To really hate it when friends and family ask me for legal advice?

[FixxerUpper]

I’m a solicitor. This is something that has always bugged me but it seems to be happening a lot right now.

I feel like every time I speak to friends and family someone asks me for legal advice. Usually on the area of law in which I practice, but not always (I know as much about family law as the next person...).

I hate it. I mean I have nothing against helping people out if I can but I find it stressful and to be honest cheeky as fuck.

What if my advice is incorrect? I rarely know the full background to the issue at hand. I haven’t read the documents you’re referring to. I had a rare day off the other day and my mum phoned me to ask for advice ffs. It sounds stupid but it’s really getting to me!

I have a doctor friend who unsurprisingly has the same issue.

Please. Stop doing it.

@Macncheeseballs

Isn't being part of a community helping each other with bits and pieces according to our skill sets? Am I allowed to ask a gardener for gardening advice?

"Could you just cut my grass?" "That'll be £x" "But you should be helping me out with bits and pieces" "I do work, you pay me."

YANBU.

I am a teacher and my family are constantly asking me about xyz educational issue to do with their children. I do not teach in the schools their kids attend so don't know the policies etc. When my sister moved house and wanted her son to move school, she kept asking me 'oh, can you contact x school about ds going there' erm, no, it doesn't work like that.

When my Dad was a police officer, we lived in a fairly small village so lots of people knew his job. I kid you not, we used to get randomers knocking at the door with lost dogs/asking for him to sign their passport photos/trying to give information about things they'd seen or heard. He didn't even police the bloody village and my mum pointed out to several people that this was our home, not the local police station. It was very irritating!

It's common though - people across lots of professions get it.

Yep another teacher who gets this all the time! At a party once, total stranger got chatting with me. “Oh you’re a teacher! My 6 year old is on Lime in the ORT, do you think she she should be higher?”

WTAF????

I get this too. Work as defendant insurer for injury claims. People ask me about their car damage claim 🤷🏼‍♀️

I just say ‘Sorry, Law Society rules prevent me from providing advice unless I have a formal engagement in place.’

My DF is a tradesman and the amount of random people who knock on his front door to ask for help or advice is unbelievable. We’re not talking about friends or close neighbours, these are people who’ve we’ve never seen before and who live round the corner or have just moved in up the road. It happens at all hours of the day, and they really do look at him as if he’s got three heads when it’s something he can’t help with. It’s very common for it to happen to plumbers, electrician, mechanics etc and one of the lads who works for him no longer answers his front door unless it’s someone he knows because he’s so sick of it.

One time I was dog sitting for them when they were on holiday and someone knocked asking a ‘bit of advice’, I told him my DF was away and wouldn’t be back until such and such and he actually said ‘well can’t you ring one of the lads for me’ sic. As in the lads who work for him. I told he could find their number in the yellow pages, he wasn’t happy..

It’s breathtakingly rude and entitled and I wouldn’t dream of doing it. It’s because they don’t want to have look up a phone number ring up and potentially pay a call out fee in my experience. The people who are telling you that your YABU are probably these sorts, wanting something for nothing types.

I don’t like this either. Not because I can’t say no (I do), but because I find some people tend to be incredulous that you’re a qualified solicitor that can’t advise them on e.g. property matters. And in my case, for whatever reason it almost is property stuff too - landlord and tenant, etc. Studying land law was a long time ago now for me, I found it dull at the time and it’s not something I work with at all any more, so I tend to find the asker already knows more than me. In fact, what I do know tends to have come through life experience with planning permission, renting and buying houses, not my qualifications. Which is fine, except for those occasions when their smugness shines through. I feel an urge to protest that no, I’m not incompetent!

I find it’s less friends and family, and more colleagues that do this. I work in-house and a small number of people imagine the legal department is a one-stop shop for advice on property, divorce, wills, and on one occasion a very niche question about music copyright, rather than people who spend their days dealing with contracts, GDPR and so on.

