I have been fol­low­ing a de­vel­op­ing trend for quite a while now and, ini­tial­ly, I paid lit­tle at­ten­tion. Re­cent­ly, I have re­alised this trend can have dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects on peo­ple, and a cau­tion should be is­sued.

Our cul­ture is such that we are all prone to giv­ing ad­vice; abil­i­ty, ex­pe­ri­ence and skill do not mat­ter in these sit­u­a­tions. We all know some­body who knows some­body who went through the ex­act sit­u­a­tion, and that, more than any­thing else, qual­i­fies us to have an opin­ion so strong that we are now an au­thor­i­ty on the top­ic.

As many peo­ple do in mo­ments where a break is sim­ply need­ed, I some­times find my­self ran­dom­ly scrolling through Face­book. I fol­low sev­er­al pages, and a few are re­lat­ed to women of­fer­ing help or as­sis­tance to oth­er women in need. It is com­mon for peo­ple to seek le­gal as­sis­tance on those pages.

While I see the ques­tions be­ing posed, I am care­ful not to re­spond or even pri­vate mes­sage any­one. I am mind­ful of any­one be­liev­ing or think­ing that com­ments made by me are le­gal ad­vice to them, for which I can be held ac­count­able.

More so, I am well aware that the Le­gal Pro­fes­sions Act does not al­low ad­ver­tis­ing by at­tor­neys, and while many are now will­ing to flaunt these rules, as a per­son en­trust­ed to pro­tect the laws of our land, I would pre­fer to be on the cor­rect side of the rules and not have any­one be­lieve I am ad­ver­tis­ing or tout­ing.

This week, I ven­tured a com­ment as I felt com­pelled to, and, I was cau­tious in my word­ing. I had good rea­son. A young woman cre­at­ed a post on one of the pages I fol­lowed seek­ing le­gal ad­vice, as the fa­ther of her child had threat­ened to ap­ply for sole cus­tody and she was against any such ac­tion. The com­ments, the ad­vice, the peo­ple who strong­ly be­lieved they were giv­ing prop­er guid­ance were, in a nut­shell, wrong.

I had to won­der where they had found their in­for­ma­tion, who had ad­vised them that their state­ments were ac­tu­al­ly the laws of our land, and oth­ers seemed to give opin­ions based on their own ex­pe­ri­ence. I was tru­ly ap­palled. If this per­son did noth­ing more and sim­ply re­lied on that page, she would have been walk­ing in­to a rude awak­en­ing on the morn­ing of her court mat­ter.

Let me list the in­ac­cu­ra­cies stat­ed so bold­ly in those com­ments:

1. The court will not or­der sole cus­tody to a fa­ther: In our coun­try, if the par­ents of a child are un­mar­ried, then ei­ther par­ent can ap­ply and will be award­ed sole cus­tody. There is noth­ing that pre­vents this from be­ing the fa­ther.

2. A fa­ther can on­ly get cus­tody if a moth­er is un­fit: This is the fur­thest thing from the truth. In de­ter­min­ing cus­tody, the court con­sid­ers the wel­fare of the child. This means that a range of is­sues will be ad­dressed, from hous­ing, in­come, sup­port sys­tem, among oth­ers.

3. You don’t need a lawyer, you can talk for your­self: Yes, you can cer­tain­ly speak for your­self. But, con­sid­er the oth­er par­ent who has le­gal guid­ance, whose at­tor­ney un­der­stands what should be proved be­fore the court and sets out to prove it, and then there you are with­out the same knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing and stand­ing be­fore the court at a dis­ad­van­tage.

In essence, let me give ad­vice. When a le­gal is­sue rears its head, whether it is a cus­tody mat­ter, con­cerns with em­ploy­ees, land dis­putes etc, so­cial me­dia is not the place we go to for guid­ance. The ef­fort it takes to cre­ate a post is sim­i­lar to the ef­fort it will take to do a search on le­gal of­fices where as­sis­tance can be sought. There are many at­tor­neys who will pro­vide a free con­sul­ta­tion; avail your­self of this ser­vice. Should you be­lieve that these at­tor­neys may not nec­es­sar­i­ly give free ad­vice, we have the ben­e­fit of the Le­gal Aid Au­thor­i­ty, which is al­ways will­ing to as­sist. The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Law Fac­ul­ty al­so has a free le­gal clin­ic and would be will­ing to give guid­ance and rep­re­sen­ta­tion in le­gal mat­ters.

So­cial me­dia is not the place one turns to in mat­ters which can have detri­men­tal ef­fects. The peo­ple who make ex­cus­es of not be­ing able to ac­cess an at­tor­ney or not hav­ing the fees avail­able cer­tain­ly have not tried. There are av­enues avail­able to every­one if the prop­er guid­ance is sought from peo­ple who know best.

Each per­son’s le­gal mat­ter is de­ter­mined based on its own facts; look­ing at some­one else’s out­come and be­liev­ing it would be the same for you is a mis­guid­ed ap­proach.

I know that peo­ple are well-mean­ing and, in many in­stances, be­lieve they are help­ing, but you are giv­ing mis­guid­ed ad­vice and false as­sur­ances that some peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly re­ly on.

The best guid­ance you can of­fer on so­cial me­dia to any­one seek­ing guid­ance is sim­ply to say: seek ad­vice from the ex­perts who are trained and qual­i­fied to give such ad­vice.