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In Search of the Most Awesome Law Blog Disclaimers
In a post today on his SPAM NOTES blog, Venkat Balasubramani offers a "Law Blogging FAQ." Venkat provides some useful pointers in the post, which I recommend to lawyers who are considering starting a blog.
One of the FAQs relates to the question of whether it is necessary to have a disclaimer on your law blog explaining that what appears on the blog is not legal advice. As a practical matter, I think that anyone stupid enough to rely on a blog post for guidance in an important legal matter in their own life will never get that far due to some variation of Darwin's Law of Natural Selection. That is, prior to having the opportunity to rely on a law blog post to their great detriment, they will have already likely walked into a lion's cage at the zoo or offed themselves by walking down a busy highway because Google Maps told them to do so.
Assuming, however, that it is necessary to have a disclaimer on your law blog, what should it say? Venkat notes that he has a simple disclaimer that says "nothing on the blog is legal advice." That seems fine, but should we be a bit more creative or direct here? After all, as discussed above, the intended audience for such a disclaimer is presumably the group of extremely dim bulbs that thinks a blawger is their lawyer because they managed to click their way to the blog's URL.
What are the most idiot-proof or otherwise awesome disclaimers you've seen on a law blog? An old favorite of mine from the now-defunct Corp Law Blog was:
"This blog does not offer legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult with a lawyer instead of a blog."
I also like the disclaimer on Scott Greenfield's Simple Justice blog:
"Nothing in this blog constitutes legal advice. This is free. Legal advice you have to pay for."
What are some other great law blog disclaimers?
Posted by Bruce Carton on November 29, 2010 at 11:26 AM | Permalink
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