When it does relate to my area of expertise, I’m generally happy to venture an opinion, but will always make it clear that it’s just that, an opinion based on the very limited facts I have. Nobody has ever been so cheeky as to ask for ‘work’ as opposed to my views so hasn’t been a problem to date. I always signpost people in the direction of qualified (non-in-house) solicitors for detailed advice.

It is annoying but it happens to all professions. I work in a bank so am always being asked about mortgages, Experian reports, defaults, business accounts, card transactions , lost cards , online banking, change of address, extra statements........a lot of it isn’t always my particular area of expertise

A family member is a mechanic...
Another works in NHS....

@FixxerUpper

It’s not about being paid for the advice. It’s about being worried about giving the wrong advice. It’s also about not wanting to talk about work 24/7.

I have a friend who is a doctor. She tells people she never gives family/friends advice because without all the background it would simply be dangerous and puts her career at risk.

DH’s friend who is a lawyer has started doing the same.

YANBU.

Work is work and you should be able to have as much time physically and mentally away from it as anyone else. I think you have to say no politely.

My husband is a high ranking police officer and is ALWAYS asked for advice. Usually about speeding tickets (and he tells them the answer is not to)

My best friend's brother asked me if I would do something for his wedding, which I did, generously (it cost a significant amount of my time and energy). He is a lawyer let's call him A, his wife to be was a lawyer (B). A few years later, my very vulnerable relative had a mental health crisis which involved the police and would lead to a serious court case.

We needed urgent legal help (the police handled the situation very poorly) and so I rang B and asked if he could call me and signpost where to go for help. I wasn't asking him for actual help, but just didn't know where to start. He rang back days later and said he couldn't help.

In passing a while later I found out that his wife B actually worked in this exact field. Haven't got over that one...

@rawlikesushi

I think it's odd that you object to giving advice to friends and family.

I mean, you're cross at your mum ffs!

I'm a teacher - asked about deadlines for school applications, age-related expectations, what to do about school issues/complaints, what to do about suspected SEN. During lockdown, was often sent homelearning stuff with questions - 'what's a fronted adverbial?' Or 'Can you just check Tom has done this right?'

It never, ever occurs to me to object. Why would I? They're my friends and family! If I don't know, I say so.

I try not to bother friends unless I can't see another way to answer the question, but surely most people would ask a friend for advice in their field of expertise.

because you can't get sued for negligence.

Even giving advice free of charge on an ad hoc basis leaves the OP to a lawsuit should she give incorrect advice. If her insurers believe she should not have given advixenin the circumstances she has then her insurance may not cover her and she could lose her home. This is what a lay person does not understand.

Hello OP. I feel your pain. A family friend is an accountant. From the moment he qualified he said he won't be working for family and friends or giving out advice as it's a conflict of interest/doesn't mix business with pleasure. He's always got more than enough clients and doesn't want to talk shop at home. It's been a decision we've all respected and I more than anyone totally respects him for saying it from the start so there's no grey area.

If I were you, the next time someone asks for legal advice I'd say the law is very complex. I'm reluctant to give out advice without knowing the full background as it may be the wrong advice. That's a lovely top you've got on. Where did you get it? There, deversion sorted.

