Lawyers of Reddit, what common legal misconception are you constantly having to tell clients is false?

Mustang_Gold · 1日前

The most frustrating misconception is when the client (a layperson) knows just enough about the law to think that they understand it better than their lawyer.

Recently encountered a (non-client) situation that illustrates this beautifully. Someone got drunk at work and passed out. This was their second offense in a few weeks. This person was worried they'd get fired, so they filed for FMLA leave (rehab-related) on the theory that you can't get fired while taking protected leave. I tried to explain that while you can't get fired for taking protected leave, you can get fired to showing up for work drunk and passing out while you're supposed to be teaching kids how to read. The fact that you later go to rehab doesn't wipe the slate clean. They refused to understand the distinction and insisted that they had successfully gamed the system.

Jared_Perkins · 1日前

Law student here - but one of my professors complained that, when they were practicing, they had to constantly tell people that common law marriage isn't a real thing in ~~the UK~~ England and Wales. (Post '06, it's also no longer a thing under Scots Law, either)

MisterDerptastic · 18時間前

A contract is not an unbreakable oath.

Contracts are not absolute, you can't just put in whatever you want. Signing a contract where you agree to sell your first born will not be enforced by a court, even if you did in fact sign it.

I go 'your landlord can't do this' and they go 'he can, its in my contract'. No, the law doesn't allow this. He is not allowed to do that and putting it into a contract wont chance that fact.

LupusLycas · 1日前

When the cops read you your rights, it's not a trick or a game. It's not just a formality that must take place before questioning. It's really your right to shut up and not talk to the cops. The cops tell this to your face straight up, so I suggest you take their statements at face value and shut the fuck up!

julesk · 23時間前

Legal processes move forward whether a client thinks they are correct, is busy or otherwise doesn’t want to deal with them. So if you are served with legal papers, you need to read the documents, follow the deadlines and otherwise deal with the litigation very promptly or you will lose. If you aren’t sure you understand what the paperwork says, you really need to talk with an attorney or call up the pro se litigator because your failure to understand doesn’t change the outcome. Also, the judge doesn’t care that you were busy at work, think the lawsuit is stupid, didn’t understand the paperwork, etc. etc. BTW, many attorneys offer free initial consults so consider that before ignoring a deadline or showing up unprepared for court.

MeVersusShark · 1日前

From the other side of the coin, people have a hard time understanding that a lot of crimes don't actually result in jail time. The 16-yr-old who punched your kid outside of school? Yeah, he's not going to jail just because he's charged with Assault.

pjkeoki · 1日前

You can be fired for petty, meaningless, and unfair shit as long as its not discriminatory based on some legally protected class of people or action taken by you.

adingostolemytoast · 16時間前

From when I was working in an appellate court (in Australia) and going through the pleadings of unrepresented appellants :

the US constitution and Bill of Rights are not valid law In Australia and are not relevant to your case
the bible is also not legally binding, or relevant. Ever.
the Magna Carta is not relevant to your case either. Seriously.
we aren't going to put a judge in prison for finding against you in your original civil case, particularly since there's nothing wrong with his findings
if you think no judge in Australia is validly appointed because he or she was not directly appointed by Queen Victoria(!) and therefore all the courts are without jurisdiction, then why are you even here ?
opposing counsel is not trying to kill you
the entire Australian legal establishment has not made a fundamental mistake in their understanding of the law

SoundBearier · 1日前

[whispers] They cannot arrest a husband and wife for the same crime.

Luna_Lovelace · 1日前

Not so much from clients, but non-lawyer friends and family: The First Amendment does not work that way.

The right to free speech does not mean that you can say whatever you want with no consequences. You have a right against government interference with protected speech. You do not have a right to call your boss a stupid dickblossom on Facebook and not get fired.
"Fighting words" does not mean that you are allowed to punch somebody in the face if they say something sufficiently offensive. "Fighting words" refers to a limitation on the First Amendment's protection that allows the government to restrict speech when that speech is likely to incite a crime (e.g. inciting a riot).

WolfySpice · 21時間前

In Australian family law, there is no such thing as child custody or parental rights. Children have rights, not parents. Parents have responsibility.

There are a lot of people who make it all about them. That's the worst thing you can do. The judge notices your language and will not take kindly to treating the kid as a possession. The court's paramount interest is only the child's best interest. The parents can go rot if necessary, so long as the child's best interests are looked after.

rawketscience · 20時間前

Your defamation suit isn't worth it. The hurdles are:

Judges and juries hate them.
You can't prove you were actually damaged in any particular dollar amount.
Suing over gossip just makes it worse.
The toothless meth-head or deadbeat ex who said something mean about you has no money anyway.
Odds are good you can't prove the statement was false to begin with.

murderspice · 1日前

the best we can usually do is get a slightly lesser sentence.

