Great Podcast for Law Basics and Legal Information
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Are you looking for some answers to basic legal questions? Do you listen to podcasts? If so, check out Legal Lad’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Lawful Life.
I’ve been listening to Legal Lad for a few weeks, trying to decide if I like it or not. I finally decided that it’s a pretty good resource for basic legal questions. Each episode is pretty short (about 5 minutes) and covers a small topic (like “do you need a will?” or “how to find a lawyer”).
The only question I have about Legal Lad is ethics. Every episode starts with a disclaimer that Legal Lad is a lawyer, but the podcast isn’t intended to create an attorney-client relationship. That seems all fine and dandy, but I wonder if it’s enough.
First, what matters for the formation of an attorney-client relationship is what the non-lawyer believes. Sure, saying that it’s not intended to create a relationship helps to dispel the notion that a relationship exists, but it’s really the person’s belief that matters, not the attorney’s intent.
Second, Legal Lad does answer questions from readers. He applies the law to specific facts submitted by people. He only refers to people by first name, but if the questioner is actually listening, he/she likely knows that Legal Lad is answering his/her own question. Since applying law to facts goes beyond simple legal education, Legal Lad might be in treacherous waters. This brings up hairy issues about the unauthorized practice of law, since Legal Lad is presumably not licensed in all the jurisdictions where his readers live.
But I might be misapplying principles here. I just took the MPRE, but I might’ve failed.
What do you think about Legal Lad?
[tags]legal lad, legallad, qdnow, podcast, ethics, lawyer[/tags]
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