Virtual Law Practice

Category: Educational

  • Virtual Law Practice Teleconference and Live Audio Webcast

    This upcoming Thursday, December 17 at 1pm EST, Richard Granat, Marc Lauritsen and myself will be co-presenting a CLE teleconference and live audio webcast entitled “The Virtual Law Firm: Benefits, Costs and Ethical Pitfalls to Avoid.”  It is sponsored by the American Bar Association LPM Section and the ABA Center for Continuing Legal Education.

    From the program description, the topics that will be covered include:

    • What is a “virtual law firm”
    • The benefits of delivering legal services online
    • The web architecture for a virtual law firm
    • Online applications, such as web-enabled document automation
    • Ethical issues in the delivery of online legal services, including confidentiality, security, unauthorized practice of law, client identification, conflict of interest checking and client authentication procedures
    • Criteria of vendor selection
    • The costs associated with setting up a virtual law practice
    • Marketing your brand and virtual law practice online

    If  you are interested in virtual law practice or are operating a virtual law firm, please consider joining us for this session.  In addition to some really practical advice on this form of delivering legal services using technology, the session will also provide 1.5 hours of CLE credit in most states.  Have any specific questions you would like answered during the conference?  Please drop a line in the comments section below or email me.

    UPDATE: The teleconference had a really nice turnout and we received great questions from the audience both on the phone and online. I believe the recording of the CLE and materials will now be available for purchase from the ABA at some point.

  • Technology eReport: Setting Up a Web-Based Virtual Law Office

    Check out my article in the November issue of the ABA GP/Solo & Small Firm Technology eReport: Setting Up a Web-based Virtual Law Office.  From the article:

    Consumers are actively seeking more affordable and convenient access to legal services over the Internet. Due to the cost of traditional legal services, they are turning to cutting and pasting together sample online legal documents or purchasing cheap legal forms online without the benefit of attorney review. The economic recession has further hastened this trend. To address consumer demand, more attorneys are opening web-based virtual law offices (VLOs) or adding a VLO to an existing traditional law firm structure to deliver legal services to clients online.

    There are different ways to define and structure a virtual law practice. Simply put, a virtual law practice is a professional law practice where an attorney is able to work with clients over the Internet through a secure portal from the establishment of the attorney/client relationship through to the payment of and final rendering of legal services. The technology used to create and maintain a VLO is a software as a service (SaaS) hosted system, often referred to as practicing law “in the cloud.” To set up a virtual law practice, an attorney should be aware of a number of practical and ethical considerations discussed below.

  • Minimum Requirements for Delivering Legal Services Online

    Co-chairs of the ABA eLawyering Task Force, Marc Lauritsen and Richard Granat, have submitted a draft set of minimum requirements for delivering legal services online which was published in this month’s Law Practice Today.  As a member of the Task Force, we have discussed these minimum requirements as a set of guidelines that attorneys will be able to turn to when they are interested in forming a virtual law practice .  Once approved by the ABA’s LPM, these requirements may be used by different state bars as a way to guide attorneys in their states who are forming virtual law practices.  You may check out the minimum requirements posted in the article and the Task Force welcomes comments and reactions to the document through their listserv. 

    Keep in mind when reading these minimum requirements that the idea behind them is to provide guidance, but not to be too specific in ways that might stifle future innovation in the delivery of legal service.  The topics covered include website architecture, ethics issues, statement of terms and conditions, retainer agreement acceptance, online payment of legal fees, protecting client confidences, and security certification.

  • “In the Meantime…” — Temporary Operation of a Virtual Law Office

    Over the past year I’ve spoken with attorneys who have been laid off from Biglaw firms and are seeking new positions or attorneys who have just passed the bar and are having trouble finding a position to launch their legal careers.  Both groups of individuals are working hard to establish or reinvent themselves within the legal profession and are seeking my advice about using a virtual law practice as a way to do this. They want to operate a solo virtual law practice “in the meantime.”

    Solo virtual law practice is not for everyone, and while I love the independence that it provides me, I recognize that other attorneys have different goals for their legal careers. Therefore, I try to give useful advice that would apply to the attorney’s individual goals and circumstances.

    Can a virtual law practice be used effectively in between phases in an attorney’s career — from firm to firm?  Will the attorney be able to take the virtual law practice with him or her when that dream legal job comes along?  Will it pay the bills if the attorney is only going to be delivering legal services online on a temporary basis?  If the attorney is a newly graduated attorney can he or she work online and learn an entirely new practice area of law without having worked in an actual law office? 

