This is a recurring topic here but I've not seen a meta post that calls out "seek legal advice" as low quality much of the time. I would suggest the community consider this type of advice more carefully and be aggressive in discouraging the vaguest of these answers.
Legal advice that we do engage in falls into three main categories that I have seen:
- Advising to seek a lawyer
- Application of employment law
- Part of (1) but a common topic: admonishing sexual harassment and invoking the possibility of getting sued
Advising to seek a lawyer or that laws somehow are relevant
The first category, honestly, is legal advice. It implies the respondent knows enough about the law to advise seeking a lawyer.
I think this advice tends to be low quality. If the respondent is aware the topic is legally risky, really a more substantive response than "I've heard laws are involved, you should talk to a lawyer" is needed. That is usually not quality advice but just a two-cent opinion one can share.
To offer even this advice, the respondent does need to demonstrate some expertise and some evidence. Or, really, not say anything, because that's giving legal advice.
It is like the trope that WebMD tells you that you have cancer, because it's safer for them to tell you that you should see a doctor. Sure, this is safe for the website, but it's crap advice.
Application of employment law
HR personnel, union leaders, and business owners are often quite knowledgeable here. I have seen some extremely high quality answers involving technical points in local employment law. These answers need to be recognized and promoted. They are what make workplace.SE good.
Admonishing sexual harassment
This is a subset of the first bucket but it is such a broad category it is worth mentioning. I generally think "that is sexual harassment, here is the definition of it and why it applies, and it is wrong behavior and should be addressed such-and-such way" is in the direction of quality advice. "You can be sued" is a substitute for actual knowledge on the topic, and this does happen a bit.
Again, my reason for posting this is that I feel the community should focus on quality of the meta-advice of "you should seek a lawyer." We let people say this whenever, and it frequently contributes little.