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Comment by laurent123456 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know what's so special about law that it can never been discussed in any forum. You can certainly ask about other people's previous experience, possible advice or recommendations. For example for certain legal issues there are government websites that can help, etc. Saying "hire an attorney", as if it was no big deal to directly spend thousands without first asking around, is a bit strange.

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The advice sort of extends to any profession doesn’t it? Sometimes you can get good advice from strangers on social media, most times you probably shouldn’t risk anything on it though.

It’s sort of like Google programming isn’t it? I’m sure you’ll get it to work, but you hopefully wouldn’t do it if you were building medical software that could end up killing people. That’s when you pay the experts.

It also incorrectly assumes the purpose of a forum (this and many others) is to simply find the answer to the person's question.

For as long as people enjoy reading, writing and discussing, the only important thing is that readers can distinguish between "legal advice" and something some random person said on the internet.

I've litigated dozens of cases on my own. Law isn't that complicated, especially for the smart people on here. You can often do a better job on your own simply because you have waaay more time to spend on the issue than a lawyer would. Plus you have skin in the game which makes you motivated in a way your lawyer will never be.

The flip side to that is that it is illegal in most states to give legal advice to someone unless you are a lawyer. You can give legal information, but not advice.

[Illinois once tried to prosecute me for the crime, so I have some experience]

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