Legal Question in Legal Ethics in Massachusetts

Re: Ethical issue

Solicitation is, generally, where a lawyer approaches a person with a known legal problem in hopes of being retained to represent the client for that specific legal problem. It is not "solicitation" when strangers choose to post legal inquiries on a public website, in hopes some lawyer might provide generalized suggestions or answers in response to the post. In other word, because the "client" reaches out to the (unknown) lawyer, it is not solicitation.

Similarly, no "attorney-client" relationship is formed through the simple act of posting a public question online, which is responded to by a lawyer as a public service. Moreover, the "attorney-client" privilege only applies to confidential communications a "client" makes to a "lawyer" for purposes of seeking "legal advice." The presence of anyperson other than the "client" and "lawyer" to the communication destroys the expectation of confidentiality, and thus the A/C privilege does not apply to public, non-confidential communications such as internet postings. In other words, the posting of a legal question on a public website destroys any expectation of confidentiality and thus the privilege cannot apply.