Legal Question in Legal Ethics in California

UPL (Unlicensed Practice of Law)

What you propose ...

It COULD be UPL. As I see on this list, people ask questions about an area of law and then it turns out when you hear more about their story, they need information about an entirely different area.The act of listening to someone's tale and thencategorizing their problem is within the scope of the atty, not any layman's.

To whom do you expose yourself to liability for doing what you propose? The state or the barassociation could theoretically come after you and either just close you down or possibly slapyou with criminal charges (and I'd be practisingUPL if I tried to tell you how likely or unlikelyeach of those things were when I'm not your attyand not allowed to advise you! Am I a hypocrite?But I do know what risk I'm taking so don't worry about me.)

The other exposure is to the actual would-be client.If they have a serious claim and you help them to help themselves and thereby delay having an expert(the lawyer) direct their strategy, etc., and thenthey either do something that hurts their case orthey miss their deadline for filing suit and lose money, you could be on their hook. How likely isthat? I don't know.

Now if you put up a web page, passive, and you don'tinteract with would-be law clients, you are not engaged in UPL. You might want to ask a local attyto quote you local law describing what constitutesUPL and see for yourself where your plans fit in.