How dangerous is it for British lawyers to give advice on Law Stack Exchange? How risky is it for people to self-identify as legal professionals and answer questions here? In Britain, precedent such as Chaudry v Prabhakar – 1989 can make British lawyers reticent to give informal advice, even when outside of a professional or business context. I do wonder whether the site disclaimer is sufficient to protect against a claim for incorrect advice however. Law Stack Exchange is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for individualized advice from a qualified legal practitioner. Communications on Law Stack Exchange are not privileged communications and do not create an attorney-client relationship. It is also questionable as to whether professional indemnity insurance in the U.K. would cover a British lawyer sued in this way. So, what are the risks for British lawyers, and do other countries rulings similar to Chaudry v Prabhakar – 1989? I don't believe this is a duplicate of other 'advice on stack exchange' questions, as it addresses more specific concerns. Also, I posted this on the main site rather than on Meta as it's an interesting legal question in its own right. Also I acknowledge that there may be selection bias in responses by legal professionals prepared to answer this. *8')
Chaudhry v Prabhakar is unlikely to be applicable Giving specific advice one-on-one in a field of known expertise when specifically asked creates a duty of care. Giving general advice on a mass-communication forum to general questions when all parties are aware that specific legal advice is specifically off-topic doesn’t.
The liability shield is the big one, and it can't be achieved with a contract. Just because the contract says you're not liable, that doesn't make it true. If I sign a contract with my friend that says "Nate Eldredge is hereby the King of France", that won't make me the king, nor will it force anyone except maybe my friend to acknowledge me as the king. By its nature, a contract can only bind the parties to the contract, and has no effect on the rights of anyone else. Suppose, then, that Alice and Bob agree to start a pizza delivery business, using a contract like you suggest. Their delivery car crashes, injuring Carol, a bystander, who incurs medical bills that exceed the assets of the business. Carol decides to sue Alice and Bob personally. Sure, Alice and Bob have a contract, and maybe it prevents them from suing each other, but it certainly doesn't prevent Carol from suing them; Carol never signed it. So Carol can still go after Alice and Bob's personal assets. Thus contract law cannot give them a liability shield. However, the government can, since it makes the laws about who can sue whom under what circumstances. And it has made laws saying that Alice and Bob can be protected from such suits, but only if they form a company according to the process that the law sets forth. So that's what they have to do.
The legal system advances practitioners on a number of criteria, not all of which relate to their legal education. It's essentially the same for all professions - your schooling/education may or may not determine your success in the field. Also relevant would be the social circles you navigate, your achievements post-education, and so on.
Online conversations are generally allowed evidence. However, EVERYTHING in the chat should be considered, as well as any later actions. Were there later conversations that said something different? Did the lease you signed have different terms? One line in a WhatsApp does not make your case a &quot;slam dunk&quot;. It may only be one piece of evidence in a much larger context.
You have asked about "United Kingdom", but I can only answer about England and Wales; the law in Scotland is very different (rather more different in some respects than the difference between E&amp;W and the State of New York). There is no time limit per se on manslaughter charges; if the police find evidence for a manslaughter charge after 80 years, there is no difficulty (in principle) in bringing a charge against the now-centenarian (provided they are competent to stand trial, and they can get a fair trial, and so on). However, in the case you mentioned I would have thought the major problem would be a defence of autrefois convict - in other words, the defendant can (usually) only be charged once with charges arising from a particular set of facts. It is just possible that the subsequent death constitutes a new fact which allows a new prosecution. On the other hand, the rule for murder used to be that if the victim survived a year and a day then it wasn't murder (even if they then died of their injuries). Finally, the case certainly would not be reopened with a charge of manslaughter. It would be "causing death by dangerous driving", which is a very different offence. Edit My thanks to ohwilleke whose comment about the "year and a day" rule prompted me to do a little research, and discover the Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996. Section 2(2) clearly covers the present case (in both legs), and says that the perpetrator can be re-prosecuted, but only with the permission of the Attorney General. The act is very brief, and I encourage you to read it all. (And incidentally, does not apply to Scotland.)
