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Comment by tiahura | Hacker News Reader

As a lawyer, your post is almost entirely incorrect. Privilege in no way depends on whether the communication involves questions.

It cracks me up. As a lawyer, I would never post on HN to argue about pointer arithmetic or inference optimization, yet the law seems to be fair game for amateur hour.

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I don't think the post says privilege depends on whether the communication involves questions. I read it as saying that privilege exists so you can seek counsel. And, in their opinion, seeking counsel should always involve asking questions. Which seems reasonable to me. I am struggling to think of a situation where someone initiating contact with a lawyer wouldn't need, or at least want, to ask any questions. Are there situations where that is not the case?

> Privilege in no way depends on whether the communication involves questions.

I sure hope most lawyers don't often misread other people's writing as bad as you did here.

>I would never post on HN to argue about pointer arithmetic or inference optimization, yet the law seems to be fair game for amateur hour.

In all fairness, You would probably be ok with criticizing software or a website that didn't work for you and offer improvements or features. There's certainly nothing wrong with that.

I'm a software engineer who has had to explain the law (HIPAA) to lawyers before. It's probably best to assume that in a population there are people who are both an expert/professional of X, who can say intelligent things about Y.

I want to elaborate on what the GP said. The best way to use a lawyer in most circumstances is to ask them questions about actions you can take through the legal system and listen to their answers, treating them as a counsellor.

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