1. It never seems to be accompanied with advice on how to find the appropriate kind of lawyer. 2. It almost always seems to ignore the fact that lawyers are expensive. Sure, there are times when that cost is warranted, but I don't think it is right to ignore it. For example, in this case, it is probably only worth consulting a lawyer if the amount of compensation on the line is significantly more than the amount the OP would pay the lawyer. And what if the person you are advising can't afford a lawyer?
Also, concerning your metaphor, I would not just immediately say "find a programmer". I would find out what kind of website they wanted, then depending on their technical skills and what they wanted (and how close a friend they are) I might teach them how to make a website themselves, or point them toward more user-friendly tools to create websites. I'd only suggest they hire a web designer if they needed something really complicated or didn't have the skill or time to learn how to make a website themselves.
If you can't afford a lawyer you might as well roll over right now because that will be the end game.
The idea that some advice given in an online forum would reduce the need for finding a lawyer is akin to taking medical advice from a forum. You have no idea what the qualifications/experience/jurisdictions are of the people giving you advice so it might be good/neutral/detrimental.
Get a lawyer, one that specializes in IP and if possible to find those skills in one person as well as in employment law in your place of residence.
In the UK, most of my lawyer friends would tell you that lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative, though you might want to be careful what you admit / agree to.
My wifes a solicitor. :)
Listening to doctors instead of carefully reading forums would have probably left me seriously crippled. Doctors hold no real liability, nor do they have any real expertise outside their (very narrow) problem domain.
There is no substitute for doing your own research if you want something done right.
No, if I have a medical problem _that is serious enough that it is worth the cost_ I go to a doctor. I don't go to the doctor for every cold or headache I get. Granted the OP is actually a case that might be worth that cost, but I've seen similar advice for much smaller things. I mean, I've asked questions about IP for my hobby open source projects, from which I don't expect to ever get a penny, and been told to get a lawyer. Or in this case, say compensation was off the table, is keeping ownership of the project worth hundreds or thousands of dollars for consulting a lawyer? Maybe. Only the OP would know that. And even after consulting a lawyer it's hardly a sure thing.
I'm not saying you should take legal advice from forums. My problem is with the "Always always always talk to a lawyer." Maybe you have enough money to talk to a lawyer every time you have a legal question and see a doctor every time you have any kind of malady, but not everyone does.
And I guess part of my complaint is just that such an important service is so expensive. It leads to a situation where the well off can hire lawyers to consult them on things like employment contracts, but those with less money can't, which makes it easier to exploit them.
If a company wants to formally acquire the rights to the IP.. it's safe to say it's worth something.
Your #2 reason is tricky because individuals who need the advice to seek out a lawyer already don’t understand the value of having a lawyer, so they have no way to gauge the financial cost of hiring one. That makes a lawyer seem very expensive, when in reality sometimes the risk of not having one is much greater than the cost.
A few years ago I had a side project I wanted to turn into a company, but not enough money to do it full time. So I applied for a job. The employment contract they wanted me to sign had a non-compete that was vague enough that my side project would be in conflict with my job.
I was very worried about spending $2k to hire a lawyer to write an exclusion clause into my employment contract. It seemed like a lot of money to me. But I did it, and for the money I got a single paragraph of text that excluded my company from ever being considered “competition”. (Actually the real value was not the text, it was that my employer knew the text was written by an employment lawyer, so they accepted it and didn’t push back.) Later I left that job to start my own company, and then sold it a few years after that. Without the clause, I could have risked the entire thing. In retrospect, it was some of the best money I ever spent, worth every penny.
The cost argument is a fair one, and I think that's worth considering. In this case, though, OP has indicated that this is a project that he feels has some amount of value, so it's worth spending $300-500 for a consultation with a lawyer. I'd try to look at it from an expected value perspective - even if paying $500 only has a small chance of improving the outcome of your negotiation/case, if the value of the thing you're negotiating over is $25000, it's worth spending. If the value of the thing is $600, then don't bother.
In terms of finding a lawyer, upcounsel.com, avvo.com or referrals from friends are good places to go.
https://www.lawson-weitzen.com/attorney/bauer
He gave me terrific advice on a similar issue many years back, and I've gone to him a few times since. I've never retained him: our conversations were always about knowing how to interpret employment contracts, understanding options, and coming up with a negotiation strategy. After those consults, I could go it myself.
A good lawyer won't drag you into litigation. Good lawyers are rare, but the goal should always be to appear professional and to preserve relationships. If you have the rights to your code, you should be able to maintain them without burning relationships with your job. If you don't, you should hand the rights over without a fight (or negotiate for rights, but understanding you'll need to compromise something in return). In either case, you'd like to keep working there, you'd like good references later, and you'd like your employer to stay in your network.
You can't do that unless you understand your legal rights, and unless you have an idea of what tactics you should take.
A good lawyer will run you $300-$600 for a conversation (1-2 hours). A bad lawyer will escalate to a conflict, and run you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Keep in mind law varies by jurisdiction. I don't know where OP is, so this recommendation may be moot. I've worked with many lawyers. I have no conflict-of-interest (my relationship with Bauer is limited to a small number of ~1-hour consults).
If you screw up your legal diy the consequences are much much worse, and often unfixable.
Eg. Where would the internet be if only programmers built websites?
