This is a slide deck from a presentation I gave this morning as part of a panel for the South Carolina Law Review Symposium entitled, On Task?: Expanding the Boundaries of Legal Education. In it, I look at why increasing online engagement is critical for lawyers to think about, what methods of engagement might work, assessing engagement, and then the transfer that happens after engagement.

There’s a good balance that must happen here between lawyers pulling in “leads” for new business and at the same time using these engagement methods to educate and empower the public to 1) know when they might have a legal need in the first place and to prevent issues before they happen, and 2) if they do have a legal need, having access to where to go for help (ie, intelligent matching systems). Another piece of the puzzle to explore.

Reinventing the Practice of Law: Emerging Models to Enhance Affordable Legal Services, edited by Professor Luz Herrera, has been published this week by the ABA. This book is full of practical ideas that could significantly increase access to justice. Richard Granat and I co-wrote a chapter for the book entitled “Serving Clients of Moderate Means with On-Line Legal Services.” There are other chapters covering:

• Unbundling
• Lawyer as peacemaker
• Making lawyers more accessible to clients
• Fee-shifting statutes
• Lawyer incubator projects
• Legal “launch pads”
• Co-pay clinics, and more.

I was thrilled to read that unbundling was mentioned several times at Reinvent Law in NYC last Friday. Unbundling, or limited scope representation, is the primary delivery method used by many of the newer, online methods of legal service delivery. Of course, not all lawyers have been trained in how to unbundle legal services ethically. Unbundling tends to get only a footnote in most law schools when and if they cover law practice management.

In order to compete in a changed legal marketplace it will be imperative for lawyers to learn how to unbundle their services for clients, but also for other lawyers and law firms if they are solo or small firm practitioners. I wrote a book on this topic a couple years ago so I’ll start sharing more of those tips on here for those who are interested in staying competitive. For a virtual law practitioner, this is even more critical because of how much easier it is to deliver unbundled services online than full-service.

Here are 15 questions that may be added to the client intake process to help a lawyer determine whether the client is a good candidate for unbundling. They may also help the client understand the nature of the limited scope representation and how it differs from full-service assistance.

1. Have you worked with a lawyer on any issues surrounding this matter before?
2. Have you personally researched the law and legal issues involved in this matter?
3. How much is financially at stake?
4. How much is emotionally at stake?
5. What do you see as a positive outcome for this case?
6. What would you be willing to settle for if that exact outcome is not achievable?
7. What aspects of this process are you willing and able to handle yourself?
8. Have you ever been involved in a lawsuit or have any experience in the legal system?
9. What resources are available to you in terms of time to devote to this matter, such as time away from work, arranging for childcare, etc.?
10. What resources are available to you in terms of assistance from family members, paralegals, nonlawyer professionals, etc.?
11. What tasks do you know that you want the lawyer to provide?
12. How do you expect for us to collaborate to create a strategy for your case?
13. How do you expect to communicate with the law firm?
14. Are you comfortable using technology to communicate, such as web conferences, secure real-time chat or encrypted email?
15. How much are you able to budget for unbundled legal services?

The RocketHub crowdfund campaign was launched yesterday to raise funds to build out the estate planning game, Estate Quest.

Funds will be used to build out four additional levels of the game, playtest, refine, and provide to the public to play for free. In exchange for donations, I’m giving away some signed copies of my books, a bundle of books, legal tech resources, legal tech consulting time, and some other interesting gifts.

I’d like to make this a game that’s free for the public to play and learn about some basic estate planning concepts. I’m also doing this to learn about how the crowdfund process might be used for other legal services related projects.

Building a high-quality game that would be more easily distributed and catch on with the Facebook crowds, is expensive. But that’s the audience we need to reach to really share this as a tool for learning legal concepts. I’m still working with Illinois Legal Aid Online on a game related to eviction and landlord/tenant issues. There is something here in terms of increasing engagement with the public online through games. The legal profession needs to experiment to see if games are one way of increasing legal knowledge and access options. Below is me taking a chance on this. Please consider joining in. Thanks!

Below is a video walkthrough of the Estate Quest game.

