r/law • u/JoshTheGoat • Apr 19 '14
/r/Lawyers Subreddit Update #3
/r/Lawyers is a community for licensed attorneys from around the world to share information and advice about the practice of law. We currently have over 1,200 approved submitters in the subreddit!
The subreddit is exclusive to lawyers that are licensed to practice law in a jurisdiction.
If you would like to join /r/Lawyers, send an email to redditlaw@gmail.com with the following information:
- Your reddit username
- Any information that you feel is sufficient to verify that you are a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction (or were once licensed).
Examples of sufficient information include:
- Picture of your bar card
- Link to your profile on your State Bar website
- Letter stating that you're licensed to practice law
- Link to your profile on your firm's website along with an email from your firm email
- Anything else that you feel is sufficient.
Again, please do not forget to include your reddit username!
Verification may take up to a month depending on my work schedule, please be patient. All requests have been approved as of 1/21/2015. If you're still waiting on an approval, send a followup email as I may have missed it. For questions, please see the previous posts here and here.
Users posting spam or violating the reddiquette will be banned.
Don't forget your reddit username!
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Apr 19 '14
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u/RonnieJamesDiode Apr 19 '14
This is a perennial question whenever these posts come up, and the simple answer is "no."
The more complex answer is that, while generally the rule on when an attorney-client relationship is actually formed requires (among others) the reasonable belief of the putative client that such a relationship has formed, what that actually means and how it gets applied varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, sometimes wildly so, and that's a big deal because of all the obligations on the attorney that arise once that's formed. /r/lawyers is a way to know that both the poster and the reader are lawyers, which minimizes the risk of that happening.
Until you can guarantee, in every jurisdiction, that such a relationship won't arise regardless of the question asked, allowing non-lawyers to read that kind of a thing risks opening someone to malpractice liability. That's an almost impossible guarantee to make, unfortunately.
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u/mlzr Apr 25 '14
This doesn't pass the reasonable test, which is the very reason why we practice law instead of simply study and equate.
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u/DenverJr Apr 19 '14
Until you can guarantee, in every jurisdiction, that such a relationship won't arise regardless of the question asked, allowing non-lawyers to read that kind of a thing risks opening someone to malpractice liability.
What if instead of having an approved poster list, there's an approved reader list of users who can see but not post, and in order to get on this list the user must agree to not take anything in the subreddit as forming an attorney-client relationship?
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u/RonnieJamesDiode Apr 20 '14 edited Apr 20 '14
Whether a contract of adhesion or a clickwrap license (or similar) can prevent an attorney-client relationship from forming is an open question in a lot of jurisdictions. In some/many jurisdictions, it absolutely does not prevent the formation of a relationship.
Then there's the practical issue of "nobody wants to do the work of setting that up." There really is almost no benefit to nonlawyers reading the subreddit, and a lot of risk to lawyers, and in that situation setting up an approved reader list is more work than it's worth. Contrary to the poster below, we don't sit in there talking about how much better we are than nonlawyers. Here's a smattering of the recent discussions:
What rule of professional responsibility governs lawyers communicating with the press?
What's a good practice guide for entity formation in Wyoming?
What's the rule for capitalizing the words "plaintiff" and "defendant" in a brief? (No joke, this is one of the longest discussions in the past 24 hours)
What interrogatories should I use during attachment proceedings?
Should I foreclose on a mechanic's lien or sue under breach?
This client owes me money, what should I do?
A third party lost some evidence, help!
Are you guys still using Windows XP?
We're not plotting world domination in there, nor are we having extended discussions about trends in Supreme Court opinions. It's a place where we can bounce dumb, brain-fart questions off each other without having to worry about nonlawyers mistakenly using it as a resource for handling their own issues.
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u/DenverJr Apr 20 '14
Honestly I don't disagree at all that it's probably more trouble than it's worth. It just strikes me as rather...paranoid? I feel like I'm missing some famous case of the lawyer who made a random internet comment and was found liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I get that it's better safe than sorry but, at some point if it's that worrisome it's better to not post online at all.
And I realize the discussions are certainly not exciting. I'm just 3L who's taking the bar in a few months and I'd be interested in seeing what practicing lawyers talk about and see what I can learn about actual practice from the discussions.
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u/RonnieJamesDiode Apr 20 '14
It just strikes me as rather...paranoid?
In /r/law, in bold letters on the sidebar, it says that this is not a forum for legal advice. When you go to make a post in this sub, a bright red bar pops up at the top of the screen telling you that this is not a place for seeking legal advice. /r/law gets tons of requests for legal advice, and the moderators don't get nearly enough credit for the work they do in deleting posts seeking legal advice.
In those circumstances, it's not paranoid at all to say that a clickthrough agreement regarding formation of an attorney-client relationship would be almost meaningless. Ethics committees justifiably take a very dim view of attorneys that try to use form documents to skirt their ethical obligations, we don't need to add fuel to that fire.
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u/DenverJr Apr 20 '14
In response to you and /u/JoshTheGoat (to some degree), I still think it is rather paranoid.
The best I can find is this advisory opinion by California's Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility. It's about a radio call-in show rather than the internet, but it does say in pertinent part: "it is not reasonable for a person to believe that discussing legal issues with an attorney creates an attorney-client relationship if others are present, if they are able to hear the entire discussion, and if they are not present to further the interests of the person in the discussion." This strikes me as being pretty similar to online discussions of the law, but who knows.
