Every six months I used to write a post with a list of virtual law practice updates or items that had been “in the news.” Elawyering and virtual practice have become so mainstream these days that doing this would result in a ridiculously long list of references. Instead, I’m going to compile a list of my top 15 predictions for the coming year that relate to virtual practice.

These are slides from the ABA Annual 2012 presentation by Will Hornsby, Richard Granat, and myself.

This is a except including a checklist from my book Limited Scope Legal Services: Unbundling and the Self-Help Client, ABA LPM (2012):
The economy does not exist in a bubble and neither should legal professionals. There are lessons to be learned from looking at ways that
other industries have unbundled their services to create new or improved markets that adapted to changes in the global economy and the way
consumers exercise their purchasing power.

I discovered another state bar ethics opinion related to virtual practice when researching ethics opinions for the online marketing tools book this weekend. The Illnois State Bar published Ethics Opinion No. 12-09 in March 2012 regarding multijurisdicitonal practice, choice of law issues, and unauthorized practice of law. Here is the text regarding the virtual office scenario:

Next week I will join Forrest “Woody” Mosten, Sue Talia and Richard Granat for an ABA CLE webinar entitled “Unbundling in the 21st Century: Growing Your Practice with Limited Scope Representation.” I am most excited about the conclusion to this webinar where Mr. Mosten, the “grandfather” of unbundling, will discuss where he sees this delivery method going in the future. Please join us if you are interested in this topic. Most virtual law practices implement some form of unbundled service delivery so it’s important to understand the ethics issues and best practices that go along with it.

I’ll be teaching a CLE about how to deliver legal services online this Thursday, August 16th from 1-2:30pm EST for ALI-CLE and co-sponsored by the ABA Law Practice Management Section. A copy of my Virtual Law Practice book in ebook format comes with the program. We’ll cover the following topics: Introduction to virtual law practice; Options for setting up your virtual law office including: case studies, document assembly and automation, and multijurisdictional law firms; technology and understanding security issues of virtual law practice; and Ethical concerns and best practices in online legal services.

If you are attending ABA Annual in Chicago in a few weeks, please join myself, Richard Granat and Will Hornsby, for our CLE panel discussion about delivering unbundled legal services online.

The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 has released a new issues paper entitled “Issues Paper Concerning Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.5 and the Limits of Virtual Presence in a Jurisdiction.” The Commission’s previous issues paper regarding systemic and continuous presence under 5.5 came out last September and raised some of the same questions. I posted my summary of that here.

Last week at the ABA Techshow in Chicago, I was pleased to launch the publication of my new book on unbundling.

Writing a book on limited scope services seemed like a logical next step in the process of reevaluating how the legal profession can adapt to the changes it faces as a result of disruptive technology, economic recession, Internet empowered consumers and other factors.

The ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services has written a letter to the Commission on Ethics 20/20 providing its recommendations regarding lawyer advertising rules. In an interesting move, the Committee has recommended the deletion of Model Rule 7.2(b). For those of us in virtual practices who depend on online advertising methods perhaps moreso than traditional law firms, this would be a potentially revolutionary change to the rules.