The other thing to remember is to recognize who you are talking to even if he or she is an attorney. I am an attorney, but I have worked in a very specialized area of law since I graduated from law school 17 years ago. More often than not, if a fried or family member asks me for a legal opinion I have to tell them that they'd need to talk to a "real" lawyer to get a reasonable answer because the question simply is not within my area of expertise. There are some very general legal questions or contract language that I can give reasonably good advice about, but for the most part my opinion isn't worth a whole lot for the family/friend type of questions I get.
