In the common law

Common law

Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...

, legal advice is the giving of a formal opinion regarding the substance or procedure of the law by an officer of the court (such as solicitor

Solicitor

Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...

 or barrister

Barrister

A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

), ordinarily in exchange for financial or other tangible compensation. Advice given without remuneration is normally referred to as being pro bono publico

Pro bono

Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...

(in the public good), or colloquially, pro bono.

Legal advice is distinguished from legal information which is the reiteration of legal fact. Legal information can be conveyed by a parking meter, sign or by other forms of notice such as a warning by a law enforcement officer

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

. Printed legal materials, such as directions and how-to

How-to

A how-to or a how to is an informal, often short, description of how to accomplish some specific task. A how-to is usually meant to help non-experts, may leave out details that are only important to experts, and may also be greatly simplified from an overall discussion of the topic...

 manuals, are generally not considered legal advice. Accordingly, directions on how to fill in a motion form and other court documents do not constitute legal advice. On the other hand, application of legal rules and principles to a specific set of facts is almost always held to constitute legal advice by the courts.

Online Legal Advice

With the advent of the internet, many services have been established to provide individuals the power to conduct their own legal research or prepare their own legal documents.

In addition, some companies have taken it a step further by offering answers to legal questions directly through their web services.

See also

• Caselex
  Caselex
  Caselex is a legal information service, established in 2005 by a public-private alliance and supported by the European Commission, offering legal professionals access to the decisive arguments of national court cases to practical legal issues linked to European Union law...
  
  
• Lawyer
  Lawyer
  A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
  
  
• Judge–advisor system
  Judge–advisor system
  A judge–advisor system is a type of advice structure often studied in advice taking research, a subset of decision-making in the social sciences. The two roles in a JAS are the judge and advisor roles. The judge is the decision maker who evaluates information concerning a particular decision and...
  
  , an entity used by academic researchers to study the giving and taking of advice