The answer to the question "can so-and-so sue me?" is almost always "yes", regardless of context. Such a suit might be baseless, and it might get settled in your favor, but you still have to spend the time and money to defend yourself. This can be disastrous for a start-up that's trying to get off the ground, and it's how patent trolls make their money. (I'm not accusing SnapChat of engaging in such tactics as a rule, of course; I'm just pointing out that the legal system does allow for them.) Whether or not you are likely to be sued is a separate question, and one that can really only be effectively addressed by a trademark attorney with full knowledge of the particularities of your situation.
england-and-wales Admission of the confession is at the discretion of the court PACE s78 gives the court the discretion to decide on the admissibility of confessions obtained if it appears to the court that &quot;having regard to all the circumstances, including the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, the admission of the evidence would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that the court ought not to admit it.&quot; There is deliberately no case law guidance on this. Superior courts in the UK have been scrupulous in saying that each case turns on its merits. The “circumstances in which the evidence was obtained” are certainly suss and would not be permitted by a police officer who is required to warn the suspect and advise them of their right to silence. However, that is not sufficient to exclude the evidence. The court also needs to consider whether it would have “such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that the court ought not to admit it.” If the confession is the only evidence then admitting it would clearly be unfair. However, if the Crown has mountains of other evidence, then the confession may only have a small probative value. There is no “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine in the UK Far more likely is that the Crown would not even seek to introduce the confession. It would just slow the trial and give the defence grounds for an appeal. Instead, they would use the confession to inform their investigation and get other evidence to convict. Legal privilege In England and Wales, legal advice privilege only applies where there is a lawyer present. If Badal is a lawyer, then the privilege attaches; if he isn’t then it doesn’t, irrespective of what he led Naina to believe. The same would be true even if Badal believed he was a lawyer but, for some reason, was not licenced in E&amp;W. Litigation privilege is a broader concept and covers all advice, including from non-lawyers, where litigation (including criminal prosecution) has commenced or is reasonably likely. Based on the description, Naina has been committed to stand trial so everything she said is covered by privilege and is inadmissible. Why bother doing this? Most criminals are not sophisticated and will often implicate themselves if you give them enough space without the police or others violating any rules. Anecdotally, I have a relative who was a psychologist for a remand prison - prisoners charged but not yet tried. At the start of every meeting with a prisoner they would say “I work for the state, nothing you say is confidential and it can be used against you” - they still had prisoners confess to crimes they weren’t charged with, name accomplices, and tell where the loot was hidden.
Typically in defamation law, claims made persuiant to litigation are not defamatory, since they are going to be tested for validity if the case goes to trial. I'm not familiar with any differences in what is generally done in settlements between the U.K. and the U.S., but since both are Common Law countries, and Settlements are very common in civil proceedings in the U.S., it's a good start. Generally a settlemant can occur anytime before the verdict of the case is rendered, although usually it will happen after preliminary hearings during the Discovery phase. In the U.S., Discovery is very broad and one need not prove that the requested items contain evidence but might contain evidence. This means that, for example, you could request a substantial amount of e-mail records from the opposing party because somewhere on the company e-mail server, there might be something to help your case. And even if after you sift through the emails and find no smoking guns related to your case, you could find some dirty laundry that's unrelated but still damning... if not more so than the initial case. Many people, especially big compainies, would rather just give the ex-employee some what he/she wants, if it means they don't get to see the proverbial man behind the curtain. Additionally the practice might fall into a legally gray area of the law that, if it reaches trial, could hurt the company or even the industry if a judge rules against the company, effectively saying that this gray area is now definately illegal. Better to eat the loss of capital with the settling out of court than to take the much larger hit of the buisness practice being illegalized all together. Typically in settlements, both parties agree to terms and sign a contract. While the whole of the terms are never discussed, almost all include that the plaintiff will drop the case and never bring the matter to court again and that both parties will sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) meaning that they won't discuss the rest of the settlement terms with anyone not party to them. If the plaintiff does break the NDA, the defendant can sue for breech of contract and recover at the least the monitary compensation they awarded in the settlement. Conversely, if the respondent breaks the NDA, the plaintiff can refile their initial suit with the addition of breech of contract (and this time it will get to court... and all the dirty laundry sees the harsh light of day.). While the respondent in a settled case can possibly sue for defamation if the plaintiff said the respondent did what the initial suit claimed they did (legally, it was never proven or disproven), or they were guilty (again, since no verdict was reached at trial, no guilt was established), the breech of contract is a much more airtight case and doesn't open up discovery to the respondent's cupability in the settled case (since the breech is about discussing the settled case at all, not the validity of the accusations of the settled case). Typically they would not go this route because then it opens the can of worms the settlement was trying to keep a lid on.