Objection! Much like WebMD, everyone should not use the internet for a for the legal equivalent. If you need legal representation, then put some pennies together and get some, or do the only research you should, find free legal aide. Too many people are trusting people they'll never see for life matters that are too important. Once and awhile some lawyers take a look to see what's being thrown about and most of it is problematic.
Redditor u/NoodlesTheKitty wanted to hear from employees of the court about the times they couldn't believe what they were hearing and seeing by asking.... Lawyers of Reddit - what is the worst advice you've seen on r/legal advice?
Different Place... Different Troubles....
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I'm a lawyer and the biggest mistake I see people make is assuming the law is the same everywhere. There is a reason we need to be licensed in every state to practice there. Furthermore, if it's not your specific area of expertise, a general knowledge of the law is probably not enough.
In Bad Faith
Not r/legaladvice but r/exmormon for legal advice. I remember the time someone was mentioning they were gearing up for a divorce but didn't have enough money to retain an attorney for the proceedings. Someone on the sub gave them the advice that they should get consultations with all of the top divorce attorneys in the region. The reasoning was that if the attorney has consulted with one side in a case that they are obligated to not be able to represent the other side. They wanted the spouse to also not have access to an attorney.
Comes out later that OP actually took that advice & consulted with 30 divorce attorneys. None were able to take the case so spouse has a hard time hiring one. Eventually the spouse & attorney found the thread on reddit and were able to tie the account back to OP.
Judge not only rules totally in favor of the spouse but OP was also ordered to pay part of the attorneys fees due to abuse of process, acting in bad faith, etc which made things more expensive for her.
"not a lawyer"Â
In a thread asking about the legality of physically assaulting people who don't wear masks in public (Big surprise, its still assault) the general consensus was "Feeling strongly enough about something means laws don't matter."
I tend to notice its common on reddit to have this weird, psychotic power fantasy going on where you can respond to minor rudeness with immediate and overwhelming violence and be applauded for it while doing so.
A lot of advice in r/legaladvice from "not a lawyer" types seems to advocate blatantly illegal and often violent behavior in reprisal to some pretty minor slights. The mod team is pretty good at taking down these types of comments, but you still see a lot of them.
Looking....
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The only half decent advice I've ever seen come from that sub was what kind of lawyer you need to look for. It's safest to assume that everyone else is a cop or a maroon.
100% Wrong
It was regarding a noncompete or some kind of employment contract. All of the advice in the thread, including from quality contributor flared posters, was saying "looks like you're stuck, it's a contract and you agreed to it, consider it a life lesson."
With 2 minutes of research I found an appellate case directly on point from the relevant jurisdiction saying "employers can't enforce this contractual clause because it's against public policy." Meaning that everyone else giving advice in the thread was correct generally, but 100% wrong for the OP.
Lexis/westlaw searches (the way lawyers research the law) are obscenely expensive, so I don't expect anyone in r/legaladvice to be doing them out-of-pocket to help internet randos. But I found it with google. Either way, if you're posting there giving advice half-cocked, not knowing the full facts or law, I feel like you're violating your ethical obligations as an attorney.
Not Reddit
I'm a lawyer. So much of it is straight up garbage. It's pretty clearly full of folks googling away. The best answers are often downvoted lol. I followed legal advice for a few days or something and bounced as fast as possible.
Don't rely on Reddit if you need advice.
Great Ponds
I'm not a lawyer but I really enjoyed the person talking about my state's Great Ponds law. The question was asking what to do about people trespassing on OP's boat ramp at their summer cabin. According this poster, the Great Ponds law says there needs to be access, so therefore OP is out of luck. In reality, the law says that the town must provide public access to lakes or ponds over a certain size, not that you can just walk through anybody's property to get there.
Basics
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In my opinion, there are only three actual pieces of advice from that sub.
- Call the police
- Get a lawyer
- You're screwed. MooKids
Have a Nice Life
I'm not a lawyer, but I used to browse r/legaladvice. A year or two ago, there was a girl who was looking for options to prevent her parents from taking her back to the ancestral third-world country for a year for "school" or something. The post was chock-full of red flags; from the context it seemed pretty likely that the actual reason was far more sinister (I don't remember the specifics, but it seemed likely she would be married off, and in any case would not be returning to the USA at any point).
As I recall, she seemed reluctant to leave her friends for "a year" and didn't look forward to the trip, but she seemed oblivious that there might be something worse in store. Specifics aside, everyone was justifiably scared for her.
Nobody had any particularly useful legal advice, because it turns out there's not really anything illegal about leaving the country with your minor/dependent child with a good cover story, and her few preemptive legal options would have required more money and freedom than she had.
People did, however, have a lot of practical advice. Things like, "under no circumstances should you get on the plane," "talk to a teacher ASAP," "if you can't avoid going to the airport, pocket something that'll earn you a private interview with security and tell them you're being trafficked," etc. Again, I don't remember all the specifics, and maybe not all the advice was useful. But some of it was stuff the girl probably needed to read.
