As laymen I wouldn't advise it but the Imams have warned against blindly following. Since I love these quotes Im gonna go ahead and paste them
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Do not follow my opinion; neither follow the opinion of Maalik, nor Shaafi'i, nor Awzaa'i, nor Thawri, but take from where they took." - Ahmad ibn Hanbal (rahimahullaah)
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If you find in my writings something different to the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allaah
(sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam), then speak on the basis of the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allaah (sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam), and leave what I have said." - Shaafi'i (rahimahullaah)
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Truly I am only a mortal: I make mistakes (sometimes) and I am correct (sometimes). Therefore, look into my opinions: all that agrees with the Book and the Sunnah, accept it; and all that does not agree with the Book and the Sunnah, ignore it." - Maalik ibn Anas (rahimahullaah)
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When a hadeeth is found to be saheeh, then that is my madhhab." - Abu Haneefah (rahimahullaah)
This is a whole giant can of worms, lol.
Why follow a madhhab? Simply because it is easier.
When we go to a physician or a surgeon for a procedure, do we ask him to describe, justify, elaborate on everything he is doing to us? Why not just go to WebMD, diagnose ourselves, then heal ourselves that way?
Better yet, when it comes to the madhahib, we are not following one person. The Shafi'i madhhab of today holds positions that are contrary to what Imam Shafi'i RA believed. Same thing with the Hanafi madhhab. That is because those great imams set out the ground rules, the foundations, the ways of elucidating and deriving rulings, but did not say "my way or the highway".
That would be like asking a group, like the American College of Cardiologists to justify and walk us through why they recommend this or that medical therapy for chest pain. The medical jargon is above the heads of most of us so we simply nod and take the pills.
For example, Shafi'is allow trimming the beard, some even allow shaving, whereas Imam Shafi'i RA himself was against cutting the beard at all. Same thing with Hanafis and their view of isbaal (keeping trousers above the ankles), where there are reports of Imam Abu Hanifa RA having his robes below his ankles, yet latter Hanafi jurists used his methodology to arrive at a different conclusion. Heck, even the students of Imam Abu Hanifa RA - Imams Muhammad and Abu Yusuf RA - differed with their teacher on a few things but they are still part of the Hanafi madhhab (their rulings sometimes supercede the rulings of Imam Abu Hanifa RA).
So, why reinvent the wheel and go to hadeeth? Especially considering the fact that the madhahib were formed BEFORE Imam Bukhari RA was even born, so they had access to ahadeeth that might have reached Imam Bukhari RA with a weak chain or even have a known liar in the list of narrators - but he just happened to be telling the truth that one time. The ahadeeth are there for justification, not derivation. The ruling about isbaal that I mentioned earlier, for example, is clearcut if you follow the hadeeth:
The Prophet PBUH said, "Whatever part of the lower garment comes beneath the ankles is in the Fire."
Now, that is very cut and dry, an open and shut case. Yet, majority of people aren't aware of this narration and many scholars have their robes dragging below their ankles. Some cite another hadeeth that mentions pride, but then it is pointed out that doing anything with pride is not permissible, so why was having clothing below the ankles specifically mentioned?
Same thing with the beard: Imam Shafi'i RA is noted by many contemporary scholars to be closest in adherence to the current collection of ahadeeth. Some even say Imam Bukhari RA was closest to the Shafi'i madhhab. Imam Shafi'i RA opined that it is haraam to cut/trim/shape the beard - it must not be reduced in length. If we go to the ahadeeth, you see that there is no mention of cutting the beard and only commandments for lengthening it. Yet, many scholars, let alone laymen, cut their beards, style them, etc. As I mentioned earlier, even the Shafi'i madhhab allows cutting the beard. In fact, the Shafi'i madhhab is the most lax and lenient when it comes to cutting the beard, even allowing complete shaving (albeit being disliked) - none of the other three madhahib allow shaving the beard and consider shaving to be impermissible.
The whole problem with not following a madhhab is that you get self appointed jurists and philosophers, where you get people like Tareq Fatah or Majid Nawaz or Anjem Choudhary or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. All of them try to justify their views from their own ijtihad, their own derivations from the Qur'an and hadeeth. Why do you think it takes years to be a scholar, and even then, further study is required before anyone in the scholarly community would take you seriously? Because the amount of material available in Islam is monumental. We have tens of thousands of ahadeeth. We have thousands of tafaseer. We have millions of fatawa from thousands of jurists of the past. If we are not ourselves in the field of the study of the deen, why are we making it more difficult by following this or that singular narration that we heard in passing especially for something major and that scholars might have already reconciled with other narrations to reach a different conclusion that what we have as non-scholars who are lacking in knowledge to holistically approach an issue?
