Legal Corner

Re:Oy
sidone 8901 reads
posted

I agree that "drugs are more deadly and more illegal than escorting," and that's the point.  This is why the state is willing to forget about your relatively minor crime in exchange for your help catching others who commit more serious crimes.  The police want you to buy drugs from these people so they will be able to arrest the sellers and prove their case in court with your testimony about the deals.  They may also want you to wear a recording device.

As super9 pointed out, this is a common practice and is perfectly legal.  Many drug dealers in smaller citiesare pretty good at identifying undercover cops.  After all, small cities don't have many of them, and experienced dealers may already know who they are.  Sending in a fresh face to make the purchase increases the odds that the seller will go through with the deal.

I don't know what "issues" you think this practice should raise "w/ the normal person".  A normal person would feel nervous about doing this, but there is no reason to suspect the police of anything.

The risk to you should be minimal, since the police are unlikely to use civilians when they have reason to believe they will be in any danger.  There will also be several cops nearby to make the arrest and they will rush to your rescue if anything does go wrong.

Aside from this very minor risk and a bit of inconvenience, going along with this plan won't burden you very much.  It will certainly be better for you than a conviction and sentence for prostitution.  It will also help the community by getting some more serious offenders off the street.

As I understand it, you have not only refused this deal but have threatened to expose the cops' nonextistant misconduct by playing the tape.  You also believe you have scared them so much that they dropped the case.  This just isn't plausible.  The police have no reason to worry about the tape because it reflects conduct which is both normal and legal.  Since they have no reason to worry, they also have no reason to drop the case against you.  

You also decided to fire your attorney, and you had every right to do that.  The problem is that you haven't been paying attention to what has happened in the case.  You may have missed quite a bit since you fired the lawyer and, as I said in an earlier post, there may be a warrant out for your arrest.

You really should hire a new lawyer to help you clear up any problems that have arisen and to defend you from the prosecution which surely has not just come to a halt.

I notice that alot of ladies visiting this area use hotels. Does anyone know if its likely for LE to scope out hotels for this???

I know they are getting all the apartments/agencies and indys working from a place, but I haven't heard of the visiting ladies having any problems. Is that accurate?? Would like to hear from anyone in the know.
thanks

my incall is a hotel

I just tell the hotel that I am remodeling my house and get a room to sleep and shower

I try to meet all new clients away from the incall in a safe public location first and then they either follow me if we are close by or give them a piece of paper w/ the location and tell them "come over to my place and we can watch a movie"

so far as I know, LE can't bust an incall if you have met the guy somewhere else and continue your date at your place so long as you didn't agree for $$ for sex before going to the incall b/c you have included other activities in w/ the session and LE can't prosecute people if they two had been on a previous date either

-----

Disclaimer: I have called almost every lawyer in SC asking for legal advice on the subject of escorting and the lawyers either tell me that they haven't handled many cases or that they can't tell me how to run an escort business so this is the best that I can do.

sidone9086 reads

As is so often the case, "as far as I know" proves not to be very far at all.

OF COURSE you can be prosecuted when you bring a client to your location, and you can also be prosecuted for seeing someone you have seen before.  All that matters is that you are trading sex for money.  How you do it is beside the point.

The strategies you describe might make it harder to prove the case against you, but making the prosecutor's job more difficult is not the same thing as insulating yourself and your clients from prosecution.  Besides, police and prosecutors are more sophisticated than you seem to think and they cannot be easily thrown off by such basic ploys.

I want to repeat something I just wrote in response to one of your other postings (and I know you had not read it before you posted this one): your understanding of the law is VERY far off and I urge you not to offer suggestions on this board.

GaGambler10825 reads

I have to agree with Sidone, please to try refrain from sharing your myopic view of the law as if it were fact. I know you're just trying to help, but if someone were to take your advice literally, the amount of harm you could cause  would be immeasurable.

To be quite blunt, this advice extends not only to you, but to anybody else posting opinions on this board. The best advice you will ever get here is "Get a lawyer". I realize there are several attornies who post here, and some of their advice is quite sound, but even the best of them can only give the broadest of opinions with the facts as they are presented here.

Anyone seeking legal advice  should remember that no-one here, or anywhere else for that matter, can give you reliable legal advice on a specific subject without all the specifics involved. Unfortunately that is impossible here. Even the best advice should only be taken in the most general terms. Just remember if your freedom or your money is at stake "Get a lawyer", and a good one at that.

Sorry, I'll get off my soap box now.

