The difference between information and advice
Information is general. It applies to everyone. Legal information can help you understand:
- general laws and legal processes
- your general legal rights and responsibilities
- when and where to get more legal help, including legal advice.
Advice is tailored. It applies just to you and your situation. Legal advice can help you understand:
- how the law applies to your specific situation
- the best way to act on your legal rights and responsibilities
- the most likely outcome of your case in that lawyer’s opinion.
Legal information can come from lots of different sources, but legal advice can only come from a lawyer.
The line between information and advice
The line between legal information and legal advice is not always clear. If you’re getting legal information from someone, it’s up to them to draw that line and tell you when you need to get a lawyer’s opinion.
Our organization provides legal information, not legal advice. Our staff answer questions about the law, but they are educators whose mission is to educate and inform, not give advice. As a result, there are limits to the nature and number of questions that we can answer.
By law, there are certain things that only a lawyer can do for you in Nova Scotia. For example, only a lawyer can:
- Give legal advice
- Represent you in court
- Represent you in negotiations that affect your legal rights and responsibilities
- Review, select, draft or complete legal documents or agreements that affect your legal rights or responsibilities
- Coach you about what you should say in court or write in a legal document
- Coach you through an entire legal procedure
- Provide you with highly detailed legal information (zooming in) on a specific law, legal issue, or legal process that affects your case.
- Give you a case assessment, for example, by:
- expressing a legal opinion about your case
- telling you what you should do about it
- giving you an estimate of the value of a claim
- or offering a prediction about the outcome of your case
Here is more information about free and low-cost legal help in Nova Scotia.
And here is more information about how to find a lawyer in private practice (a lawyer you would pay).