Well, I've seen this type of phrase around, and it hit one of my questions. "This sounds like a legal question. You should really ask a lawyer." I think it's legit to ask legal related questions here. One, someone may have had experience with the situation. Two, there may be a friendly lawyer around (hey, I've given free advice for my areas of knowledge). When someone asks a question about what song was being played in this movie or whatnot, wouldn't it be rude or just useless to respond with, "That sounds like a music question. You know who could answer that? A DJ!" People might as well just put "I dunno" or "me too". "IANAL" is one thing, answering to say "don't ask me" is just fluff. Yes? No?
posted by razdrez on Jun 15, 2008 - 141 comments

This article gives some insight into the issues surrounging giving legal advice on internet forums, which we occasionally deal with on AskMe: The Dangers of Virtual Cocktail Parties. [more inside]
posted by jewishbuddha on Dec 21, 2007 - 138 comments

Honestly, telling people that they should not be asking for help on AskMe is unproductive! [more inside]
posted by NotInTheBox on Dec 14, 2007 - 38 comments

I'm sure I'm going to get absolutely hammered for this, but...consider it my personal pony request. AskMe should have some kind of "flag" for when an answer given is dangerous. Not simply ill advised, irrational, immature, subject to different discretion, or bad, but simply so wrong it could hurt, in a legal, medical, etc. way, the OP who asked for the advice. Yes, I say this because once again I am angered to see a non-lawyer, posting as such, giving legal advice that has no basis in fact, reality, etc., and as such simply sends the OP in a really bad direction. Again, I'm not talking about debatably bad advice, but answers that are simply so wrong it hurts. It's one thing to give your 2 cents, but another to suggest that a technical legal issue that has no application whatsoever is the right answer. So, I think there should be some kind of user-viewable flag that lets others know educated answerers think an answer is BAD. Since we already have a method to indicate people think an answer is GOOD...
posted by bunnycup on Aug 28, 2007 - 76 comments

As nice as it is to know what people are NOT, what is the precedent for people in AskMe to so doggedly remind people that they are not a doctor, not a lawyer, and most importantly, not YOUR doctor or lawyer?
posted by hermitosis on May 22, 2007 - 99 comments

The worst noise I see on AskMeFi is simple: posts that suggest that a question should NEVER be asked on AskMeFi. I keep wanting to flag them as "obnoxious" but that isn't specifically an option.

Why do people assume that if someone asks on AskMeFi that they are somehow prevented from asking a real specialist? To put it the other way, can we assume - especially when the poster SAYS so in their question - that the person knows to seek proper help, that they are just asking here for additional points of view?

People here are adults and just because someone asks something in the Green doesn't mean that they're going to let the answers they receive trump a doctor or lawyer's advice. It usually just means someone's a little worried and wants to know what this often intelligent audience has to say on a subject in addition to any other advice they might seek.
posted by mikel on Feb 5, 2006 - 40 comments

Ask Metafilter questions like this one lead me to propose a "Consult An Attorney Immediately" block of text to insert somewhere in the thread. The purpose of such a line of copy would be to protect Matt/MetaFilter/users from liability--is this possible and/or necessary?
posted by fandango_matt on Jan 11, 2006 - 52 comments

This thread has me wondering: when does discussing the law on a forum like AskMe cross over to giving legal advice? Obviously, any lawyer's first answer is going to be "talk to a lawyer." But then what? (A very similar professional ethics problem for doctors has been discussed here before.) My legal ethics class was fantastic, but we talked more about Enron than the internet.
posted by footnote on Aug 15, 2005 - 18 comments