    These are difficult, but critical questions for attorneys in such situations to ask before embarking on a virtual law practice. I’ve combined some of my responses to these questions below. (more…)

  • Online Drafting Resources for your Virtual Law Practice

    One of the most useful methods of teaching yourself how to draft legal documents is to read a variety of samples.  If you’re a virtual solo, you may not have had the previous experience of a traditional firm’s files to learn from.  And let’s face the truth — your client has most likely gone online and searched through a variety of free online forms first to figure out 1) how hard it would be to do themselves, or 2) to compare the pricing of the many cheap, online legal forms for sale without attorney review.  With a virtual law practice, you will be better equipped than most traditional attorneys to compete with these companies, but it’s always good to know what your clients are investigating as alternatives to your services.

    I’m posting below a short list of sites that provide samples of legal documents.  It’s always an option to purchase state-specific documents for use in your own virtual law practice.  However, as we all know, not every client’s legal situation is going to be the same so learning to build on those drafting skills is key. 

    Once you have drafted a collection of legal forms and documents, you can keep them in your virtual law office for future editing and use with new clients who have similar legal matters.  This helps to streamline the delivery of legal services online.

    As another option to collecting samples, many state bar associations will have practice area specific or GP/Solo/Small Firm online forums to help you connect with mentors.  Just ask on the listserv if anyone is willing to share a sample legal document and see what you can collect. 

    Listed below are several online resources that let you access and review sample legal documents.  When I first opened my virtual law practice, I used some of these sites to find items, such as client intake forms, sample engagement letters and different small business contracts.  The best samples are not the blank forms, but the many business legal documents that have been made public. 

    I’m absolutely not saying you should copy and paste any of these free legal documents to create your own, but it does help the drafting process if you have the chance to read a variety of different samples and get a feel for the language used with different legal circumstances.   

    JD Supra:  Part marketing and networking opportunity, part repository of form documents.  JD Supra hosts thousands of legal documents submitted by the lawyers who drafted them.

    Legal OnRamp:  This is a lawyer networking site where attorneys contribute content and participate in online forums and groups. 

    OneCLE:  This is a great site for reviewing sample business contracts.  Contracts that have been made public are posted and categorized by area of business law.

    Findlaw’s Free Sample Legal Documents

    Get Free Legal Forms site

  • 60 Sites in 60 Minutes from Practical Skills CLE

    Last week I had the pleasure of co-presenting the final session for the North Carolina Bar Association’s Practical Skills CLE with Erik Mazzone and Lee Rosen.  The Practical Skills CLE is intended for recent law school graduates and attorneys who are transitioning into new practices or getting ready to hang their own shingle. 

    I’ve spoken with many newly licensed attorneys here in North Carolina but also across the states who still do not have any idea where they will be working.  Finding an entry level job as an associate in this poor economic climate is not an easy task.  This is forcing many new attorneys to open up their own law practices without the benefit of a couple years of mentoring and real-world experience in the legal profession.  This is an opportunity for those of us who have been actively practicing law and running our own businesses to help our colleagues into the profession and to equip them with the skills they need to avoid malpractice risks and succeed in their chosen careers. 

    In the 20 websites that I presented during our Practical Skills 60 Sites in 60 Minutes session, I tried to choose sites that might be useful for an attorney just starting out. I started with Pipes to show how you can efficiently hunt down and organize the wealth of legal resources that are online.  Then I added to the list a number of the blogs that I have been reading for years that provide me with useful knowledge about starting out in law practice or that have links to good resources.  Among the listed blogs are a number of useful apps and a couple just for fun.

    Pipes: A tool that aggregates and mash-ups content from around the web to create a customized feed.  Use simple commands combined together to create more useful, powerful feeds.  Start your morning off reading regular law practice management blogs and other specific practice area blogs for useful practice tips and updates.

    Open Congress: OpenCongress combines official government information with related news and blog coverage.  If you want to find out the story behind a bill or what your representative is doing in office, this is the place to go.

    Cornell American Legal Ethics Library:  This digital library contains state by state codes and rules related to ethics and professional responsibility.  Search by jurisdiction or topic.  If you operate a virtual law practice, this is a great resource for checking out the rules and regulations of other states where you may be practicing law virtually or to help you avoid UPL in other jurisdictions.

    Solo Practice University:  SPU is a web-based educational community for attorneys that teaches the “practice of law” and fills in the gaps that law schools tend to ignore, such as the practical, how-tos of running a law practice.  Specific practice areas are taught as well as marking, ethics and other topics related to law practice.  There is a monthly fee but it provides valuable access to some great mentors and practical knowledge about the profession.

    Google Voice:  Create a Google phone number and route calls to your home, business, or mobile devices.  A useful tool for blocking and screening calls with other features, such as voicemail transcripts, storing, sending and receiving text messages from one device or online to other devices. Rather than calling multiple numbers to reach you, your clients dial one number and it tracks you down to the phone you can answer or takes the call to voice mail.  A great tool for the mobile attorney with a virtual law practice.

