The problem with this "inviolable rule" is that it's circular:<p><i>if you have a legal question, you should ask a lawyer, and only a lawyer</i><p>I agree, but what is a "legal question"? Only lawyers are qualified to answer that!<p>Many of those who pose legal questions to the web, rather than to a lawyer, do so because <i>they don't recognize</i> that their question crosses the boundary where they need a lawyer. It's not as if such edge cases are particularly rare, nor are they easy to resolve. Every post that I make to news.YC is a potential libel action; every quote that I cut and paste could be the subject of a copyright suit. (Just ask the folks who post about Scientology... and note that I just substantially increased my legal risk, and YCs, by using the word 'Scientology' in this context. Perhaps my lawyer would have suggested a different example...)<p>Everyone who writes software tiptoes around legal issues of patent and copyright. Should I consult lawyers every time I use Pastie?<p>Everyone who downloads a piece of software risks a lawsuit. Click a link that installs Firefox: legal. Click a link that installs a P2P client? Depends on what you do with it. What about HD-DVD ripping software? If I install it, am I committing a crime?<p>Yes, the ultimate arbiter of all of these issues should be a lawyer. I'm certainly not qualified. But we can't afford to pay lawyers every single day. In the end, we all have to develop our own sense of when we need professional legal advice and when we don't -- and the web is helpful for that, even though any individual anecdote (even the ones told by <i>bona fide</i> lawyers!) may be unreliable or inapplicable to your individual situation.
Problem: can lawyers be trusted? They can easily tell me that I need to spend infinite amount of money on them. I might spend all my money on lawyers without ever getting any product off the ground.<p>I see how much money is wasted on IT consultants, why should it be different with lawyers? Except with IT consultants I can tell when shit is happening, with lawyers I can't.
The audience does not ask legal questions related to marriage or asset management or mortgage. Their questions are startup related and they know a few entrepreneurs have already been through a similar situation and it makes sense to ask, but one should always consult a lawyer before making their final decision.<p>If you go to parenting site they ask questions about the best schools and those who answer are not teachers. Visit teenagers sites and you will see a lot of questions from young girls who are very confused with their bodies and want medical advices, those who answer are not doctors.
Black and white statements such as this are almost always wrong. While I would never trust a non-lawyer's legal advice over a lawyer's legal advice, there could certainly exist a person in the world whom I trust more than any given lawyer, that also has an experience pertinent to my situation. You'd be foolish to bypass that person's opinion. Just take it with the knowledge that that person isn't a lawyer.
I don't think it's so bad to ask after other people's experiences and advice as long as you keep in mind that 1) free advice is worth what you paid for it 2) who they are and what their credentials are. Someone who's started 5 successful companies probably <i>does</i> have some insight into the legal part of it, even though he's not a lawyer.
Excellent advice.<p>The law is not logical and the outcomes are not reasonable. This is a hard thing for the engineering mind to come to terms with given how much these seemingly random outcomes can affect peoples' lives.<p>The law is a system that's nearly completely hacked at this point. Think of it as a RedHat linux 5.0 system with wuftp enabled that's been running on the net since '97. Do you really think that <i>ls</i> is still <i>ls</i>?
Well said.<p>Jack Sheridan's talk at startup school (<a href="http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/jack-sheridan" rel="nofollow">http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/jack-sheridan</a>, a good talk that's not a sales pitch) was an eye-opener for me -- I've become much more disciplined about simply documenting agreements.
Heh, I like the first absolute rule. It's obviously in response to the ID/'evolution' debate, and consequently says absolutely nothing since neither side argues evolution (broadly defined as change of species over time) doesn't happen.<p>The only argument is about what mechanisms can be considered scientific explanations. If you don't believe me, read what the key ID thinkers actually say, instead of what the media says they say. The ID people explicitly make this point in Expelled.<p>So, even though Matt picks out this position to show his clear thinking skills in a controversial matter, it doesn't really pick out a controversial position. Matt's position on evolution is just empty rhetoric for those who don't know the debate. Alternatively, Matt doesn't get it either.
It's really experience that matters here.<p><i>Lawyers go through a lot of schooling to learn how to examine your situation and come up with the right answer</i><p>I guess that's relative. As far as graduate programs go, the law degree isn't really that long. They have probably haven't had many specialized courses; their expertise will come from experience.<p>Often, the work that's done in their office is done by someone without much training at all. You learn about business entities and how to form them in a sophomore undergraduate class.<p>But while the law can be hacked, it is rather complicated. Whether or not the person you asked had an understanding of <i>precedents</i> in your particular area would be a key factor in getting a quality response.
Like anyone else, when I read the title of this post, I guessed what the rule was before I reached it.<p>My guess for the one inviolable rule was, "Have enough cash to pay your bills each month or die."<p>Could there possibly be two inviolable rules?
Your rule is a good one, mattmaroon. I agree with it.<p>Unfortunately, you've tripped on Paul Buchheit's rule. You are overgeneralizing from your own risk profile. There may be some real cowboys on HN who are optimizing for different values and may be willing to accept significantly more legal risk in their lives in the process of launching their businesses.<p>(I'm not one of them.)
"...if you have a legal question, you should ask a lawyer, and <i>only a lawyer</i>" [emphasis mine]<p>Because lawyers are magic people who never make mistakes? Who are completely trustworthy? Because the act of simply discussing a legal matter with friends will somehow cause irreparable harm?<p>I'm leery whenever someone tells me what I can and can't discuss with whom.<p>Let's say I'm having car trouble. I'm not stupid, I know I'm going to have to take it to a mechanic. But, first I discuss the problem with some friends and family. I get a couple uninformed opinions on what it <i>might</i> be, what it <i>might</i> cost to fix, etc.<p>When I take the car into a mechanic am I worse off for getting a few uninformed opinions?
Somewhere there is a lawyer board where right now posters are asking "So If I wanted to form a startup for legal advice, is there some kind of web thingy I might need for that?"
Sometimes one just needs to know in general how the law looks like, and cannot be bothered to ask a lawyer. For example, let's say you want to know if it's legal to sleep with a 17 year old girl. You ask your friend who has experience with such things. You don't go calling up a lawyer straight away.. it makes you look suspicious.
youtube founders managed to exploit a law for their growth and they werent lawyers.<p>almost certainly they must have asked for professional opinion, but equally certainly if they weren't sufficiently aware of the legal knowledge required they probably wouldn't have exploit it.