I totally get it...for those on here that don't...it can be exhausting when people think giving advice isn't really work. It is for professionals who take their job seriously. With friends, it inevitably involves hearing less than half the story...having to ask loads of questions to get to the facts without their views on what other side said/did & intrrpretation of things... disabusing people of the notion that they are right because they read / heard something that one time ... their expectation you will agree with them & surprise when you don't. (mostly exclusively with friends/family...regular clients don't tend to get annoyed in the same way). I would love to help in a less professional more friendly way but I know they won't pay the money to get proper advices, knowing they will rely on what you say rather than engage someone & pay a fee. I was recently sent documents (alot) to 'look over'. I'd have loved to return them with no comment or any suggested amendments & say...'I did it, looked them over'. It took me 2+hrs on a Sunday. When I replied with my advices, I was told it wasn't expected to be done so soon ...but it needed to be that day, my day off, as the response was due that week....because I work long hours Mon -Fri & am too exhausted to spend 2+ hrs extra any workday eve. During my working hours, time=fees, I can't spend time 'dossing' doing work for friends. In last month alone, I've had 3/4 requests to 'look things over'. It isn't about payment, it's about not understanding the time & effort involved. One relative clearly didn't even bother actually reading the document himself ....just sent it on to me. Or they ask you to just draft up something quickly because 'you are better trained at these things'. There are another few ongoing things with friends/family involving contracts or commercial deals (I'm not involved at all) that I'll often get asked about over the family dinners because 'it's most interesting'. It's actually work to me... esp when someone else is spouting out misguided incorrect advice in the belief that 'it's only fair'. I can't just nod & say 'there you are, great advice' & head home. Also it's often viewed as I'd be only watching tv otherwise ( in lockdown) so what's the harm in asking. I'm in a very demanding, stressful profession, it's noy like ...you are the only family member or friend asking & I need a break, thanks! I'm actually going to say No to friends from now on. Family is a bit more tricky. And I'd never say No to immediate family.

@Grimbelina

My best friend's brother asked me if I would do something for his wedding, which I did, generously (it cost a significant amount of my time and energy). He is a lawyer let's call him A, his wife to be was a lawyer (B). A few years later, my very vulnerable relative had a mental health crisis which involved the police and would lead to a serious court case.

We needed urgent legal help (the police handled the situation very poorly) and so I rang B and asked if he could call me and signpost where to go for help. I wasn't asking him for actual help, but just didn't know where to start. He rang back days later and said he couldn't help.

In passing a while later I found out that his wife B actually worked in this exact field. Haven't got over that one...

Not as serious as that but years ago my hairdresser asked my advice on something in my field, for his son. I gave him the basic advice to get him started but also arranged a quick, discounted appointment with someone else and he got what he needed. I suppose it took an hour of my time, so I did him a favour. A few months later I was running late for a hair appointment, and he wouldn't fit me in either that day or later in the week. I said he had a short memory and never went back and never forgot.

"because you can't get sued for negligence.

Even giving advice free of charge on an ad hoc basis leaves the OP to a lawsuit should she give incorrect advice. If her insurers believe she should not have given advixenin the circumstances she has then her insurance may not cover her and she could lose her home. This is what a lay person does not understand."

You would be pretty daft to expose yourself to legal action. It is not difficult to make it clear that they should not rely on your advice and seek another professional opinion. Even googling, there is lots of advice out there for lawyers wanting to cover themselves in a 'chat down the pub' scenario.

My aunt is a doctor and she will answer medical questions but if she doesn't know or doesn't feel qualified to comment she'll say that. Maybe that could be an approach?

Its your mum!

YANBU.

No one is ever interested in chit chat about the field I work in. If they bring it up it’s to segue into a request for assistance. People I barely know asking for stuff that would take 2 days work to set up and would require ongoing maintenance with zero intention of payment or reciprocating. No. I value my time. I’m not going to work for nothing at the expense of spending time with my family.

I wouldn't help someone I 'barely knew' tbh. But op refers to her mum!

I'm wondering if you think you're a bit special because your job is seen as having kudos by some and it's in a professional field?
It happens to us all.

@FixxerUpper

I feel like it puts me in a really awkward position.

DH is a lawyer and his view is it is against professional regulations and certainly not worth his while being disciplined. It;s what they drummed into him at his law school and during his training contract.

When people push (and believe me they do) he says ; 'When you go to an actual firm of solicitors for advice you are not actually paying for the advice. You are paying for the indemnity insurance. So i would suggest you get proper advice to protect yourself'.

There is no way in hell he would risk falling foul of his professional regulations for a quick freebie to a mate.

• not paying for the advice alone you are also paying for the indemnity insrance'

Missed a bit., but hope it makes sense.

I’m at the Criminal Bar - my family have not thankfully had much need for advice. I remember my mum saying (jest) why hadn’t I gone into something of more use to her (he he).