I know a lot of escorts who "got a lawyer"

their lawyers took $900 and then told them to plead guilty to the charges

my lawyer told me to take the pretrial intervention deal a year ago which was that I plead guilty and take a state sponsered course on why I was an escort along with other sex offenders and after 3yrs--If I wasn't arrested again-- my case would be dismissed as it never happened.

I told him he was fired and then told the LE who arrested me that if they pushed my case forward, I would let the jury know of a couple of things I knew of including things I had on audiotape that involved the LE playing dirty pool. I never heard from them since and keep that tape in a fireproof safe far away


Lawyers are expensive and many don't want to deal with a case this small. It's best to put yourself in the jury's eyes. Would they trust a police officer's testimony if he had previous sex w/ escorts or if he spent more time and money on a woman before sex than your average girl in the bar.  

I may not be a lawyer but I know of several people who had lawyers who did nothing to help them and I got around asking people who had been in the same situation and I helped out more before their trial started. A couple of my friends disregarded their lawyers deals w/ the DA and fought and they eventually won.


sidone9377 reads

I realize you live back east, but here in California making a tape like the one you describe is a crime.  Also, the tape would be inadmissible in your trial so you could not use it in your defense.  Your statement to the police would have been usable against you if you were tried for making the tape, and in THAT case the tape would have been admissible to prove what you said.  On top of all that, threatening the police as you did is also a crime, and is much more serious than your original violation.

I don't know if making the tape was a crime in your state, but it might well be.

The fact that you never heard from the police again after you told them about the tape is insignificant.  There is no reason why you WOULD hear from them again.  You had already been charged, and at that point it is the prosecutor who makes the decisions.  Even if the cops talked with him and he agreed to let you off, SOMETHING would have to happen and you would have to get notice of it.  If the case was dismissed, you (or your lawyer, if he was still on the case) would have received a copy of the dismissal order.  In many states only the judge can dismiss a case, and if that is how it works where you are you also would have received a copy of the D.A.'s motion to dismiss and notice of the hearing.  Cases don't just go away as you have described.

I suggest contacting your old lawyer to find out what he got in the mail after you let him go.  There may very well be a warrant out for you by now if it looks like you have been ignoring the case against you.  If so, it's better to learn about it before the police execute it and take you to jail.

And even if you managed to out-maneuver the police in this case and know some other ladies who have done likewise, that doesn't change the fact that you seriously misunderstand the law.  You may have been lucky, but luck doesn't mean your advice is correct and doesn't reduce the risk at which you are placing others by pretending to know what you're talking about.

GaGambler7866 reads

I don't know if i agree with Sidone about making an audio tape in your own home or business being a crime, or even being inadmissible if it shows misconduct on the part of the police. I do however agree with him on everything else.

The police can not drop the case against you once an arrest has be made, only the prosecuter can. In addition, once the case has been dropped you will recieve some type of notice from the court, usually in the form of a "no bill" from the court.  Cases do not just go away.

I also urge you to contact your old attorney to make sure there is nothing hanging over your head. I don't know how long ago this happened to you, but you could be in for a very unpeasant surprise. To anyone else who is reading this thread, Please, please don't try to outmaneuver the police without professional counsel, you'll only find that you've dus a deeper hole for yourself 9 times out of 10.


south carolina allows taping in one party allows it and in south carolina -- if you tell the police that you have contacted a lawyer several times and that they should speak to him and they ignore that and continue to call you (threatening to put you in jail for a longer jail term)...even giving you names of drug dealers you don't know telling you that they will drop charges on you if you buy drugs from them so they can catch a drug dealer is very scandalous and can cause trouble for the narcotics team in future drug cases ...it is at least news worthy and causes probable cause

".even giving you names of drug dealers you don't know telling you that they will drop charges on you if you buy drugs from them so they can catch a drug dealer"

Actually that is not illegal. It is a common police practice to use a so called small fish to catch a larger fish.

yeah but if I never used drugs in my life and don't know these people...it raises issues w/ the normal person

drugs are more deadly and more illegal than escorting

that is like asking a cat burglar to become a member of the mafia when he steals a $25 tv and telling the cat burglar he will go to jail for 6yrs instead of 2 months if he doesn't do it

sidone8902 reads

I agree that "drugs are more deadly and more illegal than escorting," and that's the point.  This is why the state is willing to forget about your relatively minor crime in exchange for your help catching others who commit more serious crimes.  The police want you to buy drugs from these people so they will be able to arrest the sellers and prove their case in court with your testimony about the deals.  They may also want you to wear a recording device.

