PSA: Neurodivergent Authors: Is Your Content Creating Legal Risk & Unintended Harm?
Authors - your guides, digital tools, & templates could hurt someone--and get you sued. Readers - following the wrong guidance could put your job, benefits, privacy, or legal rights at risk.
NOTE: This post provides general educational information from an HR and risk-management perspective. It is not legal or medical advice, and laws and professional requirements vary by location and situation. Consider having your materials reviewed by a qualified professional.
Is Your Content Helpful or Legally Liable?
I love that SubStack has become a place where neurodivergent people can share information many of us were never given. But in the six-ish weeks I’ve been on SubStack, I’ve noticed a trend that makes me nervous:
Well-intentioned neurodivergent authors publishing high-stakes guides without realizing how those templates could negatively affect the people who rely on them—or create legal risk for themselves.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve privately messaged 9 different Neurodivergent authors regarding the templates they were distributing to their readers, specifically because I could see unintended legal risks and consequences to the people using them.
I’m specifically talking about workplace, accommodation, disability & medical guides for the neurodivergent community—templates, scripts, checklists, and digital tools that tell people what to say, write, submit, disclose, or do when dealing with their employers, HR/Boss, healthcare providers, insurance companies, or leave and disability administrators.
There is a practical difference between sharing lived experience & explaining how a process generally works VS. giving someone a tool designed to guide their actions in that process.
Education Vs. Guidance
This isn’t a clean legal boundary but the more specific, directive, individualized, or outcome-focused a resource/tool becomes, the more carefully its possible consequences should be reviewed. The person creating the guide may understand the general process perfectly and still not recognize every employment, legal, medical, insurance, or privacy implication of telling thousands of strangers to use a specific approach or language.
Potential Risk Area
What a person writes, submits, or says to an employer, HR representative, boss, insurer, or healthcare provider may be documented & could potentially be used against them if a dispute comes up later. This includes emails, forms, documents, meetings, phone calls, and other verbal conversations.
That’s why I think neurodivergent writers and readers need to distinguish between general education and guidance.
Sharing information is valuable. But legal, medical, or employer-specific guidance—especially tools that tell someone what to say, submit, disclose, or do—should be developed or reviewed by a qualified subject-matter expert.
For example:
Explaining what the ADA is? Education.
Explaining common workplace accommodations? Education.
Summarizing publicly available information from the EEOC? Education.
Giving someone a worksheet telling them exactly how to navigate a process, or what to write/say to HR or their Dr? Guidance.
A Few Real Examples of Risky Guidance I’ve Seen
“At-will employment means your options/rights are limited”
The template I saw with this info could’ve caused people to give up leave, accommodations, benefits, or job protections they qualified for.HR email generators: encouraged permanent written statements that were inaccurate, overly aggressive, legally unsupported, disclosed wayyy to much unnecessary info, or could put the person at a legal disadvantage later.
“Tell HR, your boss, & coworkers about your ADHD/Autism/job limitations”
This encouraged people to disclose/distribute private medical info unnecessarily, that could’ve been used against them later in a legal dispute“Use this email template if your boss is mistreating you”
The template used legal verbiage & accusations w/o consideration of whether the facts supported them—creating a permanent written record & potentially escalating already tense situations.
I say this as someone with 13+ years of experience in HR.
You’ll notice that what I’ve published so far is only FAQs or my own lived experience—I have yet to distribute digital guides/workbooks, and there’s a reason for that:
I’m inclined to have an attorney & other HR SMEs review any guides/tools I create before distribution
—not because I don’t understand these processes—but because I understand how nuanced they are & the potential harm & legal risk that can result from it.
Something that protects one person could create a problem for another depending on their employer, documentation, medical situation, location, leave status, prior communications, and dozens of other details.
So, as a good rule of thumb:
Neurodivergent Authors:
If you’re publishing, selling, or distributing workplace or medical guides, templates, scripts, checklists, or other tools that tell people HOW to navigate a process that impacts people’s employment, job, health benefits, medical situation, etc get them reviewed by a SME who understands that process — whether that might be an employment attorney, experienced HR professional, healthcare professional, insurance expert, or another relevant subject-matter expert.
Neurodivergent Readers:
Don’t assume a guide, template, script, or checklist is accurate just because it looks professional or was created by someone with lived experience. Before you submit, send, disclose, record, or act on anything that could affect your job, benefits, health, or legal rights, verify it with a qualified professional who understands your specific situation.
People can be extremely knowledgeable about a topic and still miss a legal, medical, employment, or insurance implication that could create harmful consequences.
I’m all for knowledge sharing & democratization of info.
This Isn’t Me Gatekeeping
To be clear —people DON’T need a credential to share their lived experience or make complicated info easier for other neurodivergent people to understand.
But a resource that says “here are FAQs to help understand the process” vs “use this worksheet when dealing with your employer/doctor/insurer” are not the same thing, and should be treated with different levels of caution.
Next Steps: Audit Your Content
Find anything that tells people what to do
Review every template, script, checklist, sample email, form, decision tool, and step-by-step guide. Flag anything that tells someone what to say, submit, disclose, document, or do.
Verify every factual claim
Check your claims against current laws, government guidance, official policies, plan documents, or other primary sources. Don’t rely only on another creator’s summary or an AI-generated answer.
Get high-stakes guidance reviewed
If your tool could affect someone’s job, health, employment, accommodations, disability claim, insurance, benefits, privacy, or legal rights, have it reviewed by a qualified expert who understands that specific process to ensure you’re not unintentionally creating harm for others.
And remember: a “this is not legal or medical advice” disclaimer is useful context, but it doesn’t correct unsafe instructions.
Keep sharing information.
Just make sure the tools you create to help people are designed and described carefully enough that they do not unintentionally hurt the people who trust them—or expose you to avoidable risk.
Question to Authors:
What are some ways you’ve created an ethical writing practice in the resources you’ve shared? Have you had any lessons learned? I’d love to learn more about it!