Plain-language legal information
Understand the process before you pay for advice.
Most legal information online is written for lawyers, or written to capture your phone number. Legal Advice Journal is written for the person trying to work out what to do next — sourced to statutes, court materials and agency guidance, with every claim cited.
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Guides people are reading
Each one answers a question we kept seeing asked badly — and corrects the assumption most readers arrive with.
Elder law
How to get power of attorney over a parent
You can’t — not the way most people mean it. Your parent grants it, voluntarily, and only while they still have capacity. What that means, and what to do if that window has closed.
Read the guide →
Elder law
Can two siblings have power of attorney?
Yes — but whether you must act together or can each act alone comes down to one line in the document, and most families assume the wrong default.
Read the guide →
Insurance claims
What questions do insurance investigators ask?
The questions follow a predictable pattern. Here they are — plus the ones that signal a fraud investigation, and when you’re actually obliged to answer.
Read the guide →
How we work
Why you can check everything here
We are not a law firm and we don’t want your case. That changes what we can write.
Primary sources first
Statutes, court rules, official self-help portals and agency guidance — in that order. Law firm marketing pages are not treated as authority.
Every article cites its sources
Listed at the end of each piece, so you can verify a claim rather than take our word for it.
No intake, no lead generation
There is no contact form for your case anywhere on this site. We don’t refer cases or sell reader information to law firms.
Figures are ranges, and labelled
Legal costs vary by state and circumstance. Where we give numbers, we say where they came from and that they’re estimates.
Jurisdiction is stated
US law is state law more often than people expect. Articles say which states they describe and flag where the rules diverge.
We correct mistakes publicly
Errors are fixed and noted at the foot of the article with the date and what changed. We don’t quietly edit and move on.
By subject
What we cover
Who writes this
“Search almost any legal question and you get two kinds of answer: one written for lawyers, and one written to get your phone number.”
Legal Advice Journal is edited by Kate Lynn, who is not an attorney. That shapes what this site does and doesn’t do.
It means we explain how a legal process works — what a document does, what a court requires, what something typically costs, what catches people out. It does not mean telling anyone what to do about their own situation. Where a question turns on professional judgment rather than factual explanation, we say so and point you toward someone qualified.
The aim is that you walk into a lawyer’s office already knowing the vocabulary and the shape of the problem — so you spend their time, and your money, on the part that actually needs them.
Not legal advice. Everything on this site is general information. Reading it creates no attorney-client relationship, and law varies significantly between states and changes over time. For guidance on your own circumstances, consult a licensed attorney in your state. If you need help finding one, your state bar association’s referral service and your local legal aid organisation are both good starting points.