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From Encyclopedia Dramatica

"You can't do that to me! That's ILLEGAL. I WILL SUE!". Common phrase uttered during a flame war. Usually with more misspelling.

During a big drama meltdown someone claims to have been the victim of some crime such as: slander, defamation, libel, copyright infringement, harassment, spam, forgery, impersonation, whatever. The victim's sock puppets then all rise up to describe and define the alleged crime. In 99.999% of alleged cases what has happened doesn't even come close to meaning what they think it does. To rise to the level of e-lawyer though, requires that one side start spouting off a bunch of legal sounding bullshit. The best e-lawyer will use recycled arguments from TV shows like Law & Order or Matlock. The very best e-lawyers practice during their spare time playing Phoenix Wright. Everyone gets a laugh when, on the advice of an e-lawyer, some aggrieved party actually consults a real attorney and has to pay $200 to be made the subject of fun.

Another type of e-lawyering is a common occurence on communities such as lj_seattle. Someone will ask for advice on a real legal issue. "How do I break my lease?" is always popular. A number of people who think they have experience with this issue ("I'm the janitor at an apartment complex so I KNOW.") will followup with horribly bad advice. Often drama and hilarity ensues in followup comments to the community. Note that in these kinds of queries the people that followup with references to real laws are those that get ignored.

E-lawyers often preface their arguments with ianal.

[edit] Professional E-lawyers

• John W. Dozier, Jr., who is a self-proclaimed pioneer in Internets law, has a for-reals law practice that specializes in e-writs. While he claims to have experience in dealing with 252 different kinds of e-lawyer doctoring, he has declared his specialization to be in the ignoble area of ``blogger misconduct.``

``Blogger misconduct,`` as defined by the good jurum doctor, is inclusive to ``Scofflaw Bloggers`` that engage in defamation, copyright infringement, trademark infringement and hacking.

Also arguably worthy of note, Dozier believes that he can forbid the viewing of the HTML source to his web-page by means of an EULA on his web-page.

[edit] See Also

• Parry Aftab, who is also a lawyer and who considers herself "The Angel of the Internet". She is an epic whale.
• Tony Anglesey, who practices e-law without an e-license

See also: Attorney at lol

E-lawyer is part of a series on serious business

Internet Law • Internet disease • Internet drama • Internet stalking • Identity theft • Irony • Free Speech • Swatting • Operation Falcon Punch Serious People & Organizations Internet tough guy • Internet asshole • Internet lawyer • Internet Vigilante Group • Internet Celebrities • Internet humanitarians • World Wide Web Consortium • WEB SHERIFF • Psychopath • Vloggerheads • Alan Turing • Hallcats Squadron • Grace Saunders • Maja Schmidt • Mikeroach113 • David Hockey • Casey Serin