Legal Advice Section?

[Winchester]

A number of individuals frequently have questions leaning towards a legal nature here - of course, these questions are all theoretical and any replies given to them are all just the honest opinion and legal understanding of non-pracitcing non-lawyers who are in no way associated with any form of legal entity around the world.

That being said it would be great to have a place to discuss these legal hypothetical (of course including a disclaimer that it is hypothetical).

I am sure a number of the Jr VIP members can attest to how helpful they have found certain discussions on this nature and if done properly this section could be something fruitful to the community.

I know I myself would spend a good part of my day in there discussing such matters.

What are your thoughts?

 

[scully]

Great idea, Winchester. Perhaps regional taxes could also be woven into this section.

Hope your engagement is coming along beautifully.

 

[Winchester]

Great idea, Winchester. Perhaps regional taxes could also be woven into this section.

Hope your engagement is coming along beautifully.

Thank you - the big question day is coming soon!

Essentially this section could have sub-sections for tax law, copyright law, business law, personal claims, contracts and partnerships, etc and allow us to discuss this valuable knowledge as I find these are common questions people have when the delve into this, and I find many people that have crossed over the line of legality were simply unaware in advanced they were doing so

 

[Autumn]

Personally I think that would be of limited value because if you really need legal advice, you should be talking to a proper lawyer and / or accountant in your region, not getting advice from random people on a message board. Laws differ too much from country to country and, especially if people are doing stuff that could get them in to trouble, bad advice is worse than no advice at all.

 

[SSGUW]

Yes! Legal section please!

 

[Winchester]

Personally I think that would be of limited value because if you really need legal advice, you should be talking to a proper lawyer and / or accountant in your region, not getting advice from random people on a message board. Laws differ too much from country to country and, especially if people are doing stuff that could get them in to trouble, bad advice is worse than no advice at all.

I can understand this insight, however arming yourself with at least a basic opinion from some members of this thread who are well versed in law (as far as regular citizens go) prior to seeking out a lawyer to pay $100's an hour for someone who may not know about internet marketing, is probably not a bad idea.

This thread would be prescriptive not descriptive, in other words, ask before you act rather than after, because after you need the guy that costs $100s an hour!

Prior you can heed our warnings and not cross the legal line

 

[GreenGoblin]

This is a marketing forum not a law firm, there's Only 1 person here that i know of qualified to give legal advice who's actual a attorney, That I have done business with. Unless you going to recruit a bunch of lawyers to come in here to give legal advice, I would suggest anyone in need of legal counsel just hire a attorney, this is not the place for legal advice.

 

[Winchester]

This is a marketing forum not a law firm, there's Only 1 person here that i know of qualified to give legal advice who's actual a attorney, That I have done business with. Unless you going to recruit a bunch of lawyers to come in here to give legal advice, I would suggest anyone in need of legal counsel just hire a attorney, this is not the place for legal advice.

We're in no way offering legal advice that would assume we are attorneys; however, we can offer hypothetical legal opinion. It's good to know the murky waters you play in.

This may be something that fits in well with the "Business & Tax Advice" section.

 

[GreenGoblin]

We're in no way offering legal advice that would assume we are attorneys; however, we can offer hypothetical legal opinion. It's good to know the murky waters you play in.

This may be something that fits in well with the "Business & Tax Advice" section.

I agree with that, I wouldn't call it legal advice "Business & Tax advice" might be more suitable, or "murky waters" forum for members to chop it up about what they know about the law in there country or state or city...good idea though.

 

[Drink More Tea]

I would say not. I could envisage a future scenario whereby someone takes bad advice from here, acts upon it, loses, and then tries to make a claim against the board for giving bad advice.

 

[LBrown]

I voted no too. I see legal advice threads come up from time to time and I think that is fine but if there is an actual section about legal advice, I would think that the site owner could be held responsible for what was posted in it (despite disclaimers) and I don't think he wants that.

 

[marusia]

Maybe it could be named something like "What would you do" to keep their asses out of hot water. I know myself, I find a lot of times wondering about legal matters. Not only business-related, but personal as well.

It would be nice to have a few people that would be willing to participate in something like this.

 

[Winchester]

After looking into it further a situation where we had a "legal opinion" board which had a sticky disclaimer saying that if you post here you agree no one is liable for opinion given, this is opinion of individuals not attorneys, this is not legal advice and its all hypothetical discussion - then it would be perfectly legal to do and possibly beneficial to our members.

 

[Fwiffo]

After looking into it further a situation where we had a "legal opinion" board which had a sticky disclaimer saying that if you post here you agree no one is liable for opinion given, this is opinion of individuals not attorneys, this is not legal advice and its all hypothetical discussion - then it would be perfectly legal to do and possibly beneficial to our members.

"then it would be perfectly legal to do"

in what jurisdiction?

would it be legal in the state of New York?
What about Kentucky?
The province of Manitoba?
New South Wales?
Belarus?
The City of Auckland?

Does it go off the legal jurisdiction of where the forum is hosted?
or where the poster lives?
or does it fall under the legal jurisdiction of the headquarters of the hosting company that provides the services to whatever proxy or VPN service the poster may or may not be using?

would be "perfectly legal" so that it would prevent a subpoena to reveal the identities of a person posting legal information (even with a disclaimer), or the people participating in the discussion if they had to then defend their "perfectly legal" status?

and by "perfectly legal" do you mean that in all these possible jurisdictions and situations, that if that "perfectly legal" position had to be defended, could it be done without legal costs?

 

[Deleted member 237136]

Great idea, been looking for such a thread for a while

 

[iiaok]

I would say not. I could envisage a future scenario whereby someone takes bad advice from here, acts upon it, loses, and then tries to make a claim against the board for giving bad advice.

Precisely what would happen. Disclaimers don't mean much, especially in civil cases.

I can understand this insight, however arming yourself with at least a basic opinion from some members of this thread who are well versed in law (as far as regular citizens go) prior to seeking out a lawyer to pay $100's an hour for someone who may not know about internet marketing, is probably not a bad idea.

Arming yourself with legal advice from a non-certified, anonymous person on the web versus getting qualified counsel from a professional is not only a bad idea, it's an awful idea.

If people are willing to put their skin on the line and bet on advice they get on a forum such as this, they should stay away from ANY form of self-employment and just put all their money on a 50:1 horse down at the track. It's much less dangerous.