I’m learning many valuable lessons about how to design and build a game related to legal services. If my team and I can build this game out to additional levels, it will be cross-platform which means playable in a browser and published for play on mobile devices and on Facebook.  The final game will have a rewards system built out that rewards the player after successfully completing a level with a discount or access to real-world legal services or resources.

You can read my other posts about why I am experimenting with games for legal services. I’m also still working on a game with Illinois Legal Aid Online on the topic of eviction. More details coming soon.

Below are the slides for a presentation I’ll be giving at the annual LSC TIG conference this week with Teri Ross, Program Director at Illinois Legal Aid Online. They cover basic info about games and why we believe they can be used to educate and direct the public to legal services. We will also be going into an explanation of the two games in development and how to go about developing other games for legal services. At the event, I’ll finally have a prototype of my Estate Quest game to share!

The LSC has released the final version of the Report of the Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice. This Report resulted from a Tech Summit that took place over the past two years. I attended both the first ”blue sky” brainstorming meeting and the second “practical implementation” meeting of the Summit.

Those interested in virtual law practice will note that the Report includes technology that is commonly used in online delivery, such as online client portal access, document assembly and automation tools, mobile access and expert systems. The delivery of unbundled services to the public is also mentioned throughout the report under several of the proposed plans. I was pleased to read that gamification (and games in a footnote) were also included as a way to increase engagement for legal services through the proposed “access to justice portals.”

The Summit was exciting to attend because of the diverse backgrounds of the attendees and the discussions that it generated. The Report summarizes this process into proposals for moving forward. I’m anxious to see where it goes from here.

The Bona Fide Office Rule has reappeared in the news again. This time it’s an Opinion from the Delaware Supreme Court.

I’ve written about the Bona Fide Office rule here several times, mostly with regard to New Jersey’s joint ethics opinion on the subject. Other states have been revisiting surrounding issues in terms of the lawyer’s requirements to provide certain contact information on his or her website or other advertising and in that requirement calling for some physical office address.

Bona Fide Office rules discourage lawyers from finding alternative and often more affordable methods of delivering legal services to clients. Requiring that a member of the bar provide contact information to the regulatory body is obviously necessary. Requiring that a lawyer provide his or her clients with a reliable method of contacting the lawyer is also necessary.

However, a lawyer does not need to maintain a traditional, physical law office seven days a week during 9-5 business hours in order to accomplish either of these. He or she does not have to retain the services of an employee to work at that law office in order to answer the phone when the lawyer is not present to accomplish adequate and reliable communication with his or her clients.

The Supreme Court of Delaware recently issued an Opinion that suspended a lawyer who worked from his home office in Pennsylvania while practicing Delaware law. The lawyer’s violation of their Bona Fide Office Rule 12 was not the only item at issue in this opinion which is why I will not go into it in detail except for their discussion of the Bona Fide Office Rule. Why? Because that part of the Opinion will mostly like be read by other lawyers in Delaware and potentially discourage them from considering virtual law practice and delivering legal services online to clients.

According to the Court:

“[t]he Rule requires that the office ”be a place where the attorney or a responsible person acting on the attorney’s behalf can be reached in person or by telephone,” and have “the customary facilities for engaging in the practice of law.”

Delaware Supreme Court Rule 12(d) (the Bona Fide Office Rule) states:

“(d) Office for the practice of law. As used in these rules, an “office for the practice of law” means a  bona fide office maintained in this State for the practice of law in which the attorney practices by being  there a substantial and scheduled portion of time during ordinary business hours in the traditional work  week. An attorney is deemed to be in an office even if temporarily absent from it if the duties of the law  practice are actively conducted by the attorney from that office. An office must be a place where the  attorney or a responsible person acting on the attorney’s behalf can be reached in person or by telephone  during normal business hours and which has the customary facilities for engaging in the practice of law.  A bona fide office is more than a mail drop, a summer home which is unattended during a substantial portion of the year or an answering, telephone forwarding, secretarial or similar service.”

There is no mention of the possibility of the lawyer working from home and delivering legal services in unbundled fashion to his or her clients online. There is no mention of the use of temporary/as needed renting of office space so that the lawyer can meet with the clients for full service representation, but continue to conduct the majority of their work with clients online. This is an outdated rule.

