How does this forum work exactly? Are there lawyers, students,etc. How do you get compensated? Do you always push people away from legal action?

[ultrafirepowerlights]

What is the name of your state or, if not in the U.S., what is the name of your country?

Do you own a sense of humor?

Sure I have a sense of humor. Are you going to tell me if you are an attorney, student or even work in the legal industry?

Have you even been to court and represented yourself without an attorney? Are you just an average joe with an opinion on things. What qualifies you as a Senior member?

I have homes and businesses in multiple states. This forum is linked to students some lawsuit right?

So whats the deal with you and the other members? Is this basically like a man on the street interview asking random people their opinion on legal topics or do you have some weight behind the answers.

What the deal on how this forum works? Are you keeping it secret to make people incorrectly think they are dealing with legal professional when they are not? Maybe like medical student working at a hospital who are not doctors but still work with patients?

 

[quincy]

A state name is required of all posters to this site.

Do you live in the U.S? If so, in what state do you reside? If not, what is the name of your country?

Please reread what Zigner posted. It is repeated at the bottom of this and every page of the forum and it is included as part of the terms and conditions of this site that you read and agreed to when registering.

Did you have a real legal question or legal concern that brought you to this site?

 

[LdiJ]

Sure I have a sense of humor. Are you going to tell me if you are an attorney, student or even work in the legal industry?

Have you even been to court and represented yourself without an attorney? Are you just an average joe with an opinion on things. What qualifies you as a Senior member?

I have homes and businesses in multiple states. This forum is linked to students some lawsuit right?

So whats the deal with you and the other members? Is this basically like a man on the street interview asking random people their opinion on legal topics or do you have some weight behind the answers.

What the deal on how this forum works? Are you keeping it secret to make people incorrectly think they are dealing with legal professional when they are not? Maybe like medical student working at a hospital who are not doctors but still work with patients?

Sigh. There are some attorneys who post here, and there are a lot of laypeople with specific education or experience in various areas of the law. We are all strictly volunteers who receive no compensation or credit for anything that we do here. You seem to insist on professional services as if you were paying for them, and that tends to put people off.

 

[Taxing Matters]

What the deal on how this forum works? Are you keeping it secret to make people incorrectly think they are dealing with legal professional when they are not? Maybe like medical student working at a hospital who are not doctors but still work with patients?

This is a forum for discussion of legal issues. It is not a forum that dispenses legal advice. If you want legal advice, consult an attorney licensed in the state where you have the legal issue. Anyone may post on this site so long as they follow the terms of service of this site. One does not have to be a lawyer, paralegal, law student or even have had a single class in the law to participate on this forum and respond to posts. And indeed most of the people responding here are not lawyers, judges, or any other kind of legal professional or even a law student. They are people from all different walks of life who share what they know from their experiences in an effort to at least give people asking questions something to think about that perhaps they hadn't thought about before. One should never take what is said here, even by the attorney members (and there are a couple of those, including myself) as legal advice and act on it without confirming it first with his/her own attorney. Even posts by the attorneys here you need to treat as potentially being wrong because (1) that attorney likely does not practice in your state and state laws often differ, (2) the attorney might not practice in that particular area of law and his/her knowledge of it may therefore be incomplete, and (3) rarely do we get truly all the facts in a post and unstated facts may well change things — sometimes dramatically. (Sometimes even my own clients do not tell me all the facts, and in the end that hurts them as I'm not then prepared for it when those facts surface, as they often do. Drives me crazy. )

None of the persons who participate here, including the lawyers, are paid by the site. They participate here simply out of a desire to help inform others.

With that in mind use this forum as a place to hopefully get some useful information about particular legal topic (often links provided in replies, for example, can be enormously helpful), uncover issues that perhaps you did not see, and to look at things from a perspective that you had not considered. Getting a sense of how others see it may be especially helpful because that may well be what the people deciding your particular issue, whether judge, jury, government agency, employer, or whatever, will see and you can then be prepared for that if it occurs.

 

[Just Blue]

Sure I have a sense of humor. Are you going to tell me if you are an attorney, student or even work in the legal industry?

Have you even been to court and represented yourself without an attorney? Are you just an average joe with an opinion on things. What qualifies you as a Senior member?

I have homes and businesses in multiple states. This forum is linked to students some lawsuit right?

