Here’s a simple question to frustrate your attorney: “Is it legal to do _________?”
For one, if it’s something you have to ask, there’s likely no clear answer to it. No matter what area of law it is, online or off, if you need to ask whether something is legal you’re probably doing something that’s at least of dubious ethics, if not dubious legality.
But the bigger problem with the question is that it misses the larger issue. By asking if something is legal, you’re asking “If someone sues me over this (or, even worse, if I get arrested over this), will I likely lose at trial?”
Unfortunately though, that’s the wrong question to ask.
Whether you can win or lose in a trial is irrelevant, it’s unlikely that any dispute you have will ever make it to a trial and, even if it does, the law itself is only a tiny part of what you have to factor in.
The better question, most of the time, is “How likely am I to get sued (or arrested) over this?”. While your lawyer can never promise definitely you want be sued, it doesn’t matter how legal or “right” your actions are if you can’t survive a lawsuit or draw a legal challenge from someone larger than you, what the letter of the law says doesn’t matter at all.
Though a trial is supposed to be an arbiter of justice, in truth a trial is something to avoid and something any good attorney looking out for your best interest will work to the bone to keep you out of.
Here are five reasons why that’s the case: [Read more…] about Why You Never Want to Go to Court