Virtual Law Practice

Category: Book

  • Can’t We Do the Same Thing?

    Chairs turned aroundThis weekend I gave a presentation for Avvo’s Lawyernomics Conference in Las Vegas. I was talking about the subject of my new book and giving examples of the online marketing tools that branded networks provide for lawyers in their network to use to connect and work with clients online. There were several great questions from the audience throughout, but one question in particular struck me: Couldn’t we use the same techniques the branded networks are using on our own law firm sites?

    Yes. Lawyers can use very similar techniques on their websites to draw prospective clients. Lawyers can create web calculators, provide free legal forms and resource libraries, use real-time chat and video to hold initial free consultations, and provide a way for prospective clients to register to request legal assistance directly on their website. These are all things that many virtual law offices include in their website design. These lawyers add various “calls to action”, create landing pages, and connect the resources provided on their site with the sharing components of their different social media account activities. They share and put their valuable content out there for the public. It builds and expands their firm’s online brand and reputation. Lawyers may use different tools to run analytics on their site and their different marketing campaigns and refine them as needed. However, it is still difficult to use all of these same techniques as branded networks and compete effectively. It’s just not enough was the message I had for them.

    Why is it not enough? Because the companies marketing direct to consumer are not restricted by any lawyer rules of professional conduct, whether it’s advertising rules or the lovely Rule 5.4 that restricts fee sharing and protects the “independence of the lawyer.” Branded networks are not small business owners, but companies who typically have sizable marketing budgets devoted solely to the purpose of D2C marketing. They can pour a lot of that money into building their brand and spreading it to particular target markets for online, personal legal services. In terms of competing with these companies for purchasing Google AdWords or keywords in any search engine, it is going to be very difficult for any solo, small or medium sized firm to do for a long enough period of time for it to have an impact on client development.

    I was honest with this audience. I told them that seven years ago it had been easier to be a solo virtual lawyer, such as myself, to market my online unbundled services using online marketing and social media engagement. However, as the years went by and the options for online offerings increased, especially in personal legal services such as estate planning and family law, it became increasingly difficult to compete in the search engine rankings without investing a significant amount of marketing dollars on online campaigns. What could have been done before 2007 on almost zero cost other than my time and energy and consistency, now takes a significant monetary investment.

    That was the reality I shared with these attendees and asked them to look at the future development of this trend in the online delivery of personal legal services as an opportunity for collaboration rather than as a threat to their law firm model. Clearly, virtual law offices that are completely web-based without a traditional law office are going to be the most threatened. But it’s also even more important that these practices learn how to ethically use online marketing tools provided by branded networks and engage in their lawyer networks in a way that helps them build and expand their brand and push traffic and prospective clients back to their firm’s site rather than just exert all their energy providing free content and value to the branded network.

    Developing best practices and a law firm policy for using the online marketing platforms provided by branded networks is going to be a key component in the future of lawyer advertising – whether you have a virtual law practice or a traditional one.

     

  • Collaborating with Branded Networks on LXBN TV

    This is the video of my brief interview with Colin O’Keefe about the topic of my presentation for Avvo’s Lawyernomics Conference next week in Las Vegas.

  • Updates on Events

    Below are a couple of the events I’m scheduled to attend this month. I have not had time to blog because I’ve been finishing up the edits to my book about online marketing tools and branded networks. It is now slated to come out the first of June.

    I have a couple other articles or chapters that should be published between now and the summer as well. I’ll share what I can here. In addition to the firm practice and consulting work, I’ve also been online teaching the second six week session on Social Media and Online Marketing for the Digital Lawyering Program at the University of Dayton School of Law. And I’ve put a few more irons in the fire with a couple other legal tech/legal services related startups that I’m keeping under wraps for now. Too many ideas, too little time.

    ABA Techshow in Chicago April 4-5. I’ll be at a Meet the Author session on Friday at 1:45pm. This is more of a casual event where I will focus on addressing questions from the audience. I’m also hosting a Taste of Techshow dinner with Chad Burton, another Techshow speaker. We will be discussing virtual law practice at that dinner if anyone attending the show wants to sign up and join us for that.

    Lawyernomics Conference in Vegas April 26-27th at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I’ll be speaking on the topic of the Consumer Law Revolution book. Basically, I’ll be giving practical tips for lawyers who want to work with branded networks and discussing the best practices to do so.

  • Slides from ReInventLaw Conference

    This past Friday, I gave a presentation at the ReInvent Law conference in Silicon Valley. Rachel Zahorsky of the ABA Journal wrote about the event here and the American Lawyer wrote about it here. There were 500+ attendees registered and some really interesting speakers. The focus of my talk was about the subject of my new book: lawyers, especially solos and small firms, should learn to collaborate with branded networks and where we are at this stage in that process. I believe a video of my presentation will be made available at some point online which will probably make way more sense than these slides do alone.

    Overall, there was a lot of energy at this conference and more than a few calls to action, perhaps directed at some of the many legal tech companies and startups in the room.

  • Attorney @ Work: The Next Lawyering Frontier

    talking fingersIn case you missed reading it on the Attorney at Work blog, here is a link to my interview for them. I’ve gotten a huge response from this article in the form of emails from lawyers across the country so something in it must have struck a cord.

    As the article says, I’ll be speaking at the Lawyernomics 2013 conference in Las Vegas on April 27 on “The Consumer Law Revolution: Lawyer Collaboration with Branded Networks.”  More on that later.Here is part of the Attorney at Work interview:

    The greatest opportunities for today’s lawyers are online. This is where the conversation about legal services is happening for the public, whether lawyers are present or not. It’s not just personal legal services that we are talking about. Companies and corporate clients are online, listening and engaging with their customers. Lawyers who understand and stay constantly up to date with the technology and the different opportunities to engage in online conversation are going to continue to grow and succeed. This is not only for client development. Lawyers need to know how their clients communicate and operate their businesses. The lawyer who does not understand online engagement is not going to be the best lawyer for a company whose customers are all engaging with the company online, whether wanted or not.