As super9 pointed out, this is a common practice and is perfectly legal.  Many drug dealers in smaller citiesare pretty good at identifying undercover cops.  After all, small cities don't have many of them, and experienced dealers may already know who they are.  Sending in a fresh face to make the purchase increases the odds that the seller will go through with the deal.

I don't know what "issues" you think this practice should raise "w/ the normal person".  A normal person would feel nervous about doing this, but there is no reason to suspect the police of anything.

The risk to you should be minimal, since the police are unlikely to use civilians when they have reason to believe they will be in any danger.  There will also be several cops nearby to make the arrest and they will rush to your rescue if anything does go wrong.

Aside from this very minor risk and a bit of inconvenience, going along with this plan won't burden you very much.  It will certainly be better for you than a conviction and sentence for prostitution.  It will also help the community by getting some more serious offenders off the street.

As I understand it, you have not only refused this deal but have threatened to expose the cops' nonextistant misconduct by playing the tape.  You also believe you have scared them so much that they dropped the case.  This just isn't plausible.  The police have no reason to worry about the tape because it reflects conduct which is both normal and legal.  Since they have no reason to worry, they also have no reason to drop the case against you.  

You also decided to fire your attorney, and you had every right to do that.  The problem is that you haven't been paying attention to what has happened in the case.  You may have missed quite a bit since you fired the lawyer and, as I said in an earlier post, there may be a warrant out for your arrest.

You really should hire a new lawyer to help you clear up any problems that have arisen and to defend you from the prosecution which surely has not just come to a halt.

"The risk to you should be minimal, since the police are unlikely to use civilians when they have reason to believe they will be in any danger.  There will also be several cops nearby to make the arrest and they will rush to your rescue if anything does go wrong."

There was a drug setup a few years ago in SoCal where the cops used an underage boy to buy drugs to get out from his other charges and he ended up being kidnapped and murdered.

sidone12235 reads

I didn't deny that there would be some risk.  I only said that it should be minimal.  Doing what wannarideher was asked to do is riskier than sitting at home, but then so is being an escort.  And most escorts don't have police waiting nearby to come to their aid if something bad happens.

most escorts don't need aid to come by

historians have argued that escorts have reduced rape in countries for centuries. Most rape occurs in "puritan societies" or where women have very few rights like in the taliban right now

these laws give the police to have control over women b/c these laws are rarely enforced on men and police laugh at escorts who get robbed or raped. They laugh when regular women get raped if that woman wasn't a "good woman" aka Teena Brandon from Boys don't Cry.

My friend Jason keeps reminding me that sheriff meant king's tax collector centuries ago so cops don't have to care about people and I believe him.  I just wish people understood that you don't have to be an honest person to be a police officer..you just have to be someone on a power trip

sidone12805 reads

You say "most escorts don't need aid to come by", and I think that means you have missed my point.  I never said escorts need such aid.  What I said was that such aid would be available to you if you agreed to become a police informant as you were asked to do.  That has nothing to do with you being an escort, since the same offer would have been made even if you had been arrested for some other kind of crime.

I agree that there are dishonest cops.  I don't think anyone denies this.  There are dishonest people in all walks of life, and there is nothing about police work which would make that field different from any other in this regard.  But most cops are decent, honest people who try their best to do what's right.  The chance that you might end up dealing with a dishonest cop is comparable to the chance that a hobbyist might end up with a provider who robs, attacks or otherwise tries to harm him.  The risk exists, but it does not change the fact that most providers would never do such a thing.

And if your friend Jason is the one who has been giving you bad advice about the law, you should stop listening to him.  I don't know what the origin of the word sheriff is, but even if Jason is right it doesn't matter.  Why should the way a word was used a thousand years ago have any bearing on what today's police officers are like?

notice how the police cars have changed from "to serve and protect" to "to enforce the law"

sidone9497 reads

I have no idea what your comment has to do with any of the previous posts in this thread.  Could you enlighten us?

"To serve and protect" is the LAPD's motto.  Other police departments probably have other mottos.  Last time I checked, LAPD cars still had "to serve and protect" painted on their doors.

what gets me more upset than anything else is that people think cops are honest and that cops would tamper evidence or lie in court when I have heard cops make statements in front of other people like:

women shouldn't go to college at night if they don't want to get raped or if a women wears red lipstick she deserves what she gets b/c she is wearing red to entice the man

I dated a cop during my college years who told me and a couple others that he always wanted to kill a N*gger just to see what if feel like and that he could stand watching music videos like cherry bomb by john cougar mellencamp b/c a white woman danced w/ a N*gger.

when I was 14, I had a 30 man tried to rape me and he pulled a knife out on my principal and he had a long record but he was never arrested for that b/c he was a bigtime drug informat who helped the police catch people who sold drugs with him.

