r/Ask_Lawyers rules, stats, and what to post

This is a place to post questions about legal issues and get answers from lawyers. The key thing to understand is that the community is split into two groups. Verified lawyers with flair do the answering, and everyone else can only ask questions. The rules are explicit that users without verification flair are limited to asking questions, and repeated violations of that can get you banned. The questions here are meant to be true legal questions, meaning things lawyers are especially qualified to answer, not general chatter about the news or opinions about the courts. The community also draws a hard line between general information about the law and specific advice about your own situation, and only the general kind is welcome.

The rule that decides everything here is “Only verified lawyers may post answers in comments.”, because if you are not a verified lawyer with flair, your role in this community is limited to asking questions. “Do not solicit legal advice.” and “Do not give legal advice.” together mean nobody asks for or gives advice about a specific situation, so any post that smells like your own legal problem gets removed. “Do not seek to form any financial relationships.” is the one that ends any marketing hope, since you cannot seek paid representation or make a specific referral for paid services. “Posts should contain questions about the law.” and “Posts must contain a question” control what a post even is here, and a news story with no question does not survive. If you somehow qualify to comment, “Be civil.”, “Do not bicker.”, “Provide sources where appropriate.” and “No low effort answers.” set the bar for how.

If you are a founder doing respectful Reddit marketing, your move here is to ask, not to promote. A good post is a genuine, general question about the law or the courts that a lawyer is especially qualified to answer, and it must actually contain a question. Think of questions about how a area of law works in general, not about your own situation. The rules even give the shape of it, like asking whether a certain fact pattern qualifies as a search under the law. You can also ask for general advice and information about the courts, or ask how to go about obtaining legal representation, which is the closest a lawyer may get to pointing you somewhere useful. What you cannot do is pitch anything, seek paid services, or make a specific referral. There is no room for promotion in this community, so treat it as a place to learn and to show you can ask a thoughtful question.

The fastest way to get removed is to post anything that reads as a request for legal advice about your own situation, because the rules say such posts and the comments under them get removed and repeat offenders get banned. Do not post answers or top level comments if you are not a verified lawyer, since that is a rule violation on its own and repeated willful violations can lead to a temporary or permanent ban. Do not post a news story or a discussion prompt without a clear question, because posts without a question get removed. Do not try to drum up business, seek clients, or make a specific referral for paid services, because that is banned outright. Do not argue with the lawyers about who is right, and do not post low effort answers that just drop a link or a bare conclusion with no explanation.

What stands out to me is how carefully this community separates general legal information from specific legal advice, and how firm it is that only verified lawyers answer anything. That verification barrier is rare on Reddit and it makes the answers here worth reading. If you are a founder studying how communities protect quality, this one is a masterclass in gating who can speak.