We want LI to be one of the friendliest places on the internet, where lawyers and law students help each other with their career related queries and occasionally discuss other stuff that might affect their lives too. In other words:
1. Be kind, respectful and helpful to each other.
2. Be bona fide, truthful, genuine and curious.
3. Assume the best intention of others.
Therefore, in using the site, you must agree to do your best to uphold these community guidelines.
Note that what you find here is written and moderated by anonymous people on the internet.
Therefore everything you read here is very likely unverified, rumour, speculation and/or downright false.
In continuing to read anything here, you must therefore agree not to take anything you read here as factual and that you will exercise due caution, diligence and common sense before acting on any information you may come across here.
You also agree to report any inaccurate or malicious comments with the buttons. Moderators take action within 24 hours, as required and appropriate under law.
Our full terms and conditions apply too.
Do you solemnly agree to all of the above?
We have summarised and re-articulated our community guidelines here and hope to update these regularly based on your feedback in the comments below.
If you have any suggestions, we'd love to hear from you.
Much love,
LI
1. Commenting guidelines
We want LI to be a friendly place on the internet, where lawyers and law students help each other with their career related queries and occasionally discuss other stuff that might affect their lives too.
There are a few simple principles and rules that you must agree to follow in using this site:
Be kind, respectful and helpful to each other.
Be bona fide, truthful, genuine and curious.
Assume the best intention of other persons.
Particularly, this means but is not limited to the following:
1.1. Report any comments to moderators that do you think do not meet these commenting and moderation policies with the '⚠ / report' button next to each comment. Reports will get looked at and processed within 24 hours (and we try to do so faster). In your report, please specify why a comment should be unpublished and/or redacted.
1.2. Don't defame or be malicious towards others. E.g. calling someone 'toxic' is not actually helpful or verifiable.
1.3. Don't sensationalise (such as in headlines by using CAPITAL LETTERS, known as shouting).
1.4. If your news item or argument can be backed up by evidence, please include a link to the original source or a screenshot (pasting into the comments box usually works).
1.5. Don't attack or question the moderators' decisions or motives. It is rude and off-topic, they have a lot to do and try their best. If you disagree with a moderation decision, use the 'file appeal' or 'report' button next to each comment.
1.6. Don't hold ideological or political battles on LI, including battles about another issue that you are really making to hold a proxy battle about something else.
2. Moderator guidelines
To those community members who are also moderators: it might feel frustrating not being able to publish everything. But do bear in mind: moderation is the only thing that stands in the way of LI being a cesspit of misinformation, untruths and trolling, versus a helpful resource that encourages intelligent and helpful debate.
Here are some general guidelines that may be helpful.
2.1 Do publish:
2.1.1. Thoughtful comments that engage intelligently on a subject matter that lawyers might find interesting
2.1.2. Interesting comments that cast new light on a problem or situation and that might make lawyers think
2.1.3. Comments that are helpful and aim to assist someone with advice.
2.2 Don't publish:
2.2.1. Comments attacking a person, not their argument, or insinuating that someone anonymous is actually someone else (ad hominem).
2.2.2. Comments where someone, who is not a public figure, is named or fundamentally identifiable because it includes a description that leaves the pool of eligible people very small, and something is said about them you don't know or is impossible to know potentially defames them, such as by questioning their legal accumen or skills.
2.2.2. Comments where in all likelihood you don't know what something means (e.g. in-jokes, slang, a language you don't understand).
2.2.3. Comments that are NOT in English (alas, it's the Indian legal profession's main lingua franca).
2.2.4. Comments making fun of someone else's level of English spelling or grammar (it is exclusionary: not everyone will have had the same educational or language background, and dyslexia is real).
2.2.5. Comments where there's even a small risk that the comment is cyber bullying or trolling or doxxing someone by making personal details public: especially keep an eye out for likely intra-law-school rivalries.
2.2.6. Comments about the physical appearance or other physical characteristics of someone else, even if complimentary and not negative.
And remember, if in doubt, don't publish a comment. You can call for help or opinions from other mods and more senior mods anytime by clicking the 'SOS' button to report a comment.
give them a break