Virtual Law Practice

Category: ABA

  • Virtual Law Practice: Second Edition Released

    Cover bookThe second edition of my book, Virtual Law Practice, will be released from ABA LPD Publishing this month. (There will be a digital copy for sale in the coming months and eventually it gets released on Amazon for those of you who want other purchasing options.)  I’ve updated the book significantly since the original publication in 2010 to include new technology solutions and methods of designing a law practice around technology and delivery mechanisms. Here is the copy from the back of the book:

    Virtual Law Practice: How to Deliver Legal Services Online, Second Edition

    The internet has made it easier for potential clients to find legal services.  Virtual law firms have revolutionized the delivery of legal services, lowering costs as well as evening the playing field. Whether you are a large law firm or a solo practitioner, there are business models of delivering legal services online that can bring your law practice up to speed with the 21st century legal marketplace. What are you doing to stay competitive?  Do you have the know-how to responsibly incorporate technology and online delivery into your existing law firm?  The revised and updated Virtual Law Practice is the one resource you need to take advantage of this fast-growing market. This book will help you:

    • Identify and develop a law firm business model for the online delivery of legal services
    • Successfully set up and manage a virtual law firm
    • Increase law firm revenue by responsibly implementing the delivery of online legal services
    • Make use of the latest technology
    • Create a successful marketing strategy for the delivery of legal services online
    • Understand state ethics and advisory opinions
    • Find more flexibility and work/life balance in the legal profession

    Stephanie Kimbro’s practical guide also provides case studies of law firms that successfully integrate virtual law practice into their traditional business models along with client scenarios to show how web-based technology may be used by legal professionals to work with online clients and avoid malpractice risks.

  • Webinar for Future of Legal Services Commission

    Webinar for Future of Legal Services Commission

    Here is the video from my presentation to the ABA Future of Legal Services Commission. I was asked to discuss virtual law practice and online engagement through gamification.  This is part of a series of webinars that the Commission is holding. You can check out the other videos on their website, including talks by Will Hornsby, William Henderson, Michael Mills, Susan Hackett, and others to come. The Commission is having an invitation-only National Summit out here at Stanford Law at the beginning of May and based on its roster of speakers, it promises to be a productive event.

     

  • Commission on Future of Legal Services Seeks Feedback

    Commission on Future of Legal Services Seeks Feedback

    I was honored to be asked to participate in the ABA President’s Commission on the Future of Legal Services this year and next. This Commission is calling for Issues Paper feedback now through December 10th. For my legal tech friends and colleagues, if you have something to say, now is a good time to get it on the table. Details below.

    I like the ABA President this time around. I’ve heard President William Hubbard speak several times by now. I’ve heard him address some difficult criticisms of the ABA with grace at a conference on disruptive innovation in the market for legal services at Harvard Law School. Most importantly, I think he is making an effort to listen and take seriously the fact that technology can be used to increase access to justice in a variety of ways. Whether or not he or any future leader has the ability to actually sway the more traditional (and often tech-averse) mindsets of the lawyers who actually hold up the HOD and prevent progress…..well, I’ll retain my healthy skepticism. That said, President Hubbard is making solid headway with this Commission. The initiative seems like a good follow-up to the initial research and rule changes that the Commission on Ethics 20/20 underwent.

    From the Commission’s site:

    …technology, globalization, and other forces are transforming the ways legal services are accessed and delivered. Familiar practice structures are giving way in a marketplace that continues to evolve. New providers are emerging, online and offline, to offer a range of services in dramatically different ways.

    I joined up with the BlueSky Working Group that formed out of the Commission. The working groups are interesting because they are made up of such a diverse group of people from across the legal profession. I can tell already that a large part of the work process for the group is just going to be educating each other about our different perspectives whether its from practicing in BigLaw, working in legal services, in legal academia, or with legal tech startups.

    The goal of the Commission is to propose new approaches that are not constrained by traditional models for delivering legal services and that are rooted in the essential values of protecting the public.

    To focus these working groups and the entire Commission, the Chair has issued a call for comments on an Issues Paper. I’ve posted the Issues Paper below. The issues are related to the delivery and access of legal services by the public.

     

     IssuesPaperFeedback

     

     

     

     

  • Podcast: How to Provide Client Hand-holding in Virtual Law Practice

    micLast month I joined in on a podcast for the ABA Journal with reporter Stephanie Francis Ward; Michelle Crosby, founder of Wevorce; and Fred Rooney, Director of Touro Law Center’s International Justice Center for Post-Graduate Development.
    The topic was “How do you provide client hand-holding if you run a virtual firm?”

    You can listen to the podcast on the ABA Journal site or read the transcript.

    Ward asked the three of us this question towards the end of the podcast:

    [C]an the three of you give me one tip on making that personal connection and doing it online? So combining the personal connection of perhaps, like, automation and things like that, that can make it more affordable for the client and make you, help you be more efficient as a lawyer.

    My response:

    I think that finding a way…that engages the online client. Gets them interested, builds an initial amount of trust. That goes a long way.

    Right now, I’m researching games and gamification as ways that lawyers can effectively engage that prospective client in whatever the practice area is that the client is looking for help. But sort of an initial, warm-up education, empowerment that happens online before that prospective client registers for access or asks a question of the online lawyer.

    I think that really helps prepare them when you start working with the client, then you move from there to web conferencing, have the Google hangout or Skype or real-time chat or whatever their virtual law firm uses to communicate. But I think that initial online engagement is really critical.

  • ABA Journal Covers Crowdfunding for Game for Legal Services

    CoverpicThe ABA Journal wrote an article about the RocketHub crowdfund campaign to develop the game for legal services, Estate Quest.