There is technology available to securely work with clients online. This technology decreases the cost of overhead of a traditional law office which in turn decreases the cost of legal fees.  There is NO EXCUSE why States should not consider alternative forms of legal service delivery. People need more access to lawyers, not less!

The lawyer that was suspended in this case was only using the phone to call his clients. There was no mention of any secure client portal or other virtual law office technology. But it’s the way that the Court addressed this Rule in their Opinion that disturbs me. They must start thinking outside of the Bona Fide Office Rule. It does not make sense anymore on so many levels to restrict how lawyers communicate with clients to in-person visits. Supporting an outdated Bona Fide Office Rule is a barrier that is going to continue to discourage lawyers from finding innovative and cost-effective ways to serve the public and increase access.

See these other posts about the Delaware Opinion from Niki Black and in the ABA Journal.

As many of my readers know, I have strong opinions about the regulation of lawyer advertising and it goes back to the unfounded assumptions about consumers that the advertising rules were originally built upon, and the fact that they have not been updated much since then to account for online methods of advertising and the way the public actually finds lawyers online.

I’m preparing for a panel presentation at the Univ. of San Francisco where we will be discussing lawyer advertising and regulation. The event is entitled Legal Ethics in the 21st Century: Technology, Speech, and Money. I‘m going back through some of my materials on this topic. Below is a sidebar from my book about lawyer online advertising. With the Florida Bar going crazy with restrictions on lawyer blogs, it’s time to start pushing this matter forward starting with education about the marketplace for legal services.  In the meantime, people looking for access to lawyers who are the right match for their legal needs are still out there looking for help and they don’t really care about First Amendment or lawyer protectionist arguments. (#A2J)

Restructuring Lawyer Marketing Vocabulary to Adapt to eCommerce

A 2010 BIA/Kelsey report found that 97 percent of all consumers use online methods of researching and selecting services in their local area.  Even those law firms that claim their practice is “only local-based” or that they meet with all their clients in-person, in the office and at the courthouse, have no excuse to continue to ignore the Internet as a marketing tool. Online marketing methods are impacting all law firms. Below are some suggestions for redefining the legal profession’s marketing vocabulary.

• The term “market” should not be used as a verb, but as a noun. Marketing is not something a lawyer does “to” or “at” prospective clients. A market is a place where individuals come together to discuss common interests and to create relationships based on supply and demand. The focus in lawyer marketing should be on engagement and conversation.
• Separate the concepts of the lawyer’s “duty” to the public in advertising from “etiquette” or not being “tacky” in advertising online. Lacking good taste is subjective. Being misleading or false is another matter.  Lawyer regulations should not attempt to dictate taste.
• The Internet is not a tool; it is a place. We don’t do things through it or on it; we do them “in” it.  Welcome to the party.
• Commercialism and professionalism: these two concepts do not have to be at odds with each other. Does maintaining an attitude of sitting up on a high-horse of education and presumed privilege hinder the ability to interact with the average client? Of course it does. Intimidation may be useful in the courtroom or during negotiations, but it should not completely define the professional image of lawyers. The legal profession should refocus on the respect, trust, and expertise that falls under professionally rendered services, but present it in a way that is not condescending or intimidating to the average American citizen. Movies and television shows with negative or hostile images of lawyers will be difficult to supplant, but if lawyers start engaging more in open, online dialogue with the public, this can change.
• Customer service is a concept most law firms do not think about, but it is a basic best practice for business owners in every industry. There are online methods of providing consumer service. For example, sending a simple “thank you for being a client” email  or providing free, basic legal education and content on a firm website or in an online marketing tool. These provide a platform for delivery of educational legal material. Content controls the Internet. Sharing is both good online consumer service and a method of starting conversations with prospective clients and other lawyers.
• Lawyers should not rely too strongly on the term “consumer” when thinking about marketing strategies for client development. Consumption implies a swallowing up of something in return for monetary value. We do not want our clients consuming legal services because in many cases the relationship between the attorney and client is what is so valuable to them and what makes our work meaningful beyond the financial rewards. Let’s remember they are our clients, but balance this with the knowledge that they are also our customers which implies another level of care beyond the attorney/client privilege; one that includes their satisfaction with our work and their overall experience with the delivery of legal services and the legal profession.