    Penzu:   This app is for the attorney who enjoys writing but doesn’t want the world to read it. Start a free, private online journal.  Some law firms are prohibiting their associates from blogging publically.  Use this tool to get your stress relief without exposing your frustrations with the practice or inadvertently sharing your clients’ confidential information.

    Techmeme: This popular website is a resource of technology and trends that can help you run your law practice and your life.  Focusing on the practical application of technology in daily life, it combines the best tech stories of the day into an easy-to-scan page with 24/7 updated content.

    Cloud Ave:   If you want to learn about and keep up to date on cloud computing and SaaS, this blog provides non-biased reviews, news and practical information that can be applied to the use of the tech in a law practice. 

    Divorce Discourse:  This blog was created for the family law practitioner by Lee Rosen and the Rosen Law Firm. Updated regularly with useful content.  Also check out the Stay Happily Married and Divorce Talk Radio.  I’m not even a family law practitioner, but I find the tips in this blog to be useful as well as entertaining.  

    Law 21:  Written by Jordan Furlong, a Canadian lawyer and legal journalist, this blog addresses the changes that are taking place in the legal profession, such as the impact of social media and technology used to practice law.

    JD Supra:  Part marketing and networking opportunity, part repository of form documents.  JD Supra hosts thousands of legal documents submitted by the lawyers who drafted them.

    MyShingle:   Written by attorney and author of Solo by Choice, Carolyn Elefant, this blog caters to solo and small law practices.  The site provides useful resources for starting, managing and marketing a solo or small firm practice.  She also has a great resource of links to other sites.

    Seismic:  This company has some great free apps to help you manage your online social media, from video to iPhone to in-browser tools.  Host your law firm videos, share links, text, video and photos from a single screen.  Create lists to separate family, friends and work. 

    Law Practice Matters:  Written by the NCBA Director of Practice Management, Erik Mazzone, this blog is a great resource for law practice management news, tips and tech reviews.   

    Tripit:   This website lets you organize  and share your travel plans by building an online itinerary that you can monitor and receive alerts about travel delays and share with others. 

    eCycling:  A resource for IT asset disposal and electronics recycling.  Use this site to find out the best way to recycle or dispose of your law practice electronics in a secure and eco-friendly way.

    HARO:  Help a Reporter Out (HARO).  Subscribe to these emails & scan them to see if you have a legal expertise that a report needs as a source for their articles.  Is an easy and free law practice marketing method that can pay off if you commit to reviewing it regularly.

    lawtechTalk:   NY attorney and prolific legal blogger, Nicole Black, created lawtechTalk as a resource for reviewing online legal technologies and social media for lawyers. On the website she posts regular screencasts that review and demo legal tech.

    Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites:  Written by Massachusetts attorney, writer and media consultant Robert Ambrogi, this site reviews new and useful website for the legal profession.  Check out his Lawyer2Lawyer podcasts that are also posted on the blog.

    Wolframalpha:  Want to know where the web is headed?  WolframAlpha is a long-term project across all professions based on a new form of knowledge-based computing.  Think of a combination between Google and Wikipedia.  Consider how this may affect legal research, your practice and the public’s ability to access the law.

  • 20 of the 60 Tips in 60 Minutes

    The NC Bar Association held its Law Tech Expo this past week.  Erik Mazzone, the Director for the Center of Practice Management at the Bar, did a great job of reviving the Expo.  I look forward to this being an annual event for our Bar Association and anticipate its growth considering the important role that technology plays in the legal profession today.  It was a pleasure to meet such well-known speakers as Sharon Nelson, John Simek and Britt Lorish Knuttgen at the event.  VLOTech also had a booth in the hall alongside other exhibitors and we were excited to introduce our SaaS product for virtual law practice to the attendees.

    At the Law Tech Expo, I sat in on a panel discussion on practicing law in the cloud and co-presented the 60 Tips in 60 Minutes session with Erik Mazzone and Lee Rosen.

    This would be an amusing story if it weren’t so frustrating at the time:  I protect my netbook by using Truecrypt so that if it were ever stolen, no one would be able to access my law office data.  One of the sites I was presenting was Truecrypt.  Right before our presentation, we all connected our computers out so that the video will show up on the auditorium screen.  The Truecrypt screen comes up asking for the password, but won’t even let me enter it.  Fortunately, I also travel with the portable CD drive and restore CD so it wasn’t a problem once I got back to the hotel.  However, I had to jump over to the Bar Center’s podium computer to present my 20 sites rather than using my netbook.  It’s the perfect example of how one of my 20 tips can be used to protect your law office data — although not exactly the way I had wanted to demonstrate it.

    Snafu aside, the presentation was fun and the audience responsive.  I’m looking forward to presenting another 20 of the 60 Websites in 60 Minutes for the Practical Skills CLE in a couple weeks.