    I’m still working with Illinois Legal Aid Online on a game about eviction law, but the estate planning game has been on hold until I can get more funding to complete it. There are five days left in the campaign.

    Please consider helping to develop this project with me. If we can learn ways to increase online engagement with the public around the law and their legal rights, then we can increase awareness, access, and education. If you are interested in ways that other industries are using games to create positive change, check out Games for Change.

     

     

  • Video – Disruptive Innovation in Legal Services at Harvard

    Last week I attended a conference hosted by Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession, entitled “Disruptive Innovation in the Market for Legal Services.”

    My primary reason for attending was to hear Clayton Christensen, a Professor at Harvard’s Business School and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, speak about disruption in the legal profession. Unfortunately, he admitted to not really having analyzed our profession from the perspective of disruptive innovation so his talk was a bit of a rehash of both Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovative University. It was still really worth it to hear from the man himself, and following his presentation, the Senior VP of IBM Watson, Mike Rhodin, the CEO of Legal Zoom, John Suh, and GC of Charles River Ventures, Sarah Reed, weighed in on what they think disruptive innovation of legal services looks like.

    Chris Kenny, Chief Exec of the UK Legal Services Board, also spoke via video conferencing about how alternative business structures (ABS) are working out across the pond. According to Kenny, ABS is working great in the UK, increasing access to justice and creating healthy competition in the marketplace without risk to consumers or disciplinary issues in the profession. I found his presentation to be informative and encouraging in terms of looking forward towards real structural change in our profession. The ABA President-Elect, William Hubbard, weighed in after Kenny spoke to explain that the ABA was not on board with ABS, but he said he would like to see the gap bridged between main-street lawyers and the innovators and academics pushing for change in the profession. Of course the real reasons why we can’t move forward with ABS have to do with protectionism and the interests of the lawyers who sit at the helm of the Bar. Progress here will come slowly, and I still believe it will be consumers who push the change in the market forward, not the ABA House of Delegates.

    Bob Ambrogi wrote a good run-down of the morning’s presentations. (Note: it’s hidden behind a required registration wall.)

    After a very interesting morning session, the conference broke out into working groups. I attended one called “Lawyers and Technology.” There were also working groups on access, big data and analytics, and corporate pricing and matching. Several legal technology startups spoke briefly at each working group, but the discussions among the attendees was the most stimulating. Below is the video of the Working Group Report to the conference summarizing the key points from each breakout discussion.
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  • Infographic: Preview of New Access to Justice Project

  • Podcast: How People Search for Lawyers: The Consumer Law Revolution

    Here is the podcast for an edition of The Digital Edge with Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway where we discuss the subject of my new book, The Consumer Law Revolution: The Lawyer’s Guide to the Online Legal Marketplace.

  • Writing, Writing and More Writing

    A few articles to note and a request for leads:

    • A Symposium on Justice, Lawyering and Legal Education in the Digital Age will be held by Chicago-Kent College of Law this week in conjunction with the CALI’s 2013 Conference for Law School Computing. Richard Granat and I co-wrote an article entitled The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm, for the symposium which has been published in the law school’s law review.
    • I also wanted to point out Will Hornsby’s article in this journal entitled, Gaming the System: Approaching 100% Access to Legal Services Through Online Games, an earlier copy of which I read with great interest. I incorporated some of his research on this topic into the business plan for my game project.
    • My chapter entitled “eProfessionalism” has been published this month in the new book from the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility entitled Essential Qualities of the Professional Lawyer.
    • I’m collecting research and case studies for an international report on online legal services that I’ve been commissioned to write. In particular, I’m looking for examples of online delivery methods by private practitioners and law firms in Asia, Africa and South America. If you know of any studies that cover these countries, please share.

    I like to write.

  • Online Legal Marketplace Book Release

    Consumer_Law_Revolution_Cover_ONLY (2)My new book about the online legal marketplace, Consumer Law Revolution, was released today from the publisher and pre-orders should be shipping this week.

    I’m excited to share this book with the legal profession. It dives into an area that is growing in practice and where we don’t have clear, established best practices to guide us. The online legal marketplace naturally involves technology and the unbundling of legal services, but also new forms of online lawyer advertising and collaboration with non-lawyer legal service companies that provide online marketing tools and platforms for lawyers to connect with consumers.

    As with most of the work I do, part of my motivation for writing this book was because growth of the online legal marketplace increases access to justice by providing the public with alternative methods of receiving assistance and of matching them up with the lawyer or self-help service that will be best for them. By alternatives, I mean that more individuals will be able to find a legal service that they can afford to pay and which are delivered in a manner that they are able to receive it without financial or physical hardship.

    The book covers a lot of online marketing basics but also provides case studies of many of the legal technology startups that are coming on the scene to disrupt the delivery of legal services. Lawyers need to be a part of this disruption. For most of these case studies, I joined up as a lawyer and as a prospective client to see how the process worked from both sides. I hope the readers will find this review and my analysis useful in making selections about which branded networks to join. There are checklists and suggested best practices as well as evaluation of the potential ethics issues that may arise.

    I look forward to the conversations and debates this book will generate. I did not mince words in criticizing the outdated lawyer advertising rules and questioned the lack of data behind many of the assumptions that are behind those rules. If there are answers to my questions or reasons my proposals would not be feasible, that’s great. If there are none, then I hope this book sparks some reform or clarification or something useful to further the progress of our profession’s ability to stay relevant and adapt effectively to the changes in the legal marketplace. Thanks to everyone who supported my research and writing for this book.

    Here’s the official marketing copy for the book from the ABA LPM:  (more…)

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