If you feel compelled to preface a discussion with “I’m not a lawyer, but…”, even in abbreviated form, chances are the next thing to come out of your mouth is going to be a horribly-manged misunderstanding and/or generalization of the law that will make anyone with a JD clutch their ears and howl in agony.
Then they will recover, and beat you viciously and without mercy. Rhetorically speaking.
It is true that many people who aren’t lawyers to have a clear understanding of certain areas of the law, and are even able to talk about it intelligently. Unfortunately those people are vastly outnumbered by other people, who think that Wikipedia is a real legal resource, or who take one line in a judicial opinion out of context and think that’s what the law is.
It is also true that the law is full of different specialities and lawyers have different levels of competency. I’m not familiar enough with patent law to explain its complexities to you, either at a cocktail party or on the Internet. Likewise, don’t tell me that you fully understand product-liability law in California because you heard about it from your dad, a retired lawyer who used to do criminal cases in Massachusetts.
And for god’s sake don’t present your half-baked legal expertise as legal advice to others.
Recent Comments