mixedCase outlined the liability point of view for a professional, the other: Each person seeking legal advice should retain a lawyer and not rely solely on advice from faceless internet forums. The same applies to many kinds of professions, such as health. "Hey I've heard x,y and z, but I'm not your doctor."
Everyone is of course free to speak about legal matters and provide their take, but keep in mind that even well studied lawyers, with all of the context and evidence are not always successful in their arguments. Internet forums are many steps removed from these professionals, so you should moderate accordingly.
In forums such as Reddit/Hacker News/etc, there are many discussions that concern legal matters - in my experience the overwhelming majority of highly voted comments and frequently repeated ideas are not ones which are grounded in fact, but rather comments that align with the groups desires. People upvote and repeat ideas that appeal to them, not to ones which they've investigated themselves as factual or accurate.
Another one to look out for is IANAL: "I am not a lawyer". (Yes I'm being serious with this acronym.) This is to avoid a different kind of liability: the unauthorised practice of law.
This line of reasoning hold for pretty much any online advice. You don't close your comments with "I'm not your DBA" or "please consult your own paid certified C++ developer" or whatever
I don't think once you pay a lawyer their IQ jumps 20 points and they're necessarily more correct than crowdsourced information. Doctors and lawyers arent somehow infallible once hired
Being someone's DBA does not imply certain legal status in the way being someone's lawyer does. It can be a real headache for a lawyer if someone they are not representing claims that they are representing them (which happens, a lot: funnily enough a lot of people seeking legal advice online are really not at all familiar with how this works), so it's standard boilerplate to clarify that if there's any potential cause for confusion.
Everyone is of course free to speak about legal matters and provide their take, but keep in mind that even well studied lawyers, with all of the context and evidence are not always successful in their arguments. Internet forums are many steps removed from these professionals, so you should moderate accordingly.
In forums such as Reddit/Hacker News/etc, there are many discussions that concern legal matters - in my experience the overwhelming majority of highly voted comments and frequently repeated ideas are not ones which are grounded in fact, but rather comments that align with the groups desires. People upvote and repeat ideas that appeal to them, not to ones which they've investigated themselves as factual or accurate.
Another one to look out for is IANAL: "I am not a lawyer". (Yes I'm being serious with this acronym.) This is to avoid a different kind of liability: the unauthorised practice of law.