  • Consumer Law Revolution Ebook

    ConsumerLawEbookCoverI’ve created a new page on this blog for my new ebook: Consumer Law Revolution.

    This ebook is the precursor to my full book that should be published by the ABA LPM sometime later this year. The ebook provides an introduction to the concept of branded networks and online marketing tools for lawyers.

    For the book, I researched almost all of the legal tech startups and branded networks from both the lawyer and consumer perspective. These case studies are in the full book as are all of the important ethics issues surrounding lawyer collaboration with these companies to engage with and provide legal services to the public.

    I wanted to make the best practices portion of this material free and available to practitioners because I don’t know of any other resources out there like this and it’s needed. As most of you know by now from my writing, I believe that the legal profession should find ways to collaborate with companies providing legal services online. It will be a significant way to increase access to justice for certain legal services. Not for all services, not for all clients, and not for all lawyers – see my book on unbundling or that ebook for reasons why not. However, it will be significant for large segments of the public needing basic legal services and may lead to other forms of collaboration and innovation in the delivery of legal services that could expand access in ways we can’t see right now.

    For those who are venturing into this area of lawyer advertising/delivering legal services online in their law practice, this ebook and the full book to come should be a helpful guide.

    As always, I welcome feedback.

  • Business Lessons for Lawyers:Unbundling in Other Industries

    This is an 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.

    The Music Industry

    More than a few people in the music industry initially questioned the unbundling of music. Traditionally, a music producer would bundle a musician’s less popular recordings with the one or two singles that were commercially popular and charge a higher fee for the entire catalog of records on a CD. When iTunes presented the concept of allowing the consumer to pick and choose whichever songs he or she wanted from the hits and the not-so-popular songs, it revolutionized the way that music is purchased.

    Critics had to admit that it did not culminate in the downfall of the music industry or result in decreased sales. Instead, unbundling songs at a lower cost per purchase allowed the consumer to learn about the artists and their music offerings without making a large up-front investment in an entire album. If consumers liked the services, they would come back for the rest of the album, and the full album could always be downloaded from the iTunes store for the customers that wanted the entire recording.

    The Airlines (more…)

  • Progress on New Book – Online Marketing Tools

    I wanted to provide a quick update of what I’ve been working on and what I will hopefully be sharing more of on this blog in the near future. I have been finishing up a new book on the topic of online marketing tools for lawyers. If all goes well, it should be out by the spring.

    In the course of researching for this project, I’ve studied and registered for accounts with companies that provide online legal services to the public and seek to collaborate with lawyers. This process has only increased my excitement and optimism about the future of online delivery. The book covers the many ethics questions that come up with respects to these models and provides best practices for lawyers to follow. However, the focus is on lawyer collaboration with the new models of online delivery.

    These companies have found ways to engage with the public in a larger online conversation about the law and legal services in a way that the legal profession has not succeeded in doing. Our existing rules of advertising and different state restrictions on various online models of advertising have caused many lawyers to continue to stay out of the online conversation.

    This is not good for the public because it limits their awareness of and ability to find qualified legal assistance, and it keep our profession isolated from understanding the needs of our clients. The book looks at how lawyers may create a different kind of marketing strategy by working with rather than ignoring or trying to compete with these third-party platforms for legal service delivery. This strategy will generate leads for a lawyer’s practice, giving them a competitive edge over firms that do not engage with the public online. But it may also serve the purpose of improving public opinion about lawyers and the legal profession. (more…)

  • Launch of Unbundling Book at ABA Techshow

    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 that I discuss in the book. In my opinion, unbundling is a concept that underlies and works with all of the changes that legal visionaries like Richard Susskind, Jordan Furlong and others have been preaching to us for the past several years. I was grateful to Jordan Furlong for writing a wonderful Foreward for the book.

    The goal of this book is to educate lawyers and law firms on the processes they should to go through to responsibly add limited scope services as part of restructuring their delivery methods to adapt to changes in our legal marketplace. Whereas my other book on virtual law practice was geared more towards solos and firms that were interested primarily in online delivery methods, this book on unbundling is applicable to almost every firm structure from traditional to a hybrid virtual law firm, from solos to large firms and in-house counsel.

    It is not only individuals of lower to moderate means who are seeking limited scope services from law firms, but many more sophisticated client bases are keen on finding law firms that provide this. Accordingly, there is a great potential here for increased revenue for law firms as well as for the public to receive alternative forms of legal service delivery, increasing access to justice across the board. Naturally, the book covers the many ethics rules, best practices, and sometimes complex process of determining when unbundling is appropriate and when full-service is necessary. (more…)

  • Educating the Digital Lawyer eBook Available for Free Download

    An exciting new resource for lawyers and legal educators has been published online for free thanks to the sponsorship of Harvard’s Berkman Center LawLab and LexisNexis.

    The book project called Educating the Digital Lawyer is now available for download as an epub file here. Editors Oliver Goodenough and Marc Lauritsen pulled together the collection from contributors most of whom met and discussed issues related to digital legal education during a working group that was part of the Future Ed Conference.

    The book contains suggestions for changes that need to be made to legal education with a strong emphasis on how the law school curriculum needs to better prepare law students to practice law in a digital environment. Other online resources, such as videos, podcasts, webinars, or other written materials, related to topics in the book may be forthcoming. The resources in this book are useful not only to law school faculty and students, but also to practitioners who may need direction on how to fill in their own law school education gap. Yours truly contributed chapter 10 “What Should be in a Digital Curriculum: A Practitioner’s Must Have List.”

     

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