Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

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I am not American.

I read this sort of advice a lot here on HN and it always puzzles me. If I were to believe HN, the only way people ever do business in the US is through their lawyers. Or, at least, the moment there's some sort of misunderstanding or screwup there's always someone on HN who says "lawyer up!" and it's usually the top comment. Somehow, apparently, trying to sort things out the oldschool "hey we're both businesspeople, let's talk" way is considered a dangerous approach, and I don't understand why.

While I agree that this is probably the best approach for dealing with a company like Facebook that's notoriously difficult to get in touch with, shouldn't it really just be a "last resort" sort of thing? Why is it always recommended to start with legal threats? Isn't that the business version of "shoot first, ask questions later"?

I ask not just to criticize. My company is slowly starting to do dealings with American companies (small amounts, nothing like the stuff in this post) and if half our business communication is going to be in legalese we have some serious preparation to do.

If there is more than 1000 USD/EUR involved you should get a lawyer to at least help you write the letters. That applies in most countries. You want to do that because: you want to be considered serious by the other party and not a joke, you don't want to miss deadlines, you don't want to give information to the other side that they can use against you, and you may trigger mistakes from the other side that then can be used against them in front of a judge, if it comes so far.

If someone owes you $160k you certainly want to get lawyers involved. There is no question. If your country has mafia instead of a law system, get the mafia involved. If you have a shaman get him involved. For that amount whoever can help you should get involved.

That’s the cost of doing business with large corporations. They’re faceless. My guess is that Facebook could have thousands of claims for any kind of imaginable dispute on any given day. How on earth could they provide support for that? That’s what a legal department is for. To reverse your argument, I don’t understand why so many developers are reluctant to speak to a lawyer. We don’t like speaking to lawyers, we don’t like speaking to marketers and salesmen, we don’t enjoy talking to accountants, and the list goes on. Well perhaps it’s time to man the fuck up and start acting like grownups. When there’s money involved consult someone with an expertise on the matter. Period.

I too don’t live in US. But I don’t think that’s US specific. It’s just that the sizes there are in most cases a lot bigger than everywhere else.

FWIW I agree. I live in the UK and don't think we have a particularly litigious culture but, and I mean no disrespect to facebook in saying this, you're on a hiding to nothing trying to deal with their support department. Nobody in there has any authority to make anything happen.

With $160k on the line (and, by the way, well done: with ~$80k monthly revenue you are living what many of us would consider to be the dream) you need to lawyer up. This isn't about taking facebook to court: it's about making your case to a group of people that can actually get something done for you (facebook's legal department) in a language that they understand.

> hey we're both businesspeople

But you're not. Facebook is about a billion times more powerful than you. You're not peers. They literally won't even talk to you.

My question was more general. Immediately after the line you quoted, I agreed that for such a powerful and closed company like Facebook it might be the only option, because your last resort is your only option.

No. You are peers. Both are businesses doing business. They have a business relationship.

> They literally won't even talk to you.

And exactly this is, why the system is broken. If you are the elephant in the room and you do not have to care for the flies even if there would be regulations protecting the flies then this is not a good situation.

This would be some kind of Feudalism. At least in practice.

To clarify: I know there exists rules and regulations. But if a big player like FB can just ignore them unless someone unleashes their lawyers, esp. if this other person is sitting half the globe away, then something is very, very broken and fucked up.

Being peers is often set as an axiom or a prerequisite when thinking about the theory of business transactions. However often in the reality it isn't the case. This is why you need antitrust laws, consumer protection laws, regulation, unions, etc.

The problem here is that there is a hole in the system. Not being paid or being paid late is very common for smaller contractors in several industries.

Unless you're Oracle, Google, Apple, or Microsoft, you are not a peer with Facebook.

"To clarify: I know there exists rules and regulations. But if a big player like FB can just ignore them unless someone unleashes their lawyers, esp. if this other person is sitting half the globe away, then something is very, very broken and fucked up."

You're not wrong, but how would you cause Facebook to care? And you can't really say government, because that would require government to be looking over every single transaction. Ignoring the privacy/freedom aspects, that would take a huge amount of manpower that the government just doesn't have and isn't willing to fund.

> If I were to believe HN, the only way people ever do business in the US is through their lawyers.

Your exposure is selective: you only get to hear about the cases where normal business has totally broken down (here, to the tune of six figures). This is true of most international news coverage, really...

I am not sure what being American has to do with anything. I am not American either.

I didn't suggest that the OP uses lawyers to resolve everyday trivial disputes. I suggested that given the sums involved, reaching out to low-SLA support channels repeatedly was probably not a good strategy.

I don't attempt to diagnose medical conditions myself, there are people who can do it faster and more accurately. It is perfectly legitimate to reach out for help in areas that you are not familiar with. I am guessing that given this was posted to Reddit in the first instance, the OP is not someone who is familiar with legal issues of this kind.

In this case especially, or any case where you believe you are owed money but the situation is uncertain or there is complexity, it is exceptionally easy to put a foot wrong in a way that prejudices one's case later. For example, admitting knowledge of a T&C that gives the other party the sole discretion in certain kinds of dispute resolution is an example (e.g an "our determination is final" type clause). "Yeah, I saw that term, but surely you can't be serious?".

Lawyers know about these things, and can offer advice about how to proceed, and more importantly how not to proceed.

No one said anything about legal threats. However, these are contractual disputes. Contracts are legal documents. Therefore, it makes sense to have the people who would know the most about contracts, contract dispute resolutions, and contract law involved.

America has a legal system made by lawyers for lawyers of lawyers.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse..." is something said by a now dead and very naive man. When the "law" expands to something way beyond the ability of an average person to know and understand, you get carte blanche for abuse by both government and by corporations with legal teams.

In the Wild West, you bring a gun. In wild America, you bring a lawyer because all the other assholes are using them as weapons.

I totally agree than calling on lawyers should be a last resort. But the article says "I wrote them about twenty letters into every form or email I ever found." This is the last resort.

If a company stonewalls your apparently legal claim for remuneration of services or delivery of product then you should at the very least turn to a collection agency. This case will probably require a lawyer.

"Speak to a lawyer" does not mean "make legal threats". It's possible and even advisable for lawyers to do other things.

Right. Lawyers are basically professional negotiators.

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