Selective prosecution should be illegal. It states that one person is given more rights at birth due to gender, race and economic status than another. Prostitution laws should be abolished or they shouldn't be enforced until the police get off their lazy butts and start going after rapist and pedophiles


If I was a juror, I would raised these issues. I would raise questions about the honesty and integrity of the police force and why two consenting adults are being charged with a crime for an activity that everyone is doing while there are cases out there where 12yr old girls are raped by complete strangers and the police say they don't have the manpower and money to catch these sick people. They would have the manpower and money if they kept wasting time fighting escorts, homosexuals, nightclubs and tattoo parlors in SC b/c if you notice --- south carolina doesn't allow any fun here.  

sidone9532 reads

I'm sorry to hear about your ordeal when you were 14, and about the cops you described.  Most police aren't like that, even though too many are.

Slective prosecution is not an eveil.  In fact, it is a necessity since most communities don't have the resources to prosecute every crime.  Since they have to select which to pursue and which to let go, the question is not WHETHER they should be selective but HOW the selections are made.  I agree that it should not be done in a discriminatory manner, but that is not what happened in your case.  In fact, you were offered the BENEFIT of selective prosecution - a chance for you to be among those whose cases are dropped in order to focus on others.  If you don't want the deal that's your business, but I don't understand why you feel the practice is so bad.

And if you were a juror I would want you disqualified.  Jurors have no business deciding whether a law is worthy of enforcing or not.  The law is there, and the juror's job is limited to deciding what happened factually.  Decisions about what the law should or should not say are for legislatures, not for individuals (including judges).

Questions "questions about the honesty and integrity of the police force" have no place in a jury room.  Jurors can consider whether the particular officers who testified seem to be telling the truth, but the mere existence of dishonest cops has nothing to do with a case unless one of them is involved.  The same goes for decisions about how the prosecutors decide which cases to pursue.

And no prosecutor anywhere would simply drop a case of child rape in order to divert resources to routine prostitution cases.  The reasons cases like that get dropped include lack of evidence, credibility problems with witnesses, a victim unwilling to testify, etc.  When prosecutors have a good case against an accused child rapist, that case will ALWAYS be given top priority.

"Decisions about what the law should or should not say are for legislatures, not for individuals (including judges)."

Are you saying you disagree with the principles of judicial review set down centuries ago under Madison vs Monroe?

sidone8360 reads

Not at all.  I'm saying that courts should interpret the law as it has been laid down by statute and by precedent, but that they should not go around deciding cases based upon what they believe the law SHOULD say.  If one party to a case argues that the law as written is unwise and that his proposed rule is better, the court should reject that argument even if it agrees that the existing statute is bad, so long as the statute is constitutional.  Legislatures get to make that kind of call.  When they do, courts have to honor it.  When they don't, courts have to decide what the rule should be and then the legislature can change it if it disagrees.  In reality it's much more subtle than this, but I'm not going to get too detailed here.

Many of us have dealth with traffic citations, so I'll offer an example in such a case. If I get a ticket for going 90 in a 70 zone, I should not be able to win by arguing that 90 was a safe speed under the circumstances.  I don't get to decide what speed limit I must obey, and neither does the judge who hears my case.  If the legislature has decided that drivers should not be allowed to go faster than 70, then even a judge who disagrees with that law must enforce it.

But where the law is ambiguous and a case presents an issue the legislature didn't consider, judges need to interpret it.  If the reason I was driving so fast is that I was driving an injured person to a hospital and if the statutes say nothing about such an emergency, the court can read an exception into the law for cases where speeding is reasonably necessary.  But if the legislature has decreed that there can be no exceptions to the speed limit then the judge has no authority to rule in my favor, no matter how good my justification might be.

Wannarideher said she feels juries should not convict in prostitution cases because the police should be dealing with other, more serious crimes.  This is not the type of decision a juror or a judge can properly make.  If the legislature wants to direct police departments to treat particular crimes as less important than others it can do so, but the courts have no business acting as if that has already been done when it hasn't.

That's all I was saying.

