Virtual Law Practice

Category: Awards

  • LTN Innovative Use of Tech Award

    InnovationI’m pleased to share the news that the virtual law firm I joined last spring, Burton Law LLC, has won a Legal Technology News 2012 Innovation Award in the category of Most Innovative Use of Technology in a Small Law Firm. Here is the ALM press release.

    I’ve described our firm’s tech structure on this blog before when I announced my move from solo virtual lawyering to this different structure of virtual practice. The LTN article announcing the award briefly explains the tech we use in the firm. However, we have also now added DirectLaw to the list of software that we use to deliver services to clients. As someone who has unbundled online services for the past seven years, getting the document automation and assembly piece of the puzzle into our firm’s structure was an important addition to the usual cloud-based delivery of legal work.

    You can read the LTN article’s brief description of our firm’s technology here. Chad Burton, the founder of our firm, will be attending LegalTechNY to receive the award for the firm. Chad is always one step ahead of the curve when it comes to exploring new technologies and processes that might be integrated into our firm’s model. Almost once a week he is sharing with us some new iPad app to increase personal productivity. I’m sure he’ll return from LegalTechNY with a few more new tools and ideas to share with the firm on Yammer.

    I was also very happy to see that John Mayer received an award as Champion of Technology for his work at CALI, eLangdell, and the A2J Author software. The article should have also mentioned the MOOC he developed last year on Digital Topics in Law Practice which is an awesome free online educational resource that all lawyers interested in virtual law practice should go through. Congrats on the well-deserved recognition, John!

  • ABA Journal Blawg 100 Honoree

    I was pleased to find out last week that this blog has made the list of the ABA Journal’s top 100 law blogs for this year. Thank you for reading!

    You can vote for your favorite blogs in different categories on the ABA Journal website, but they do require registration. This blog is listed under the LPM category, but they also have Technology, Opinion, Trial Practice, News, IP Law, and several other categories of blogs. It’s a great resource for finding or rediscovering new law blogs.

    I’m honored to have been nominated to the list along with some of my fellow bloggers that I read regularly. I just finished writing a new book for the ABA LPM section about limited scope representation, the future of legal services and how law firms can adjust to the changing legal marketplace by incorporating unbundling into their law practices. Now that the book is finished, I’ll have more time to devote to keeping this blog updated with current information on virtual law practice and elawyering. Again, thank you for reading!

  • The Xemplar Attorney

    I’m honored to be named the first Xemplar Attorney, a new project sponsored by LexisNexis to acknowledge and encourage attorneys to use innovation in law practice.  The project has an incredible board of well-known attorneys, including Bob Ambrogi,  Nicole Black, Rodney Dowell, Carolyn Elefant and Gina Madsen, who will select an attorney each month to feature on the site.

    Others may submit contributions to the project and nominate another attorney to be featured.  I’m excited to have been included in this project and am looking forward to seeing the many innovative attorneys that it will put a spotlight on.

  • Accepting Nominations for the ABA Keane Award for Excellence in ELawyering

    If you are an attorney or law firm that uses technology in innovative ways to deliver legal services to your clients, please consider filling out a nomination form for the ABA’s Keane Award for Excellence in ELawyering.  Or if you are aware of an attorney or law firm that deserves recognition for the innovative use of technology to deliver legal services, please consider nominating them. 

    From the Task Force website:

    The purpose of this Award is to give recognition to law offices that have developed legal service innovations that are delivered over the Internet. The focus of the Award is on the innovative delivery of personal legal services, with special attention given to firms and entities that serve both moderate income individuals and the broad middle class.

    More information about the Award and the nomination criteria is here.  The Award is given out by the eLawyering Task Force at the ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago usually following the keynote speaker (and I’m thrilled to say this year that speaker is Professor Larry Lessig!)  Nomination forms are due January 14, 2010.

  • A Legal Rebel

    The ABA Journal has turned its attention to solo practitioners for this year’s group of “Legal Rebels.”   I am pleased to announce that the Journal has bestowed this title upon me for my virtual law office.  The article written by Stephanie Ward for my profile gets to the heart of why I started my virtual law office several years ago.  I’m honored to be on this year’s list with fellow solos, Carolyn Elefant and Bruce Cameron, both of whom I have gotten to know online over the past few years through our common concerns as busy solo practitioners. 