Fantasytoss · 1日前

With clients its that their feels or personal opinions really don't matter very much at all. I work with a lot of family dysfunction, and people really think that the fact that they think their families are meanies is going to hold weight to a judge. In fact if you spew that shit in front of a judge, they're just going to think that you're unintelligent and overly emotional, and want to get more (expensive) neutrals involved. Convincing people that their emotional understanding of events is not the be-all-end-all in court proceedings is exceedingly difficult.

In general life, I'm going to agree with everyone else about misunderstandings with the constitution. It's about the government or government actors (or jobs), not about your facebook fight in which you employ the "but freedom of speech," argument.

Attythrwaway · 1日前

Not clients but friends, family, strangers, random people on the internet:

No you can't just tell me a secret and expect it to be privileged information, that's not how it works! If you are going to confide in me then do it because of who I am as a person, don't just blurt out some awful confession to me while we are at the bar having fun just based on my profession.
Just because I expressed an opinion, or even hinted at one, involving a legal situation does not mean I gave legal advice. It's crazy how quickly "huh, I'm surprised that's legal" becomes "Well attythrwaway says that's illegal and she's a lawyer!"

raise-your-weapon · 23時間前

we are lawyers. we are not magicians. we can get a judgment against a defendant but if that defendant doesn't have any assets the client won't get anything. we can't make money magically appear.

Rabl · 1日前

"Get $Document notarized!". No, stop. Notaries aren't magic, and their stamps don't automatically make a plain old document suddenly admissible in court. A notarized letter is still hearsay, and most contracts don't need to be notarized (unless you're worried that the other party is going to argue that they didn't sign).
Trademarks, copyrights, and patents are three different forms of protection for three different kinds of things; they aren't interchangeable. You can't copyright your business name, trademark your music video, or patent your book.

Source: IP lawyer. Not your IP lawyer.

robocpf1 · 1日前

(Third-year law student here) Companies can't treat you as an independent contractor just because they SAY you're an independent contractor. There's about a dozen special factors that determine your work status. Same thing for unpaid internships, there are a lot of rules that many companies (illegally) don't follow.These companies are just cheating employees out of well-deserved money and benefits.

EyeballHeadedDandy · 1日前

(Informal disclaimer: I'm just a law student.)

A lawsuit isn't "frivolous" just because it's petty. It's frivolous if it lacks either a legal argument or factual claims.

For example, if someone trespasses on your property, but does no damage, you can still sue that person and win.
Most landowners won't go to court over something so small, but when they do, the law is generally on their side because trespass is considered a "strict liability tort." Petty, but not frivolous.

By contrast, if you can plausibly argue that someone's actions are harmful to you, but you can't find a legal basis to sue, then any lawsuits you file are "frivolous."
For example, people damage each others' reputations all the time, but the American legal system makes it very difficult to sue over speech. Arguably not petty, but still frivolous. (TL;DR for above link: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=111285)

ABitWrongInTheHead · 20時間前

Where do I start?! I used to be a lawyer here in the UK. These are the most common ones I got asked about all the time:

Possession is NOT "nine tenths of the law"; just because you have physical possession of something (e.g a rented house or a hire purchase car) does not mean you own it and you can't do what you like with it. Once had a woman tell me she was going to sell her flat to pay off her rent arrears. She couldn't understand why her landlord would object to that!!
We don't have debtor's prisons any more! Nobody goes to jail for a civil debt liability.
There is no such thing as a "common law marriage". Living with someone doesn't give you the same legal rights as a marriage or civil partnership. It may not be fair, but that's the law. If you're not married/civil partners, you have virtually no rights over your partner's property.
If you die without leaving a proper Will there are set rules that determine who gets your stuff. You can't just say to someone "I want so-and-so to have X" and expect it to be legally binding. It also doesn't guarantee all your estate goes to your spouse/kids etc.
You do not have a legal right to a refund from a shop of you don't like the item or have just changed your mind. A refund is only legally obligated where an item sold is either not as described (you were misled) or not fit for purpose (item damaged or faulty). Shouting at cashiers about your so-called statutory rights won't change store policy!
Bailiffs do not have an automatic right of entry into your home. They'll do everything they can to get in, but if you don't let them in they can't force you unless they have a court-issued warrant.
Divorce is only as messy and expensive as you/your ex want to make it. The actual process is just a matter of paperwork; if you can be amicable with each other it doesn't actually cost that much. Easier said than done though!

poopgrouper · 1日前

The vast majority of the U.S. Constitution is designed to put controls and limits on the government. Generally speaking, the fact that your landlord is an asshole doesn't implicate Constitutional issues.

bigoted_bill · 1日前

cops don't actually have to tell you they're cops.

flnyne · 1日前

A valuation of a private company is not "good for one year" for purposes of 26 USC 409A. If there has been any significant changes since the last valuation, you are going to have a 409A problem.

