I think the information above is sufficient to judge upon without revealing the name or the company.
I don't. I can think of hypotheticals within the particular facts as-stated that could easily make this go one way or the other.
As Elliot points out, if someone is seeking legal advice on a particular question of importance to them, that's what I do for a living.
For reasons I've explained before, one can't really receive legal advice, and it certainly can't be competently given, on an internet forum. For one thing, someone seeking legal advice is entitled to confidentiality and privilege against disclosure of legal advice which, pretty obviously, is not present in a forum conversation. A related question would be "Why don't priests take confessions via televised call-in shows?" It simply doesn't work that way.
What I occasionally do is to use questions in this forum as jumping off points in order to discuss relevant legal principles to the topic at hand. While the relevant ethics regulations would certainly prohibit rendering legal advice in a public forum, the regulations also encourage lawyers to educate others about law. So I hope that clears up any misunderstandings.
Take a question like:
"Is it legal to shoot my brother with a gun and kill him?"
You might think, "Of course that's not legal" but I'd want to know some more facts. Is your brother trying to kill you? Are you and your brother in the armed forces of two different countries at war? There can be a whole lot of circumstances where, sure, it's legal to shoot him, and there can be a whole lot of circumstances where it's not.
It is almost never the case where I'm going to feel comfortable with a question as-stated by someone seeking advice, who has already decided for me what facts they think are relevant and which ones are not, as a basis to provide advice. I'm pretty much always going to want to know all of the basic facts, and I'm going to want to probably ask a bunch of questions to get more facts.
I'm never going to provide anyone advice without knowing all of the relevant facts. Neither is any other lawyer. To do otherwise is simply dangerous.
I recently had an odd email exchange with someone, and sometimes I am just mystified as to what people expect when asking for legal advice. First, as Elliot pointed out above, law is not simply some hobby I happen to have. That said, I'm usually happy to consider someone's issue, and at least point out whether it is a simple question that can be easily answered or not, and how much effort (meaning time and money) it might take to reach an answer. My email address and telephone number are easy enough to find (I don't advertise on forums, nor do I use forum PM's for practicing law).
But this one was really unusual. A guy wrote me and said he'd been contacted by a lawyer who wanted to obtain a domain name for his client, and wanted to know what I thought about it. I told him that it would be pretty helpful to know some information about the lawyer, the domain name, and the circumstance of when and how he registered the domain name.
The guy wrote me back and said that he had "recently" registered the domain name and that it was an "exact match". An "exact match" to what, he didn't say.
Now, at that point, I had read his first email, replied to it with some questions, and now have a second email, but I'm no closer to any relevant facts, and I still don't even know what the domain name is.
So, I write back to the guy and tell him that I'd need to know the facts I asked the first time before I could even begin to figure out what kind of situation he was in. Since then... nothing. Now, again, I'm pretty casual about hearing what people's problems might be and giving them some idea of whether I can help and what it might take, but that guy, and plenty like him, just leave me scratching my head wondering what it is some people expect.
And, oh yeah, the legal benefits and advantages one obtains by consulting a lawyer are not a whole lot of good if the lawyer doesn't even know with whom he or she is communicating. I will usually give people one shot at "Who are you?" if that is one of the facts which is not apparent from their initial communication.
The ones that really creep me out are the ones that start with "John, I need help with...." whatever, and don't identify themselves. Maybe it's my upbringing, but you can usually expect me to refer to you as Mr. Arfy (in this case) if it appears that your surname actually is "Arfy", etc., because I was taught that it is rude to refer to people by first names without permission. But I get kind of a creepy stalkerish vibe when someone is calling me "John" and doesn't even have the simple courtesy of identifying themselves at all.
And if, for whatever reason, you want my help but don't want me to know who you are then, please, just don't bother.
Last one for now, but a big one, are emails with the subject line "Trademark Question" or "Domain Issue". When a good part of what you do for a living is to deal with trademark and domain issues, those are incredibly unhelpful email subject lines to stand out in a crowded inbox. In the firm where I started out, we did a lot of patent work for a flashlight company, and every time they came up with a new flashlight design, the partner in charge of that client would start a file called..... "New Flashlight". He had dozens of files over the years for that client, all called "New Flashlight".
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity for a late night rant on some practical realities in seeking legal advice, and what it looks like from this side of the table sometimes.