The comments section got ripped apart by the mods. It was just a graveyard of deleted posts followed by "This comment has been removed because it does not contain any legal advice." And the post itself was removed later with a short note to the effect that "this is not something we can help you with, have a nice life."
I get it, a sub has rules to keep the conversation focused, and you don't want to get in the habit of making exceptions, or the rules no longer mean anything. But those rules are enforced by people, not robots, and sometimes a rule-breaking comment could literally save a life. Have a little empathy.
I unsubscribed that day. I hope the girl is okay.
You Never Know
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For people unaware there are no qualifications to be a contributor on r/LegalAdvice. So you could be getting responses from actual qualified lawyers or it could be a 15 yr old repeating garbage they heard on the internet.
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I can't definitively say I've come face to face with the spirits. But I have had some unsettling feelings in the dark. Shadows are just shadows sometimes, but who can be sure.
I hear it...
Nbc Wings GIF by HULUGiphy"I was helping my dad clean my grandma's house after she passed and I went in and was trying to find a song in my phone and before I could I heard a cough plain as day come from down the hallway where her room was. She died of lung and throat cancer it was pretty crazy."
Running Past...
"When I was 5 I remember getting home from my grandpa's birthday party. For context my mom was pregnant with my brother at the time, so my parents had already bought his crib. I woke up in the middle of the night to find a women in a white dress and long black hair standing over my brother's crib. I managed to wake up my dad so he could take me to the bathroom. When I got back it was still there. It was only until morning when it disappeared. Every now and then I see a glance of what I assume is that thing running past the backyard."
The Cat
"My best friend and his wife had moved to a new apartment. I came over to visit a few times, and each time I'd see the motion of a cat in my peripheral vision. Not the image of a cat, but a sense of how a cat moves. Anyway, one day I finally cracked some joke about the ghost cat in the place and his wife was instantly saying "See! See! I told you we had a ghost cat!"
"excuse me"
"I worked graveyard shift in a dementia ward for 4 years and it was anything but quiet. I was working with a nurse one night when we both heard a resident say "excuse me." We looked around and no-one was there. I checked on the resident in question and she was fast asleep in her own room. Many of us also experienced someone whistling in the ward late at night and one nurse even managed to catch a video of it happening. It was unnerving to say the least."
Clueless
Skeleton GIFGiphy"I once saw someone short walk by me in my house. They walked into the laundry room which only has one way in. I walked into it behind them and they where gone. I thought it was my little brother but I went to his room and he was asleep. I still have no clue what that was."
- ImBolio
Now was everyone here positive they were sober? Just asking. Those are certainly spooky moments. I'd like some video footage please. Continue...
Reflections
ghost library GIFGiphy"I was up at 3am when I was maybe 7 or 8. I looked out the window and saw a woman in a white dress run across my yard. I could see through her. She was transparent like the reflections on the window."
"you alright?"
"So, my work place is haunted. I was having a really crap day, and as a cleaner, it's normal that me and my co worker will be the only ones left at night. So I was standing on the second floor, leaning on the banister for the stair case, when I heard this male voice say in my ear "you alright?" Clear as day. I turned around so fast and nobody was there and it scared the hell out of me."
- Rex-the-
Watching Me
"I remember as a young kid I usually use to sit in my bed and watch tv with my room door open while the adjacent guest bedroom next to mine would always have the door shut. I always remember seeing that door fully open and close by itself multiple times a day very slowly and gently. Never really bothered me much now that I think about it… but there were other creepier experiences I had in the same house that made me feel uncomfortable like I was being watched."
Betsy
"I went to the Betsy Ross House as a really little kid in the early 90s. Normal house but I was confused why the tour guide never talked about the woman on the chair crying at the edge of the bed in Betsy Ross's bedroom. So I asked about it. No one else saw the woman at the edge of the bed. I figured it was just a wax museum since there was a wax statue of a man in uniform rolling bullets in the basement."
"Years later, I was looking at haunted Philadelphia tours to go on with a friend and the Betsy Ross House was on it. I was like "woah! I was there!" and looked into it some more. Turns out there is a woman at the end of the bed crying and a uniformed man in the basement that people have reported seeing. There is no way that 8 year old me would have known about either of these things."
hello kitty...
hello kitty lol GIF by Animation Domination High-DefGiphy"I had this hello kitty Balloon In my bed room, it had a string and weight on it. So it was late, I had the lights on just Sitting on my bed. The Balloon turns, faces my door, slowly floats into my hallway and turns and floats into my sister's room. To this day I am scared of balloons."
They are among us and they like Hello Kitty. I'm probably rattling the paranormal cages and they'll come for me next, but I'm ready. I feel like this thread has prepared me.
Boo!
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