"Many of us have dealth with traffic citations, so I'll offer an example in such a case. If I get a ticket for going 90 in a 70 zone, I should not be able to win by arguing that 90 was a safe speed under the circumstances.  I don't get to decide what speed limit I must obey, and neither does the judge who hears my case.  If the legislature has decided that drivers should not be allowed to go faster than 70, then even a judge who disagrees with that law must enforce it.

But where the law is ambiguous and a case presents an issue the legislature didn't consider, judges need to interpret it.  If the reason I was driving so fast is that I was driving an injured person to a hospital and if the statutes say nothing about such an emergency, the court can read an exception into the law for cases where speeding is reasonably necessary.  But if the legislature has decreed that there can be no exceptions to the speed limit then the judge has no authority to rule in my favor, no matter how good my justification might be."

The courts are an equal branch of our government and they are tasked not only with upholding the laws that our representatives pass but also with reviewing them to see if they pass muster and if they don't then they overturn them. This is a crucial part of our system of checks and balances and in fact it is being played out right now with the Terry Shiavo case. The Florida legislature passed a law and the courts overturned it. Now the US Congress is sticking their noses in and trying to pass a law that is clearly a bill of attainder and hopefully the courts will use their powers of judicial review to strike that down too. The point I'm trying to make is that interpretation of laws is crucial and the judiciary must be allowed to use it. This is also why we have appellate courts - so that no ruling can go unchallenged.

sidone7896 reads

You and I are saying the same thing.  Where the legislature hasn't spoken the courts need to interpret the existing law.  My point is that where the legislature HAS spoken judges and juries alike must abide by its decisions.  And if you look at my entire answer you will see that I specifically said this rule only applies to statutes which are themselves constitutional.  A court can invalidate a law on the ground that it is unconstitutional, but not on the ground that it is unwise.  That type of decision is for the legislature alone.

The laws dealing with Terry Schiavo are not bills of attainder.  Such a bill penalizes a particular person, but these laws supposedly benefit a person instead.  The Florida court did not invalidate the law because it was a bill of attainder, but rather because it violated the separation of powers doctrine.  Florida's legislature, as a co-equal branch of government, had no right to try to change the result of a court decision on the merits of a particular case.

The proposed federal law is interesting because federal courts have not ruled on the merits of the Schiavo case.  Congress thus is not interfering with what the courts have done, and the rationale for overturning the Florida statute does not apply.  I see this more as an issue of state sovereignty, since the feds are trying to govern a matter which is normally the subject of state law.  It's not a bill of attainder and it may not violate separation of powers, but it may still be unconstitutional because it exceeds federal authority over the states.  I say all these things without having seen the proposed law, so I may turn out to be wrong.

I think we have exhausted other readers' interest in this topic, since we are now discussing purely legal issues.  There are other places to have such a discussion, but TER is not an appropriate forum since we are not talking about the "hobby" anymore.

"The proposed federal law is interesting because federal courts have not ruled on the merits of the Schiavo case.  Congress thus is not interfering with what the courts have done, and the rationale for overturning the Florida statute does not apply.  I see this more as an issue of state sovereignty, since the feds are trying to govern a matter which is normally the subject of state law.  It's not a bill of attainder and it may not violate separation of powers, but it may still be unconstitutional because it exceeds federal authority over the states.  I say all these things without having seen the proposed law, so I may turn out to be wrong."


I was referring to the Congressional legislation when I wrote of Bills of Attainder. Not the State law which was deemed unconstitutional. Even though a BoA refers to a penalty the courts have ample latitude to determine what constitutes a penalty to a person. Keeping her alive may be the ultimate penalty. James Madison may have summed it up best and his words actually resonate just as clearly today:

"Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. ... The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils.  They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community."  James Madison, Federalist Number 44, 1788.

"I told him he was fired and then told the LE who arrested me that if they pushed my case forward, I would let the jury know of a couple of things I knew of including things I had on audiotape that involved the LE playing dirty pool. I never heard from them since and keep that tape in a fireproof safe far away"

So now you are an extortionist too? My advice to your "friends" is to stay far away from you.

Wannarider, your views on LE and the law in general are way off. I've read a bunch of your recent posts and almost every one of them has had glaring errors regarding what is legal and what is not.

This has been covered before but I'll write it again: If you are condcucting an illegal activity (and sex for money IS illegal except in some Nevada brothels) LE can bust you. All the subterfuge in the world won't matter if they want to take you down. However, just becuase you are arrested does not mean that the DA will be able to charge you or if you are charged that the DA will get a conviction. But, if you are arrested you will have to spend time and money fighting it and the chances are not in your favor.

