IANAL is a Usenet and chat abbreviation (initialism) for the expansion “I am not a lawyer”. The enlargement may be used by non-attorneys who’re looking for to avoid accusations of unauthorized practice of law. Are not making any recommendation to the actual addressee of their remarks.

A associated abbreviation, TINLA, stands for “This isn’t legal recommendation”. Many jurisdictions have legal restrictions on actually giving or even showing to provide authorized advice, or otherwise practising as a lawyer without authorized qualifications and official registration. [2] [1] The use of those expansions serves as a warning for the reader not to take the opinion as professional legal recommendation. One or each of these expansions often precede opinions about legislation. Rendition of authorized advice by a person who isn’t licensed to do so will be the idea for a cost of unauthorized follow of regulation.

Origin and usage
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The time period IANAL is reported to have been common on Usenet by the late 1980s and early nineties.[3]

The case law standard for figuring out what feedback cross the line is mostly “the appliance of regulation to info specific to an individual seeking legal advice”. [4] There are “weighty obligations” that go together with the creation of a lawyer-shopper relationship, significantly if an “on-line change consists of authorized recommendation relating to the shopper’s particular information”. Attorneys may use a disclaimer to cut back confusion, and “I’m not your lawyer” is part of a typical disclaimer. Courts have held that (in the case of 900 numbers) boilerplate disclaimers with out clear actions to point assent could not avoid the creation of a lawyer-shopper relationship. [5]

Variations of IANAL will be applied to different fields, such as IANAMD for “I’m not a medical physician” or IANAP for “I’m not a physicist”[6] These expansions serve the same normal goal as IANAL – to discourage the use of the data as skilled recommendation.[quotation needed]

I am not a scientist, a political phrase

Jargon File, a glossary of pc programmer slang

^ a b Jason B. Wacha (February 1, 2005). “Taking the case: is the GPL enforceable?”. Retrieved 2008-01-01. Santa Clara Laptop & Excessive Expertise Law Journal. University of Santa Clara, Faculty of Law.

^ “Unauthorized Follow of Regulation Pamphlet”. Washington State Bar Affiliation. In Washington UPL is against the law. Archived from the unique (DOC) on 2008-02-16. Retrieved 2008-01-08. A one who gives legal services, who isn’t a licensed lawyer, or who shouldn’t be in any other case authorized by regulation to provide legal providers, could also be participating in the Unauthorized Practice of Regulation (UPL).

^ Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry (April 27, 2005). “Readers Parse Textual content-Message Slang”. Real Time Alternate. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2008-01-01.

^ John Steele (April 2002). “Attorney Web Ethics”. California Lawyer. Archived from the unique on 2018-12-01. Retrieved 2008-01-08. An lawyer who desires to respond to a chat room query shouldn’t give legal advice till the lawyer and would-be shopper have explicitly mentioned or created an legal professional-shopper relationship…. Otherwise, the attorney needs to make use of a written disclaimer – www.house-siam.com – within the chat room, stating one thing like, “This data is given for legal education solely. It may not work to your specific state of affairs. It isn’t legal recommendation, and I am not your lawyer. You’ve got to find your own local lawyer to get authorized recommendation and help together with your problem.”

^ Jennifer P. Hopkins (June 1, 2002). “The Ethics of Working towards Law in Our on-line world”. New Hampshire Bar Association. Archived from the original on 2010-06-21. Retrieved 2008-01-08.

^ “Tying knots with gentle”. science.slashdot.org.

Lookup IANAL in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

IANAL at the Jargon File (catb.org)

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Web slang

Authorized ethics

Initialisms

Articles with unsourced statements from April 2018

This page was final edited on 17 July 2025, at 19:23 (UTC).

IANAL

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