Cfrgtkky

This is not legal advice.

If I say "this is not legal advice", and you rely on what I say, and try to sue me if everything goes pear shaped, then a judge will laugh you out of court.

If I don't say "this is not legal advice", there is a 99% chance that the judge will laugh you out of court. I'll cover the one percent.

If you're talking with a friend, a disclaimer like this should not be necessary, as they know you're not a lawyer, and you're just expressing lay opinion, personal anecdotes, etc.

But if you're in a context where the audience doesn't know who you are, there's a possibility that they might assume you're qualified to dispense legal advice. For instance, this very site probably gets many answers from legal professionals, and readers might assume that answers that seem well researched (e.g. citing court cases) are from such posters. If you're not one of them, this might then be construed as practicing law without a license, which could get you legal trouble.

But even if it isn't taken that far, someone might take action that assumes you really know what you're talking about. There might not be legal repercussions on you, but you should still feel bad about leading them the wrong way.

The disclaimer should protect you from any legal liability, and hopefully will also warn people that they should take your advice with a grain of salt. It's easy to state, and there's practically no downside, so it's best to be safe.

Disclaimer: IANAL

If someone who is not a lawyer is giving out legal advice, does it make any difference if they include a disclaimer along the lines of "this is not legal advice"?

The purpose of this disclaimer is to prevent someone from unreasonably relying on the advice while thinking that they are reasonably relying on legal advice. If the person who gave you some advice said it wasn't legal advice, it's hard to argue that you reasonably believed that it was legal advice you could reasonably rely on.

Say you were giving out something that you thought was delicious candy but were not sure wasn't poison. If is also looks like delicious candy, it makes sense for you to warn people that they cannot reasonably rely on your belief that it's not poison because you aren't qualified to tell them apart. You don't want someone to eat it just because you believe it's delicious candy if you aren't sure it's not poison, do you? A fair warning is in order.

In many jurisdictions, there is a general legal principle that people are entitled to trust certain kinds of professional opinion absent they have a particular reason not to. Someone who, e.g., build a balcony without hiring an engineer would have a duty to know what the structural requirements would be. If such a balcony collapsed because of bad design, the builder would be liable for breaching such duty. If, however, the builder were to hire a licensed engineer whose documented professional opinion was that it was safe, the duty to know about structural requirements, and the associated liability, could be transferred to that engineer (the exact circumstances where liability would transfer will vary by jurisdiction).

When a lawyer gives a professional opinion, the layer will often not only giving the client information, but will in many cases also be staking his status as a legal professional on the correctness thereof. A lawyer should not generally be willing to accept such risk without officially documenting all of the information upon which the opinion is based, and the amount of information needed to formulate an opinion that is 95% likely to be correct may be a tiny fraction of what would be needed to formulate an opinion that would be worth staking one's career.

Returning to the balcony example, if someone is considering building a balcony, they may want a rough idea of how much support it will need in order to decide whether the project is worth considering. If the the cost would be massively exceed the budget even given the most favorable ground conditions, there would be no point in ordering an examination of the ground for structural stability. If someone were to misinterpret a quick estimate of structural requirements suggesting that the product was viable, as though it were a reliable structural plan, and if they were to consequently build a balcony that collapsed as a result, the person who gave the estimate should not be liable since they hadn't given a professional opinion as to whether the ground quality was adequate for the suggested footings. Nonetheless, it would still be better for all concerned if the builder had hired a professional engineer.

Disclaimers are cheap. If adding a "No testing or analysis has been done to ensure the safety of this plan" disclaimer would have even a 0.001% chance of preventing someone from wrongfully assuming that the indicated structure could be safely built, that would be worth the cost of ink. Likewise IANAL, "this is not legal advice", etc.

IANAL. But I read a lot some forum, where are real lawyers, help people to solve their problem. They do it for free, and mainly as charity and first aid (that is general directions in simple cases, but 90% of problems, with which people goes there ARE simple cases. )

Some questions are recurring again and again in little variations (as many people get all the same basic problem, somebody directs them to that forum and they just asks (and do not read hundred pages back) what they have problem with).