If it does go to trial the jury will be presented with other corroborating eveidence such as your website, with all the euphamisms explained.

in south carolina

the statue for solicitation for prostitution reads something like this: knowledge of or sex for money or services or anything of value is prostitution (includes drivers who don't actually witness any transactions)

every woman who has accepted jewelry and started giving french after that is guilty of this crime. The laws in SC are very broad and covers everything so that innocent parties can get hurt too.

It is bad enough that there are victimless crimes on the books while our city has so many unsolved cases of rape and murder that can't be investigated due to limits of tax money and man power but every year there seems to be more laws and it reminds me of Animal Farm.

Looking at you two debating on speeding tickets, Do you think it is fair or should be legal for a police officer to use his blue lights to grab a sandwich at burger king? I see them do it every day. I also know about offspring of police officers who sell drugs and if they are caught oneday, you know they won't spend anytime in jail but the teenagers who smoke pot once or twice get in a lot of trouble.

Granted you may think I am the dumbest broad on this site but grant me some credit for telling LE where they could go when they wanted to use me for bait for a drug dealer I never met and I have never used drugs. It isn't like they asked me to be a street walker for a couple days so they could catch Johns, that would be in the same catagory. They wanted me to put my life in danger (watch scarface)

I am not writing here anymore b/c I don't wanna piss you off anymore but cops are crooked and the OJ Simpson audio tapes and Rodney King incident shows that abuse of power is a large problem and this double standard could end if legalization happened b/c many politicians and cops use escorts. Many has admitted to it

So, in SC if I go out on a date and buy a woman dinner, then we have sex afterwards, I am guilty of solicitation and she is guilty of prostitution?

Let's be real here.  LE looks at intent.  If I buy my girlfriend a $5000 diamond tennis bracelet and she immediately falls to her knees and blows me, according to you we can be arrested for solicitation/prostitution.  Do you see the flaw in your logic?

some streetwalkers blows guys for 25 bucks

I know I know. I have a big mouth and just broke my previous promise

anyone wanna spank me?

foo9536 reads

"So, in SC if I go out on a date and buy a woman dinner, then we have sex afterwards, I am guilty of solicitation and she is guilty of prostitution?"

If she had sex with you because you bought her dinner, yes.

"Let's be real here.  LE looks at intent."

What LE ususally does is use enough sense to not enforce laws in such a way that gets the people pissed off enough to strike back at LE.  So while in your example you have technically broken the law, you will never be arrested for it.

With such a vaguely-written law, even sex between a married couple can be prostitution.  For example, if the wife says "I'll give you a BJ if you mow the lawn" and they follow through on the agreement.  Again they'll never get arrested for it, but they have broken the law.

(disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I just play one on message boards)

normdale11567 reads

Sidone and the others have made an excellent point, which I fear may have been lost in the din.  Another important point certainly *is* getting lost here.

First, as many have said, wanna's advice is just wrong, and her understanding of the law seems to be a function of one lucky experience and re-runs of law & order.  Those of us who have defended clients in criminal court know that her advice holds the potential for disaster.  While it may, in isolated circumstances, produce the same or better results that you might have obtained with a lawyer for less money, most of the time, you'll be making your situation aubstantially worse.  

I understand that lawyers are expensive; good ones are even more so.  However, the old joke about lawyers being like escorts is true in this case; both are expensive, in both, you generally get what you pay for, and in both your money is generally well spent.  

I second my brethren on here who are begging people without legal training to stop offering legal advice.  I *know* that the advice is well-intentioned, but anyone who offers such advice on the basis only of personal experience is truly doing the recipient more harm than good.  

In addition, such a person is probably practicing law without a license, which can carry administrative or other monetary penalties, and may be a crime, all depending on the state in which you live.  I cannot speak authoritatively on the laws of any state but my home state; I can say, however, than in most states, you are practicing law if you are giving legal advice upon which you believe or intend that the recipient of the advice will rely.  That you are not getting paid is almost always irrelevant to a determination of whether you are practicing law.  

If you are, it is entirely possible that the fine that you get hit with will exceed the fine for a simple prostitution conviction.  Likewise, in some states it may also be a crime, so you'd also have a criminal conviction.

People (providers and others) who have an uncontrollable urge to share personal anecdotes should try to avoid sharing them as suggestions to others . . . more often than not the advice is misguided or completely wrong.

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