If you’ve ever binged Suits or Boston Legal in a weekend, the thought “I could probably do this” has most likely crossed your mind. Surely, you’ve accumulated enough knowledge to get yourself out of a wrongful conviction or to defend your cousin in a cat ownership dispute, right?
Unfortunately, most times, we’re overestimating our legal knowledge. In 2024, there were over 1.3 million actual lawyers in the United States. But who knows how many self-proclaimed legal experts are out there, especially online?
One Reddit thread might give you an idea. One netizen’s question revealed just how many folks may be overconfident in legal know-how. Their question “Lawyers of reddit, what’s the most laughable, ‘I am not a lawyer, but…’ claim you’ve ever read?” brought out many professionals to reminisce about how hilariously wrong some folks have been about law.
#1
When I was a judicial intern I saw an arraignment where the defendant claimed the court had no power over her, because she was a sovereign citizen who did not recognize the federal or state governments.
Later learned that her sole source of income was Social Security.
Image credits: BAM521
#2
As a lawyer I love seeing all of the Facebook posts telling Facebook what they do and do not consent to. It’s the online equivalent of Michael Scott “declaring” bankruptcy.
Image credits: thekickassduke
#3
I’m a lawyer in the U.S. and for some reason people are obsessed with common law marriage. I see people on Reddit and even hear them IRL warning other people about how “You’ve lived with her for more than X years, you’re common law married so you have to take that into account!” or “Well, we’ve been living in the same apartment together for X years, so we’re common law married now.”
Common law marriage is only a thing that can be done in a small handful of U.S. states now, and there are requirements to it. You have to hold yourself out as being married, live together, present yourselves to the world as being married, etc. You’re not going to wake up one day and accidentally be “common law married.”
**ETA:** Guys, I never claimed to be talking about the law in Canada or Australia. I’m aware that it’s different in those places.
Image credits: SaltySolicitor
#4
In general people arguing for an hour before realizing they live in different countries.
Image credits: not-a-bear-in-a-wig
#5
I once saw a defendant argue for a not guilty verdict because there was no “Mr or Mrs commonwealth” who testified.
Obviously the charges were commonwealth v defendant. He doesn’t understand that. He was found guilty. The judge did not appreciate that.
Image credits: Super_C_Complex
#6
I work a lot in Real Estate law and I generally enjoy reading anything that comes up related to Landlord-Tenant laws. Generally speaking, Reddit loves to jump on the “illegal” and “don’t pay” bandwagon. These are terrible pieces of advice. I have seen plenty of people recommend solutions that would likely result in eviction. I usually hop in, politely inform the poster that laws vary from State to State and that OP should review local LL/Tenant laws.
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#7
Guy claimed he could lawyer himself because he played Phoenix Wright ace attorney.
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#8
The “sovereign citizen” stuff is my favorite. “The United States is a corporation and the law of the seas applies! Just look at the fringe on that flag! I do not consent to jurisdiction!”
Runner up is “you can’t show me any law that requires me to pay federal income tax!”.
Image credits: HeartsOfDarkness
#9
I had a non-lawyer try to tell me that testimony was not reliable evidence and that a judge could not rely upon it in making a factual determination. This was in the context of a small claims case I was helping my client prepare for. It was my client’s word against the opposing party’s, plus some photographs he was planning on introducing. I told the opposing party that “I’ll guess we’ll see what the judge does….” Spoiler: the judge found my client’s testimony much more compelling and ruled in his favor.
Image credits: anon
#10
My favourite: “the judge cannot determine this matter because he is a member of the freemasons, and the freemasons do not believe in the concept of private property.” This case ended with the non lawyer accusing everyone of being a freemason.
The same non lawyer also ran an appeal in that case based on the fact that the judge was not a real judge, because the judge had not taken his oath of office. The non lawyer had dug up a transcript of the judge’s swearing in ceremony which read *judge Smith takes oath of office*, when the judge took his oath, instead of the actual words of the oath. The non lawyer referred to outdated and repealled laws from 1730, which said all oaths had to be transcribed word for word, as a basis for the fact that the judge was not a real judge.
