Iam Nota Lawyer

Standard disclaimer on the Internet used when non-experts make statements about legal issues, indicating that their legal advice should not be construed as legal advice.

In most cases, the text immediately preceding a disclaimer of IamNotaLawyer is complete and utter rubbish, usually consisting of a) some tenet of the law that they learned on <insert favorite lawyer show here> which may be out-of-date, out-of-context, or complete fiction; b) something that they heard from their brother-in-law (and which suffers from the same set of deficiencies as the TV quotes); or c) something that they think ought to be true. I ought to know...I've written many IamNotaLawyer claims in my time on the net. :)

The reason is that you can be sued if someone follows your misinformed legal advice to their own detriment. At least as far as I know. After all, IamNotaLawyer.

Unfortunate Acronym: IANAL

Almost inevitably followed by a post that begins "Well, I am a lawyer, and here's why you're full of shit." Followed by more complete and utter rubbish that could probably get the poster sued, if people a.) realized that lawyers can be sued for posting complete and utter rubbish under the guise of legal advise and b.) weren't mortally afraid of filing a lawsuit against a lawyer.

Of course, IANAL, so what do I know? ;-)

Why would someone be afraid of suing a lawyer? If a lawyer does something wrong that's worth a good-sized judgement, another lawyer will be happy to take the case on contingency. Of course, most lawyers--even successful ones--don't have the millions of dollars in the bank necessary to collect on such a things (to quote SteveDallas?: "Never sue poor people"), and there are court rulings (in other professions) that state that if you don't pay for someone's advice, you can't sue 'em if it's bad advice. But then again (all together now)... I am not a lawyer!

Does anyone have a citation for first use? I always though this was inspired from the 1980s television commercial wherein Alan Alda (who played Hawkeye on the TV show M*A*S*H) stated "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV".

It was. The first version I saw (sometime in the 80s) was I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Net.

First Citation on groups.google.com: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.sys.mac.wanted/msg/e19c33d18d1ab9c9

I'm not a doctor, but I play one one TV.

Actually, the first such commercial may predate the 80s (anyone?) and almost certainly predates Alda's sketch. If I recall correctly, Robert Young was the actor, having played Marcus Welby, M.D. The ad was ... Sanka? ... but I need to do some research to nail the dates down.

Unfortunately, a similar disclaimer doesn't seem to exist for programmers. It would be nice if whenever some clueless manager or other nitwit felt the need to pontificate on software issues, they felt compelled to disclaim their advice with IANAP.

I wonder how true the common wisdom that you need to disclaimer to avoid lawsuits is. As I understand it, lawyers are professionally vulnerable to malpractice, and being the paranoid bastards that they are will explicitly disavow anything they say "off the cuff" just in case. But if you're stupid enough to both follow non-formal legal advice AND sue someone for giving it to you, I don't see how a disclaimer is going to stop you. Further, I expect a layman (especially in an anonymous or semi-anonymous forum like the Internet) would be more or less immune to claims of malpractice. But then, IANAL ;) I wouldn't have thought you could be liable for unconcious copyright infringment, either.

I think the intention is mainly to warn the reader, in clear terms, that the writer is not a lawyer, lest they get the idea that you ARE and act on your advice as such. Its to protect the reader, not so much the writer.

One of the major rules in legal malpractice law is that legal advice is in the ear of the listener, not in the mind of the lawyer. If the lawyer is speaking off the cuff (or joking, or just thinking out loud) but the listener takes it as rock-solid legal advice and gets themself into huge trouble, the lawyer may end up being held responsible for any losses. The Internet disclaimer "this is not legal advice, don't take it as such" reflects the reality that on the internet, half the people are stupider than the average Internet user.