We've all seen it: you ask a law question (a classic being "Am I violating X's copyright by doing Y?"), but they refuse to respond and instead tell you that you should be asking a lawyer, not them.
I have seen this happen all the time: even when the other party is confident in their judgment, they often refuse to give you any and instead direct you to a lawyer.
Obviously, this is beneficial for the other party... it means less liability, time, and energy for them.
But that doesn't explain why this seems to pop up so often for legal questions and less for others, and I don't understand why that's something that would be beneficial for me.
So my question is: on my end, why would I ever find it beneficial to go get a lawyer when asking a question if I suspect that some non-lawyer might be able to answer it as well?
Here are the answers I've ruled out:
...because other people might not know the answer.
Well yes, but that's not the question. I'm asking about those cases where people do know the answer, but still tell you to go get a lawyer....because they don't want me to sue them for giving wrong legal advice.
Except that when this is the case, people do try to help, but with a disclaimer such as "I am not a laywer", "this is not legal advice", etc....because it will give me some kind of legal protection in the case of wrong advice.
But does it? Can't a lawyer give me a wrong legal opinion too? What legal recourse do I have when that happens? How is it any better than a random person giving me their opinion?...some other reason I can't think of.
What might it be?