5.6 Legal Advice and Legal Information – What’s the Difference?

Legal Advice and Legal Information

One of the most common questions students ask when starting a placement is about legal advice. When does legal information tip over into legal advice? How much can I tell a concerned client before being seen to provide legal advice?

The difference between legal advice and legal information can be murky, but understanding the contours of these concepts is important for students and lawyers alike. The role of advice and/or information differs depending on what roles the clinic, firm, or NGO plays. Some placements focus primarily on providing legal advice to individual clients, while others are more focused on providing education or legal information. Some provide a mix of both. For example, Legal Aid Ontario offers community-based legal clinics within First Nation communities. A legal aid duty staff lawyer attends the First Nation, typically one day per week. This type of clinic covers a variety of legal issues and provides both legal information and legal advice.

Pursuant to the Law Societies’ requirements, students are not permitted to give legal advice without direct supervision from their supervising lawyer. Students should never give assurances or advice during their first meeting with a client, or in any circumstances without direct instruction from their supervising lawyer.

But what is legal information? This term has not been defined in legislation, and is therefore difficult to reliably conceptualize. Examples of what might constitute legal information is: connecting clients with relevant resources, reviewing a piece of legislation in a public presentation, or setting out possible next steps to tackle a problem. As soon as legal information begins to be applied to an individual’s problem, it begins to veer into the realm of legal advice.

As noted in a Canadian Forum on Civil Justice blog post,

“Legal advice” and “legal services”, by contrast, are terms that are dealt with extensively in the provincial regulation. In the Ontario context, for example, the Law Society Act stipulates that legal services are provided when “the person engages in conduct that involves the application of legal principles and legal judgment with regard to the circumstances or objectives of a person.” Examples of such “conduct” have been defined as including activities like document drafting, negotiating settlements, providing legal advice and legal representation. Penalties for violating unauthorized practice (UAP) provisions can be quite severe, ranging from the issuance of cease and desist orders to the imposition of hefty fines and penal sanctions for severe violations.

Given the difficulty in defining the difference between legal information and legal advice, lawyers and other legal service providers often take a more conservative approach. This has can have disproportionate impacts on people with low income and other barriers. As such, students should be empathetic when they are not able to give the concrete answers clients are seeking.

An important feature of providing legal information is taking the time to ensure the client understands the information being provided to them. As a student interacting with clients, it is important to contextualize information in ways that are relevant to the client. Does the client have internet access? A phone? Reading and writing skill in English or French? Does the client have a private place to ask important questions? Sometimes clients may not know they are actually seeking legal advice and not legal information. It is important to recognize when the conversation shifts from seeking legal information to legal advice. When the conversation or the issue begins to develop into the realm of legal advice the student should let the client know and bring a licensed lawyer in to assist.