If his interpretation was correct, I think no current judge in Australia is a ‘real judge’.
Image credits: thatdogoninstagram
#11
This just happened this week. I’ve had some pretty rough ones, but this lady…
I represent a landlord who is trying to evict a tenant for multiple lease violations. Tenant sends my clients a cease and desist letter for harassment (she didn’t like that they told her she had to keep the house clean, or that she refused to permit them entry to the premises for repair work, that’s harassment). She’s told them on several occasions that they “have to fix” this or that, and it has to be fixed yesterday, but then has every excuse in the book why they can’t do it with reasonable notice that the landlord is coming (24 hours or more), even so far as to call the cops on my client when he comes out at the prescribed period of time.
Client gets tired of crabby lady, and sends me in to read the lease to figure out how to get rid of her. Well, she’s a nuisance to the neighborhood, she has the cops at the house weekly, she has a dirty house, she hasn’t paid her utilities in months (lease says it’s her responsibility), etc. I count 8 violations total, and some have multiple occasions. So I send her out the notice that her lease is terminated and she needs to vacate by a certain date. She ignores termination letter and informs me that utilities are being cut off, and I need to grant her permission to get an extension to pay the city utility bills. I ask her when cutoff is, because if it’s past the date we told her to leave, it won’t matter. Tenant proceeds to tell me she’s sure that I’m aware of the law and statutes in my state, with my license to practice, and that she’s done with my nonsense. Water was cut off that day.
My clients, concerned that children, including a diabetic, are without water, call city to have it reconnected and put in their name. I inform the tenant that she will have water that night, and that this does not mean the lease is still active, we have terminated the lease, and she must move out. She proceeds to tell me that I’m harassing her, that I could lose my license, and that I need to stop harassing her immediately, and insinuates that I don’t understand English, or the law. She may not be a lawyer, but she knows her rights, and I’m violating her rights, which is discrimination.
I’ve learned only two things from this:
1) Tenant does not, in fact, know her rights
2) Tenant does not, in fact, understand my state’s laws, or the English language
I filed the eviction proceedings days ago, we’re just waiting for our summons to get her to court, so we can get her out.
Image credits: Reaper621
#12
My two favorites are when people talk about the McDonald’s coffee case as an example of greedy plaintiffs taking advantage of the system or, conversely, when they say “X Company has an army of lawyers on staff to fight the case.”.
Image credits: Notsureifsirius
#13
Am (legally but I quit) a corporate lawyer. Basically no one understands fair use and copyright. I keep seeing people analyzing songs and art and calling everything plagiarism and copyright infringement; I’m not talking songs, but stuff like chord progressions or character names. Just because something exists within a work doesn’t make it the author’s exclusive property.
Image credits: Vaaaaare
#14
Anything on /r/legaladvice. DO NOT GO THERE FOR ACTUAL LEGAL ADVICE. I go there to laugh because come on.
In real practice, though, we get those nutty Pro Per Plaintiffs suing for millions or billions because of some slight, or because the Gubment doesn’t have jurisdiction over them as FREE MURICANS or because they’re SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUALS.
Image credits: Coolest_Breezy
#15
One of my clients was told by someone on the staff of the nursing home where her mother lives that if an Enduring Power of Attorney (basically a power of attorney made in contemplation of future mental incapacity that unlike most powers of attorney does not become invalid if the donor becomes incapacitated) is voided if the original staples that held the pages together are removed. I can see a tiny grain of truth to this in that if the validity of the document was contested the fact that it had been taken apart and stapled together again might be some evidence to support that but there is no way that evidence alone would determine the issue.
And don’t even get me started about people who use the term “hearsay” but don’t know what it means. This has become an epidemic.
Image credits: Kenn1121
#16
This random guy at the deli told me, “I’m not a lawyer but I know for a fact my baby mama ain’t gonna get a dime of this child support money!” I asked him why he thought that and he said it was because she owed back taxes with the IRS and they were going to garnish the child support payments to pay it off. All I responded with was “wow that’s new!”.
Image credits: SmartyLox
#17
Met someone who said they knew everything about the law and was studying to be a lawyer. Turns out she was temping as a paralegal for the better part of a week.