    I wasn’t intending to rebel against anything when I started my virtual law office – it was more a matter of necessity being the mother of invention.  As I realized the potential of virtual law practice to be one solution to the lack of access to justice in our country as well as a more family friendly legal career path, I became more determined to spread the concept to the legal profession and to study ways in which the technology could be used ethically to serve the public and legal profession.  But I’m just getting going…..

  • 2010 ABA Keane Award for Excellence in eLawyering

    This year’s 2010 ABA Keane Award for Excellence in eLawyering was awarded to the Rosen Law Firm.  Lee Rosen was presented the award by eLawyering Task Force co-chair Richard Lauritsen at the keynote luncheon at Techshow yesterday.  Following the presentation, Ari Kaplan was the keynote speaker discussing the convergence of technology and marketing. 

    The Rosen Law Firm is a NC-based law firm providing divorce and family law services to clients.  The firm has mastered the use of technology to market their services and to communicate with and educate the public.  The site has even spun off a separate website called StayHappilyMarried.com.  Lee hosts Divorce Talk Radio from the firm’s studio with a live call in show and records educational videos staring the firm’s attorneys for clients to watch online. 

    Check out the site to see the many different creative uses of elawyering.  Congratulations to Lee and the Rosen Law Firm.

  • Family Favorite Award Winner for the 4th Year in a Row

    I’m excited to announce that my virtual law office has won the Wilmington Parent Family Favorite Award under the category of “attorney” for the fourth year in a row!  (more…)

  • Keane Award Nomination Info Available

    The updated materials for the ABA Jim Keane Award for Excellence in ELawyering have been posted on the ABA website for the 2010 Techshow and on the ELawyering Task Force website.  Requirements to be considered for the award are listed as well as an online nomination form.   Please also read my previous post about the award.

  • Excellence in eLawyering: ABA Keane Award Nominations

    It’s that time of year again to consider sending in your nominations for the ABA’s James I. Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering. The Award is presented by the Law Practice Management Section’s eLawyering Task Force at the ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago at the end of March.  My virtual law office, Kimbro Legal Services, was the recipient of the 2009 Keane Award and it was a great opportunity to share my VLO with the legal profession.    

    If you are or know of an attorney operating a virtual law practice and using technology to deliver legal services to clients, consider submitting a nomination for the 2010 Keane Award.  More detailed submission information will be made available on the LPM site shortly. 

    From the LPM website:

    The James I. Keane Memorial Award gives recognition to law offices or legal organizations that have developed legal service innovations delivered over the Internet. Thus, the focus of the award is the innovative delivery of personal legal services, with special attention given to firms and entities that serve both moderate income individuals and the broad middle class.

  • Spring Virtual Law Office Update

    By now the word has circulated that the ABA Techshow website has posted the audio file from Richard Susskind’s keynote presentation at the ABA Techshow in Chicago earlier this month.  I wasn’t able to attend the event and accept the Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in Elawyering.  However, my husband, the programmer who designed my virtual law office software, attended to accept the award on my behalf.  The presentation came with a lovely plaque that I will hang in my home office.  Of course none of my online clients will get to see it, but I will have to find a way to “decorate” my VLO with some mention of the award.

    Thanks to all of the Twitterers in the audience, I followed the presentation from home and got a good overview of the speech from tweets.  Today I finally had time to listen to the ABA audio file of Susskind’s speech.  He’s a very dynamic speaker which is something that you just can’t get from following a speaker on Twitter.  I was also happy to hear that at the end they included the ABA Task Force’s presentation of the award to my VLO and my husband’s acceptance speech.  Since I wasn’t there to accept it in person, it was nice to hear how it went.

    In other news, my VLO received the Family Favorite Attorney Award for the third year in a row from the Wilmington Parent Magazine, a local parenting publication that many of my online clients read.  This award means a lot of me because it comes from some of the individuals and families that I work with online.  It has helped each year to build my confidence in my virtual elawyering skills and to generate additional client referrals.  A couple articles were also published about my VLO in the NC Lawyer’s Weekly and other law-related publications.  Hopefully all the attention will generate additional interest in virtual law practice and the delivery of legal services using technology.

    Aside from my own virtual law practice, my company, VLOTech, received the 2009 Coastal Entrepreneur Award and was invited to meet with a panel of business experts to discuss the company.  It was a great opportunity to learn from other entrepreneurs who have taken their dreams, accepted the risks and made it happen.

    This spring has been a busy one both personally and professionally.  My goal is to return to blogging more about actual virtual law practice in the summer months as things settle down a bit.

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