So whats the deal with you and the other members? Is this basically like a man on the street interview asking random people their opinion on legal topics or do you have some weight behind the answers.

What the deal on how this forum works? Are you keeping it secret to make people incorrectly think they are dealing with legal professional when they are not? Maybe like medical student working at a hospital who are not doctors but still work with patients?

The answer is in the TOS which was posted for you. If you have further questions contact Admin. Some people are attorneys but most are educated laypersons.

Honestly if you had just read the TOS you wouldn't have needed to post this question.

 

[commentator]

A great many of the people on this forum are professionals or retired professionals who have had a lot of experience in their particular fields. For example, I spent many years working with unemployment insurance, was drawn to this venue because of several reasons. First of all, when I was working, my clients often would tell me fantastic "facts" they'd learned on the internet about unemployment insurance, and secondly, though lawyers are smart and professional and well educated people who know how to look things up, they seldom had the more complete concise understanding of that particular area of expertise that was held by people who worked in the system. I feel that I have been able to help some people without their having to pay anything or possibly be taken advantage of by an attorney who will take some of their money and may or may not provide genuine needed assistance. We also direct a great many people toward legal aid and forever point minors toward their family or school professionals.

I am also, second career, a licensed professional mediator in my state, and have picked up a pretty good deal of professional experience in some other areas. As a general statement, I think you can say that people believe they have a lot more rights and protections in the law than they do, and a lot of what is done here is that people are told that it would not really help to seek an attorney, particularly in employment issues. However, in cases where I feel it is appropriate, I and many of my cohorts spent a lot of time here and on other websites advising posters NOT to try going commando and self-representing on hundreds of occasions where they "can't afford an attorney" and are trying to wing it.

 

[adjusterjack]

OK, I'll try some serious answers.

I have argued 2 positions in 180 degree opposite sides using the exact same facts on a situation on this forum and in both cases, I was told that I was completely wrong.

You'll have to provide links to those discussions so we can compare them and see where the results came from. However, in law, it is possible for opposite results to occur from the same set of facts. For example, you lend your car to your friend. Your friend runs somebody over. Are you responsible? Well, New York says you are, by statute. Other states require that the injured person prove that you negligently entrusted the vehicle to somebody you knew was an incompetent driver. Same facts, two potentially different outcomes.

I know some schools and even the bar associations will encourage or mandate certain volunteering or community service type of things. Lawyers volunteering in the ghetto for civil rights issues,etc.. I am just wondering if this site is an extension of that kind of thing.

It isn't.

am I way off base in my analysis of the situation

You're way off base. I have no idea where you get your conclusions from but I've been on legal websites for 18 years. Again, if you have a beef about how inquiries are handled, post a link to them and we will explain them to you.

So this "FA on the Roof" is like a college bar or hangout?

That was a joke. Hence the question about your sense of humor since you apparently didn't get it. Or if you did get it and were responding in kind, an emoji would have been appropriate.

So whats the deal with you and the other members? Is this basically like a man on the street interview asking random people their opinion on legal topics or do you have some weight behind the answers.

A bit of both. There are a couple of lawyers that volunteer here. The rest of us are just people with extensive experience in particular areas of expertise.

Are you keeping it secret to make people incorrectly think they are dealing with legal professional when they are not?

No secret. Anybody with half a brain should be able to figure out who has what experience by reading the response.

Maybe like medical student working at a hospital who are not doctors but still work with patients?

Nope, not like that.

 

[xylene]

I'm just a big know-it-all.

 

[Zigner]

I'm just a big know-it-all.

Ok, what song am I humming right now?

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

No secret. Anybody with half a brain should be able to figure out who has what experience by reading the response.

Or the ability to read the important notice at the bottom of every page of the forum.

 

[Just Blue]

Or the ability to read the important notice at the bottom of every page of the forum.

Apparently almost no one reads the important notice at the bottom of every page...sigh...

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

Apparently almost no one reads the important notice at the bottom of every page...sigh...

This guy didn't even seem to read it when somebody, I think you, posted it in this thread.

 

[Just Blue]

This guy didn't even seem to read it when somebody, I think you, posted it in this thread.

Not me...I think it was Zig.

 

[stealth2]

None of the persons who participate here, including the lawyers, are paid by the site.

Wait. Are you telling me that the check is actually NOT in the mail?

 

[Zigner]

Not me...I think it was Zig.

It was me, but I'm in a sharing mood today