Legal:Wikimedia Legal Disclaimer
If you have participated in discussions with Wikimedia Foundation legal team, you may have noticed that advice is often bookended with a disclaimer stating that the attorney acts as a counselor for the Foundation exclusively and that we are not offering legal advice.
As an organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, our lawyers must abide by the state’s rules of professional conduct or else risk being disciplined by the California Bar. Otherwise, disciplinary action could result in reputational damage, disbarment, or potential legal liability. Under California’s Rules of Professional Conduct, we can only provide professional advice to the Wikimedia Foundation itself.[1] As in-house lawyers for the Foundation, we may not represent other clients, including community members. Compliance with these ethics provisions is not intended to build a wall between the organization and its constituents, for we know that without our community, there could be no organization. However, the ethics directives are firm that an in-house lawyer can only professionally advise one client in any given situation. Furthermore, individuals’ legal inquiries are shaped by the specific facts of their case and the laws of the applicable jurisdiction. As the legal team of a nonprofit organization and an enormous volunteer base, we are not in a position to offer every community member the attention necessary to provide thorough, individualized advice, even if the applicable rules of ethics enabled us to do so. For this reason, we use the above disclaimer to ensure our discussions are not misunderstood as legal advice to community members.
[1] Rule 3-100 cmt. 1; 3-600(D) http://rules.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/10/documents/2013_CaliforniaRulesofProfessionalConduct.pdf