You asked.

Edit: Incredibly surprised someone asked for more info, but thanks for letting me get my geek on. 409A of the tax code is a law enacted after the execs from Enron took their compensation that was supposed to be deferred (i.e., paid years later). Now any compensation (including most forms of equity compensation) that is deferred is subject to the rules and regs of 409A. So if a private company wants to award, for example, stock options to its employees, you have to make sure the stock is properly valued so that there is no deferral of compensation (this might happen if you were to award options with a strike price that is lower than the actual value of the stock). As such, you need to make sure your stock is properly valued when you issue these awards. You may rely on an independent valuation performed by a company that specializes in valuation (and charge you at least $50k, unless you are really small). You may be tempted to rely on this valuation for a long time so you don't have to get another one, but if there are significant changes to the business (gained a huge customer or got a patent on a new technology for example) your valuation is unreliable, such that the options already have value, which means that you are deferring value, which means you are subject to the stringent rules of 409A, which means you are probably already in violation of 409A. And that is just a high level explanation because it is much more nuanced than that (in case another attorney wants to point out any of the numerous exceptions to my general statements).

paperconservation101 · 14時間前

Your lawyer is not going to lie on your behalf. You tell them you murdered the guy, and you are happy that you did it.

Your lawyer will not go into court with the argument "He didn't murder the guy, he wasn't even in the state".

You tell your lawyer you murdered a guy and you lawyer will find ways to argue it wasnt your fault, you felt like your life was in danger, you are mentally unwell, its only your first murder etc.

momplaysbass · 22時間前

A jury of your peers doesn't mean twelve drug dealers.

FuckedupUnicorn · 23時間前

Obligatory not a lawyer; I'm a cop. In England.

Nearly every day I have to tell someone "no, I don't need a warrant to come in. This isn't America"

Sarcastic_Phil_Ochs · 1日前

Pretty much anything having to do with divorce (no-fault state).

TooGoodMan · 22時間前

Canadian Law Student.

No this is not America.

Yes, that does make a difference.

No, your Charter rights are not nearly as absolute as American's constitutional rights.

Yes, there is a reason for this, and it's a pretty damn good one.

JournalofFailure · 14時間前

As a Canadian lawyer, I find myself regularly telling clients that we don't have "felonies," "alimony," "Miranda rights" and "the First Amendment" up here.

sjmp75020 · 1日前

That court isn't like Judge Judy.

Grape_Scotch · 1日前

That the cop had to read you Miranda warning everytime you get arrested. This is not true.

You get Mirandized when you are suspected of a crime, and detained, and they have questions for you.

ATTORNEY_FOR_CATS · 16時間前

I always have to tell clients that sometimes people find it threatening and harassing when you keep giving them dead birds as gifts.

thejpn · 1日前

Just a lowly law student but that for Constitutional protections to be triggered you need a government actor.

Danmax · 20時間前

Your google search is not the equivelant of my law degree and years of experience.

dried_up_waterparks · 21時間前

In Ontario Canada, there is no rent protection for buildings built after 1991.

It's a gaping hole in the legislation, and I'm pretty sure my landlord doesn't even know it.

No. I wont be telling him.

misandry4lyf · 23時間前

Just a finished law degree unpaid intern (yay) but dude the court does not give a fuck who cheated on who. You don't extra money for taking your marriage vows seriously, this is court not church. Also, your employer (at least here) cannot take money out of your wages if you break something/fuck up something while you are doing your job. They have insurance, they assume the risk, not you.

NoSpicyFood · 16時間前

That r/legaladvice is a legitimate place to get legal advice. It isn't. It's a sub filled with wannabe lawyers and arrogant cops who know nothing of legal nuance. I can't believe reddit allows that dangerous garbage.

If you need professional services, you should seek out a professional.

TodayKindOfSucks · 22時間前

I'm a lawyer on behalf of my home state, what this means is I cannot engage in any other practice of law. I cannot be your attorney and I cannot do legal work for you.

SuggestiveMaterial · 23時間前

Not a lawyer but my mom works in a law office and she is constantly telling women (we live in a 'mommy' state that sides most primarily with women in custody cases) that no, you cannot keep your ex-husband/ex-boyfriend/baby daddy from their kids just because they aren't paying child support/enough child support/on time support.

Also, you can get arrested for making false child abuse/sexual abuse claims.

sssleivum · 18時間前

I'm a labor and employment lawyer. So many people have no understanding of the word harassment and just throw it around constantly. Boss was mean to me? Harassment! Someone said I was bad at my job? Harassment! I had to do more work than my sick coworker? Harassment! I didn't get the vacation I requested? Harassment!

None of those things, on its own, is going to get you a hostile work environment or discrimination claim.

I_not_Jofish · 14時間前

If your parents died in debt you don't inherit said debt

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