News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on We Are All Lawyers Now – The Rise of the Legalish. Parent comment

Re:We Are All Lawyers Now – The Rise of the Legalish by irl_zebra on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @09:03AM (#18282971)
One issue here is that law is heavily licensed in the US. Same as non-software engineering. So you need a law license or PE license to dispense legal or engineering advice, respectively. Doing so without those licenses is illegal (practicing without a license), which is likely the reason for the disclaimer from non lawyers. From lawyers, giving legal advice can create a lawyer-client relationship even absent specific agreement. It's less a job security thing and more a "not doing something illegal or which creates an unintentional client relationship" thing.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:We Are All Lawyers Now – The Rise of the Legalish by planteen on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @09:24AM (#18283132)
In my experience, PE is only relevant in two areas: civil engineering and power engineering. It is not common anywhere else, including aerospace engineering or biomedical engineering. So it's not just software where it is uncommon.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:We Are All Lawyers Now – The Rise of the Legalish by chrisdhoover on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @08:03PM (#18288568)
Also needed in structural
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:We Are All Lawyers Now – The Rise of the Legalish by jsight on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @09:42AM (#18283281)
Right, but I think the question is why did we create such laws for lawyers but not other professions?

Or maybe alternatively, those laws do exist for other professions, but other professions are not as risk averse about being sued over them. For example, I'm pretty sure that practicing medicine without a license is just as illegal, but I've never heard a doctor worry about saying "this is not medical advice".

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:We Are All Lawyers Now – The Rise of the Legalish by rayiner on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @10:12AM (#18283516)
Practicing medicine typically involves more than just a conversation, so there is little risk of creating a perceived patient-doctor relationship based in just oral advice. Lawyers by contrast routinely practice law just by having a conversation.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:We Are All Lawyers Now – The Rise of the Legalish by jsight on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @10:31AM (#18283655)
That is certainly a fair point. The bar for creating a patient-doctor relationship in the legal sense is probably much higher.
[ Parent | on HN ]