Edit: I'm convinced. Don't give or accept legal advice over the Internet. Establish a relationship with an attorney and only discuss it with them. If you don't like the answers they give you, you can find another attorney.
Federal courts generally aren't courts of equity (with bankruptcy courts being the sole exception); they're courts of law. They have a strictly enforced set of procedural rules the nonobservance of which can result in a claim being dismissed with prejudice or a judgment in your opponent's favor. You could learn anything that a lawyer knows--the material isn't difficult at all. What a lawyer provides, however, is insulation from procedural errors. When a lawyer misses a filing deadline, you might have a cause of action against the lawyer in malpractice. If you, a pro se litigant, miss a filing deadline, you're generally SOL. That's why you shouldn't share what you think you know: the consequences are serious and the nuances are subtle.
You know how in criminal proceedings, they say "anything you say can and will be used against you?" It's the exact same for civil actions like this, which is why Public Relations 101 (which should be of interest to most in this audience who want to do their own startup) says "being sued or otherwise challenged legally? STFU. No comment."
This isn't about credentials, it's about being smart when it comes to threats that can genuinely hose your business, and not listening to a bunch of armchair lawyers on HN who think they have the best course of action without any sort of context.
> In this case, there are legal repercussions and serious consequences to doing most of things on this page. This is stuff to talk about with a lawyer, not the fucking Internet, and the person I replied to is already giving frighteningly bad advice.
There are legal repercussions and serious consequences to many choices we make in life; while this is a particularly tricky terrain to navigate, that doesn't mean he should go in completely blind. If you think that the advice is "frighteningly bad", point out specifics.
> This isn't about credentials, it's about being smart when it comes to threats that can genuinely hose your business, and not listening to a bunch of armchair lawyers on HN who think they have the best course of action without any sort of context.
This isn't a conversation you're engaging in; you're simply shouting down the parent(s). That's not what HN is all about. Please rethink your approach and come back to this from a constructive angle; it sounds like you have valuable knowledge that could come in handy for OP and others, but you can't see past "holy crap, legal advice on the internet!"