Some questions are reccuring really often and even I answer that with saing "IANAL, but this usually goes such and such, layers may correct me, if I am wrong and this case is different". Usually nobody corrects me, even some layers gave me a thumb_up (one click for them), for I save them time to answer still the same. (And being NOT lawyer I can explain in more human and less formal tone, so the answer is more readable and understandable for normal people). If I am not sure, I just stay silent and pretend to be a philosoph :)

But yes, it may not be obvious, that I am NOT layer, if I answer question there. And many of those asking are just desperate (and does not know even the basics about law), so they may trust ANY answer they get. So I want that they would understand, that my answers are not the given truth and that they should take it just as hint from somebody who is not so lost as they are, but if they need precise answer, they should provide more details and wait for answer from somebody, who really studied law.

Anyway most times what they need is hint, if the answer is "it is simple case and result is YES SURE (or result is NO WAY)" or if the answer is "it is hard case and need proffesional to look at all aspects closely". And then they can decide, if it is something, they want to try and eventually pay a layer and eventually lose at the end, or if they see, that it is too much problems for them and let it go.

(Typical example would be like "Employer fired me in probation period, without any explanation. Can I sue him to give me detailed explanation, pay me a fortune and give the work? My other colegue was not fired, even if I do not like him. I think, it is because I am (some minority/gender/age/...)" - answer like "No, in probation period both of you and employer can end from day to day without giving any reason. This is what probation period is about. You cannot force him to explain more than "law say I can, so I do" and he would be insane to openly say, that the reason is, that you are minority, because only then you would be able sue him. It is on you to prove with some documentation, that it was such reason and not just 'cause I can'." - and response is "Oh, I did not know it. I would not sue, if I have not 100% on winning. Sorry for taking your time.."

Or on other guard "My ex did not pay aliments for our child for a year (but I have no evidence), but he promise to pay it eventually, if he would have extra income. Can I argue somehow to make him at least lend me money sometime?" answer "You should contact this institution and made him pay in full all the money he should send you. Not paying is punishable by law and he may be even arrested for that. Ask for professional help there, in such case it would be without charge and he is to provide evidence, that he paid what he had to pay." later reply "oh thanks you, I told him about that and he paid half already and promissed to pay rest next month." )

Well, does not need to be lawyer as to suggest such things, but I feel it is honest to say, that I am not lawyer and that it is just hint.

Also many times a real lawyer there write something to terms "I do not know this part of law in all details, but on fast check here are some paragraphs (..cite..) which suggest, that (..something..) would be possible, because (..cite..), but it is not legal advice, and I suggest you consult it with specialist, but it may be expensive both on money and time" - helps a lot to deside, if the asking person even wants to go for it, or let it be.

In all cases above "this is not legal advice" helps to get some info for free and direct the asking person to real help or to realisation, that the law works other way, than in hollywood movies. (yes, at least we are on other continent and with totally different law system.)

Without such note I would not offer my knowledges at all and the laywers would offer them only in their offices as expensive service.

In my own speciality (IT) I can solve problems for customers with detailed tests and (nearly) guaranteed results, but it usually takes a lot of time and effort and I get good money for it. In my free time, I often help beginers over internet too, but say something similar as prefix "I may be wrong, but it looks to me as if ... did you try ... ? Can you post also this log?" - a lot of problems goes away, if you just backup data, turn off computer, start it again, reinstall drivers or system or try some other catch-all fix. Lots problems are simple typo, wrong assumption of what one is doing or such. Some are more complicated, or even made by faulty HW (the worse is if it fail just sometimes, randomly). I do not want spend my personal time to solve everything, mainly when the other side even did not try the solution and say "it cannot work."

So it is reason, why have some "none warrancy, make you own research, but it is good chance, that it is this way" clause can help both parties - the more knowledgeable can offer his knowledge fast and cheap, the less knowledgeable can get some help fast and cheap and may learn few words, which he could search for to get more detailed answer, or get name, under which is better chance to find correct answer. Or get idea, what generally his position and chances are.

For example, last week someone asked "How can I download program from that device, I think, there is Arduino inside" - I explained, that the device may be protected from reading it (as it is part of expensive tool) and even if he would download the code, it would be something compiled, so all names, comments etc would not be there, and to make changes to it, he would need learn to work with (dis)assembler and machine code. He decided, that it is too hard for the expected result as it would need moths or years of work. He honestly expected to dowload it in form of source code and just put inside few lines from other example here and there. Was not aware about what situation he really is.

(Feel free to change any pronoun to any of your choise. I am not native speaker so I am happy to be able write somehow and 'he' is just shorter. Anyway for me "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog" and I do not care about that - I would rather answer inteligent question from dog, then stupid one from human. )