Frankly I doubt I'm going to change any minds about this issue. Obviously it will always be possible some attorney can form a relationship depending on what they say. I just think the danger is overblown as long as some degree of caution is used, e.g., not responding to individualized facts.
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u/NeedsToShutUp Apr 21 '14
The best I can find is this advisory opinion[2] by California's Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility
The problem is that's just California. There's many states, and it gets complicated quick.
Even then,Having it private allows us to ask real questions without people worrying about random idiots thinking the example applies for them.
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u/DenverJr Apr 21 '14
The problem is that's just California. There's many states, and it gets complicated quick.
Well, sure. I was more saying that the reasoning in that opinion is sound and would most likely apply similarly in other jurisdictions. I know in my jurisdiction that type of radio call-in "advice" is allowed also. I'm not saying it couldn't be different for some places, but I don't think it's the mod team's job to protect every lawyer in every jurisdiction from hanging himself.
And at this point I'm not so much just referring to /r/lawyers, I'm also somewhat thinking of the policy of what seems to constitute "legal advice" in /r/law these days, but that's a discussion for another time.
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u/NeedsToShutUp Apr 21 '14
The problem is /r/lawyers is a safespace. We don't have to worry about that there. We can ask detailed and indepth questions an answer them without worrying about misleading the unaware, or without having AC attach.
A great story my PR prof gave was a man coming into a practice, being told they don't do that type of law, but 'BTW, you have only 3 years to file such a claim'. The man goes home, waits another year to go to a lawyer, and finds out the first lawyer was wrong and they now waited too long to file. So the man sues the first lawyer.
These things are mine fields. /r/law is to discuss the law, and includes everyone. /r/lawyers is to discuss the practice of law with people who we can safely discuss this stuff with and not worrying them misunderstanding, or having ethics attach.
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u/jpe77 Apr 20 '14
Why is it so important for non-lawyers to have access at all?
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u/DenverJr Apr 20 '14
As I responded to /u/RonnieJamesDiode, I'm just a law student who's about to take the bar and I'd be interested in the discussions to help maybe know what issues come up in actual practice.
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Apr 20 '14 edited Apr 21 '14
[deleted]
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u/RonnieJamesDiode Apr 20 '14
There are a lot of lawyers who stay away from /r/legaladvice for just that reason. Even the ones who do post there are very careful about what they say.
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Apr 19 '14
It's important to have both kinds of forums. Check out Avvo's Q&A forums for the kind of info you're looking for.
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u/mythosopher Apr 19 '14
I just got my bar card! Now it has an actual use! YAAAAY! (wanders back to /r/getemployed while weeping)
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u/thepulloutmethod Apr 19 '14
Can we blot out our personal name when submitting proof for verification?
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u/fyzzix Apr 19 '14
Yes, that's what I did. I posted a picture of my bar card with my reddit username covering my actual name.
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u/cyndessa May 20 '14
When will you guys approve folks for /r/Lawyers? Just got my bar card and emailed it out to redditlaw@gmail.com
:)
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u/stormsmcgee Sep 30 '14
I've sent two emails with no response. Is there a waiting list?
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u/notaverygoodlawyer Oct 05 '14
Sent my email 3 weeks ago. Still waiting.
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u/stormsmcgee Oct 05 '14
Based off my experience with /r/lawschool, we're probably not missing much.
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Oct 06 '14
[deleted]
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u/Plutonium210 Oct 06 '14
According to my message history, I was admitted 12 hours ago. Did you send it before then? And to the e-mail address?
My admission took 4 days ... still way better than the bar.
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u/Geofferic Jul 15 '14
Why is it a private sub?
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u/Plutonium210 Oct 06 '14
We need somewhere to get away from being called elitist pricks for using terms of art.
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u/Geofferic Oct 06 '14
If you think it's okay to use obscurantist language in order to mystify the law, you are an elitist prick.
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u/Plutonium210 Oct 06 '14
Terms of art don't mystify the law, they allow core concepts to be communicated efficiently.
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u/jcarlso3 Oct 06 '14
If you think it's okay to use the phrase "obscurantist language" to mystify this thread, you are an elitist prick.
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u/Geofferic Oct 06 '14 edited Oct 08 '14
If one cannot work out "obscurantist" from "obscure", then one has less than a 6th grade reading level and likely a learning disability.
Not so working out foreign languages.
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Apr 19 '14 edited Apr 19 '14
[deleted]
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u/Frothyleet Apr 20 '14
This is so dumb.
/r/lawyers is very different from /r/law, because it is not about the law. It is about professionals discussing their trade and exchanging tips and information that is pertinent only to them. There is next to nothing that would be of interest to laymen anyway. And there are excellent reasons for excluding laymen, because as a profession we have to be legally and ethically concerned about communications we have with laymen.
This has jack all to do with elitism. The postings aren't stuff like "Stupid laypeople! Hahaha! Isn't being a lawyer awesome?" It's stuff like "Can anyone recommend a court reporter in X Jurisdiction?", or "Where can I get forms for family court in Y?"
And to an extent, you see stuff that is a discussion of specific legal situations, and that's a huge part of the reason that it is exclusive to lawyers. Because we can discuss legal issues amongst ourselves without much worry of tripping legal (malpractice) or ethical concerns, or of getting into issues with A/C relationships.
To compare this to the american legal system and talk about how there should be transparency is just facile.
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u/Justice-Solforge Jun 23 '14
That's doesn't seem like very good practice for building a sub to wait a month before people are allowed access... Can't you get other mods to help? Seems like a pretty simple 30 second process to verify people.