument with reason to know that it would certainly faill (Wikipedia) So again, no magic disclaimers can help you here, you still face the risks that someone is going to impose (or threat to impose) the burden of legal proceedings regardless of legal merit on you

uxp8u61q 3y ago

Perhaps you should read up on what "legal advice" means. https://www.findlaw.com/hirealawyer/do-you-need-a-lawyer/what-is-legal-advice.html https://www.findlaw.com/hirealawyer/do-you-need-a-lawyer/wha... https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/48016/are-the-abbreviations-ianal-and-tinla-legally-valid-substitutes-for-their-fu https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/48016/are-the-abbrev... > Legal advice requires: > Education, knowledge, and experience in areas of the law > The ability and experience to apply that knowledge to specific fact patterns > An understanding of how the application of the law affects the client's legal rights > Practical expertise in writing legal documents or other documents to support the client's position > State or federal licenses that allow legal representation in court Whether you write "this is not legal advice" or not has absolutely no bearing on whether it actually is legal advice or not. The phrase is used by actual lawyers when they don't want to mislead the general public about thinking that the legal information they provide is legal advice. Non-lawyers use it to feel fancy and sophisticated.

scubbo 3y ago
TIL, thank you! Still, though - the original statement wasn't false, it _wasn't_ legal advice, and the clarification did make that clear in such a way that a reader couldn't be confused into thinking that it was reliable. So - it wasn't a _useless_ thing to write, as the original commenter implied, even if it doesn't have legal weight as I mistakenly thought.
- eviks 3y ago
  Nice goal post shifting, though you're still mistaken in how low you assess the intelligence of the readers (and even real "legal advice" can be unreliable, so you're a bit confused here as well)

scubbo 3y ago

(Can't edit an old comment, but - I have been informed below that this is incorrect! Still, though - it doesn't _hurt_ to clarify that you are not an expert in an area when describing your choices so that a reader can make an appropriate evaluation, even if that clarification doesn't provide legal protection in the way that I mistakenly thought it did)