Image credits: kushasorous
#18
I’m in real estate, Over the last year or two I’ve seen a lot of people try to quote the law as if they are lawyers. No Karen, misinterpreting your lease contract and the law supporting it does not mean you get to do what ever you want. “Mitigate damages” is not a get out of jail free card.
Image credits: GeroVeritas
#19
A tale from back in my public defender-ing days:
Sovereign citizens are a special kind of stupid. Percentage-wise, I don’t know how many of them are true believers and how many think they’ve just found some clever loophole or another. At any rate, they were always the most interesting clients.
One of them was a young gent who decided to represent another buddy of his to spin his nonsense to the judge. Unfortunately, the fellow who would become my client was a regular defendant in that same courtroom—and everyone there knew he wasn’t a lawyer. When he was arrested—which is to say immediately—the judge was not swayed by his argument that he was “acting of counsel” rather than “practicing law without a license.”
The operating a motor vehicle charge which would follow was only semi-related.
Image credits: Silentclock1
#20
My answer is actually basically all of the “I am not a lawyer, but…” claims.
The funny thing about being a lawyer is that the answer is almost always “it depends.” Sure, the laws generally stay the same but the outcomes are so contingent upon the facts that you can never know with certainty how something will turn out. Thus, my answer for 90+% of my clients is it depends on (who the judge is, who shows up to testify, what the witnesses say, what theme opposing counsel goes with, etc…). More importantly, we are not allowed to guarantee results and for good reason – the simple fact of the matter is judges, juries, prosecutors, and opposing counsel can make different decisions based on identical facts and laws.
I think the only time “I am not a lawyer, but” would be appropriate is if someone is saying “I am not a lawyer, but you need to consult with an attorney.”.
Image credits: hostilecarrot
#21
I once had a person claim that within there was no such thing as the adversarial system and that we were just trying to inflame a contested divorce.
Should mention we live in a common law system and both parties had retained separate counsel.
Image credits: SweatCleansTheSuit
#22
Absolutely the best IANAL arguments I saw on Reddit came during the “Deflate Gate” scandal in the NFL. For those who do not know, Tom Brady, the superstar quarterback for the very successful New England Patriots, was found to have deflated footballs in violation of league rules. That’s kind of a minor thing, but it was against one of the best players in the league’s history, and Brady fought it like crazy. The issue resulted in litigation in the Southern District of New York and, later, the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals.
Patriots fans vociferously defended Brady and, frankly, I would expect nothing less. But some of the legal arguments Patriots fans would make were astounding. It was some time ago, so I do not recall specifics, but it was as if every Patriots fan on Reddit suddenly got a law degree and had years of experience practicing law.
What I do remember, though, was their fans would often re-hash the legal arguments Brady’s (very talented) attorneys made in court filings as if they were gospel. But attorneys are paid to be persuasive — everything we write seems compelling at first blush. But even if we write it authoritatively, it could certainly be wrong and lose. And that’s ultimately what happened to Brady. Although, credit to his attorneys, he had some success at the trial court level, which was mind-boggling to me. The 2d Circuit corrected that.
Image credits: Guhonda
#23
Charlie: Says the guy who knows nothing about the law!
Dennis: I can absolutely keep a hummingbird as a pet, bro. It’s no different than having a parrot or a parakeet. It’s a bird, bro.
Charlie: You really can’t, and I’m not saying I agree with it. It’s just that bird law in this country–it’s not governed by reason.
Dennis: There’s no such thing as “bird law”.
Charlie: Yes, there is.
Dennis: You know what? I’m going to get a hummingbird and I’ll show you.
Charlie: Hummingbirds…hummingbirds are illegal tender!
Dennis: I’m going to get one.
Charlie: You cannot.
Dennis: To spite you, I’m going to get one.
Mac: Where are we with gulls?
Charlie: You can keep a gull as a pet, but you don’t want to live with a seabird, okay, ’cause the noise level alone on those things…have you ever heard a gull up close? It’s going to blast your eardrums out, dude.
Image credits: ChilrenOfAnEldridGod
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