[blindLaw] Clarification on UPL

[Sai]

News commentary is almost certainly not legal advice.

Legal advice is a communication
* to person X
* about X's particular legal issues
* interpreting the law that applies to X or advising what to do

Merely discussing a case isn't advice. That's actually kinda the reason it
isn't — the difference between advice and information is whether it's
tailored to a specific situation.

Otherwise, every law school hypo ever made, and virtually any law school
class discussion or homework assignment or study group, would be "advice".
It ain't.

Easy rule of thumb: if you a law school prof told you what you know about
the thing, and asked you the question you're answering, and it'd be proper
for you to answer the way you do, you're not giving advice — you're just
discussing the law or the case.

I suggest that you read the detailed bar opinion letters of the state where
you live (or practice). They often have pretty detailed and useful
scenarios and advice. The bar is the main entity that interprets & enforces
the practice without a licence rules, and it has legal authority to
interpret them (subject to consistency with court rulings).

In particular, look at rulings and opinions dealing with ABA MRPC 4.3 and
5.5 — those are the two rules that prohibit certain kinds of legal advice.
State bar rules should have the same numbers. If you comply with those,
then by their definition you aren't giving legal advice.

Just like I'm not giving legal advice to you now. I'm just discussing the
legal advice rules. 😆

Sincerely,
Sai
President, Fiat Fiendum, Inc., a 501(c)(3)

Sent from my mobile phone; please excuse the concision and autocorrect
errors.

On Tue, 2 Aug 2022, 15:09 Thomas Dukeman via BlindLaw, <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

> Hello fellow legal beagles!
>
> I was learning about UPL (Unauthorizes Practice of Law) and my textbook
> when I got an interesting thought into my head. I listen to the news and
> from time to time they have on guests to speculate about how a specific
> court ruling might impact people and usually they explain how people might
> try to work around that. My question, is that sort of legal commentary be
> considered giving legal advice or is it considered one of those grey areas
> that it may or may not be?
>
> Thanks for your input,
> Tom
>
> Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows
>
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