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Comment by yellow_lead | Hacker News Reader

Since when does everyone have a lawyer waiting at their beck and call?

"Your lawyer" does not need to refer to someone who works exclusively for you, or someone you have on retainer. It could just mean the legal professional who you call when you need help with your business. If you have a business and have never needed a legal professional before, then you would interpret that statement to mean you should find one and start a relationship with them, as a successful business will likely need frequent legal assistance.

I mean, since when does everyone have a chef waiting at their beck and call?

Since they invented restaurants.

If you want a meal made for you, you go to the business and ask for a meal. If you want someone to lawyer for you, you go to the business and ask for some lawyering.

But you never hear:

"I'm hungry"

"Ask your chef to cook you something."

So why do we hear this in law?

Everyone else is making this sound like a dumb question but it's not.

I once got asked to sign a stupid contact. I was pretty sure it was not enforceable, and if I didn't sign I'd be fired and make an annoying enemy.

Me and 3 other guys piled in and hired a lawyer for like an hour to have him look it over and tell us if we should sign it or quit.

In the end, my split was $200 or so, and I didn't really learn anything that googling hadn't already told me. I signed it and then quit on my own terms a couple months later.

Not many people these days, even devs, who will just chuck around money like this for far too little marginal benefit over (as someone else in a comment said) "asking randos on the internet".

How do the other 3 people feel about it? Because that sounds like $200 well spent! Try asking "randos on the Internet" if a non-compete clause in a contract is valid, and if you're lucky, someone will ask you where you're located, which impacts whether or not the clause is legally enforceable. If not, someone will spout off the answer as it affects them, which is great, except if you're in a different state that advice may be dangerously wrong. In this case, the $200 didn't reveal anything drastically different, but at the end of the day, for anything complex, I'd much rather spend my share of $1,000 to make sure I'm not about to get the short end of the stick. If you've gotten the really short end of the stick before, you'll see why $200 is cheap.

Similarly. I mean, I knew it would be $200 or so, and I ended up going ahead and doing it. So what I actually ended up doing was in line with your sentiment "$200 is cheap compared to getting fucked".

And if presented with the same scenario again, I'd probably do it again, though probably with some chagrin.

But my point is, $200 isn't a ton but it's not nothing, and if you're already potentially going to be fucked, the probability of $200 being in the "not nothing" category is probably higher. And if it wasn't something a few other people were stuck with too, it'd have been quite a bit more. (Hard to figure the exact bill because one of us decided to talk to him for a lot longer to check on some specific things, so we just venmo'd him for what he thought our % of it was).

So - I guess what I mean is - even for fairly privileged people, "just check with a lawyer" is not something you "just" do.

And I find it super annoying that assholes (like LinkedIn for OP, and the person who was forcing me to sign the contract) can just write shit down and throw it at you and then you're supposed to spend $500+ to check them on their bullshit or you're the one in hot water.

(Though, that said, OP's example isn't perfect because using the LI logo probably should've been a "hmm wait a sec" moment for him. But also if all LI emailed him about was "stop using the logo" then he similarly probably wouldn't be feeling the need to seek legal counsel).

Hiring a lawyer isn't magically going to make your problems go away, and it might not even be that useful, and it will definitely be painfully expensive, but the fact remains that (as you just concluded) it's still the right decision in situations like there. OP is facing a situation that could potentially end his business, he needs to hire a lawyer.

If you want to bring up privilege, privileged people have networks of friends that are also privileged, so the chance of having high powered lawyers (and doctors) friend is quite high. So "just check with a lawyer" becomes "let me email Jerry that I've known for 10 years". Jerry's not going to do a ton of work for free, but he could take 20 mins to read it over and say very directly in which ways you could get fucked over and advise either actually spending time on a lawyer if it's important, or advise against it, in ways a professional connection would not.

If you are selling a product to the public and get a legal threat from a big company, you need to get a lawyer, whether or not you have one to start with. Period, end of story. OP mentions it's their livelihood, so it's worth it.

The point is that lawyers sent the cease and desist, so the other side does have lawyers at their beck and call. If you want to do anything other than what they demand you do, you are risking more lawyery-action. And even if you do comply, that doesn't stop them from continuing to bring action against you for some other reason, or for damages, or whatever they want, really.

It may not be a system that is geared towards fair play, but if you want to play at all, you really should have a lawyer, too.

Anyone running a business needs legal services from time to time.

You don't need to have a lawyer ready all the time, but you can still get one.

This is something that is perfect for a hour or so consulting call and maybe with an additional fee to review the document. You don't need an existing relationship to run things like this by a lawyer. I've had to do it a few times and the charge has never broke the bank and has always been worth the value.

Even the small time mom and pop outfits get lawyers to reviews contracts.. If you have a big legal issue get legal advice, it's like getting a medical when you have a decently worrying health issue

Since everyone became an adult. Consider it one of those untaught lessons about growing up. You should have one, or at least, know how to access one, just like doing your taxes, either with a CPA or by hand, or like going to the dentist. Your life may have taken a different route, and you've not come across the need for one, but it's like getting married or having children. As an actualized adult, you should be aware that lawyers exist in more than a passing fashion or what you saw on Law and Order.

That's what retainers are for. Plenty of people have lawyers on retainer, just waiting for when they need them.

Plenty of people with $$$$

Or who view it as a necessary cost of doing business. I knew a guy who was into some shady stuff and he saved up $10k to give to his lawyer for when he would unexpectedly need some lawyer services.

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