    Here are the 20 tips that I presented from our session with summaries of the sites.

    PrimoPDF:  A free PDF creator allows you to create PDF files from 300+ file types.  For example, turn a Word doc into a PDF and secure with passwords for digital storage, sending to clients, etc.

    Portable Hard Drive:  Easy to use for backup of law office data. Run nightly backups with Truecrypt and Sycntoy for security.  When traveling, it’s easy to take your law practice along with you.

    Truecrypt: Free open source encryption software. Works with PCs & Macs. Multiple uses for this software, especially for the mobile attorney.  Ex.: Encrypt files on your USB key or portable hard drive.

    Zamzar:  Free online file conversion.  Convert files to doc, image, video and music formats.  Useful for working w/clients, other attorneys using different programs to share data.

    ZOHO Projects: Creates a project management space for collaboration that is based on social networking.  Map out projects with a team, assign tasks, schedule meetings, work on documents, hold forum discussions and more.

    Pipes:  A tool that aggregates and mashups up content from around the web to create a customized feed.  Use simple commands combined together to create more useful, powerful feeds.

    Google Voice: Create a Google phone number and route calls to your home, business, or mobile devices.  A useful tool for blocking and screening calls with other features, such as voicemail transcripts, storing, sending and receiving text messages from one device or online to other devices. Rather than calling multiple numbers to reach you, your clients dial one number and it tracks you down to the phone you can answer or takes the call to voice mail.

    Meebo: Communicate in real-time with your contacts across platforms including IM and other social networking apps.  This tool lets you combine all of your contact lists in different apps into one.

    Thunderbird 2:  Thunderbird 2 email application has superior security and privacy features, including phishing protection, industry leading junk mail filters, and support for user privacy and remote image protection.

    Open Office:  Free open source version of Microsoft Office, includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and other applications.  It runs on PCs and Macs, has great compatibility with other programs and you don’t have to buy a new version to install each time it has an update.

    Billeo:  A secure tool to manage online transactions, such as payments, passwords, and receipts.  Works in your browser to allow for one-click access.

    Penzu:  This program is for the attorney who enjoys writing but doesn’t want the world to read it. Does your law firm prohibit or discourage you for writing in a public blog?  Start a free, private online journal and keep writing.

    Scribefire:  This is an extension to your Firefox browser that lets you post easily into your blog.  Click and drag, drop formatted text from pages and post it on your blog.

    Glance:  Easy tool for desktop sharing with audio conferencing.  Use for web presentations, conferences, training, or general communicating.  Allows others to take control of your mouse as well as view your desktop.

    iContact: Send clients newsletters and email blasts about your practice and changes in the law without being blacklisted. Use it in conjunction with your blog or website to transfer subscribers to your email updates.

    Skype:  Free skype-to-skype calls with video, text message from Skype; forward calls to your mobile device, etc.  Multiple uses for online communication.

    Iceberg:  A web-based tool to develop your own custom workflow based app for your law practice or for individual projects.  Provides customizable applications to build on.  No code writing experience necessary.

    Virtual Paralegals:  For an attorney practicing law remotely or online, virtual paralegals are a useful resource for transcription, legal research, legal document preparation or other administrative activities.  There are virtual paralegal companies, independent virtual paralegals and virtual assistants that may work in different arrangements, such as on a regular basis for a solo or small firm or as added support on a project basis for a larger firm.

    Firefox Add-ons:  Download these add-ons for extra security for your Firefox browser.  Use no-scripts for safest web-browsing.

    Bing:  Microsoft’s version of the search engine.  Keep an eye on how it will compete with Google because it does use a different formula for ranking sites.  Attorneys should monitor their personal and professional online presence on a regular basis and this is one more search engine to check.

  • Update to Virtual Law Practice eBook

    Please check out the latest, updated version of my free eBook, Practicing Law Online: Creating a Web-based Virtual Law Office.  Because the technology behind virtual law practice is changing at a rapid rate and because new state bar advisory opinions on the topic are starting to emerge, I plan on updating the eBook at least every six months.

    For this latest update, I conducted some additional research online through the Cornell University Law School’s American Legal Ethics Library which has a great state-by-state comparative analysis of the ABA’s Model Code.  There were some new state bar advisory opinions that related to third-party service providers, online backup and retention of law office data, email, online advertising and other technology related topics.  I included these in the different sections of the eBook relating to ethics and malpractice issues in virtual law practice.  I’m sure there are more formal and informal opinions from state bars out there that I did not find.

    Please share if you have any experience presenting technology-related law practice management questions or formal advisory opinions to your state bar.  I’ll post them on the blog and add the information to the eBook — with a hat tip to the sharer, of course.

  • Joining the Faculty at Solo Practice University

    I am excited to announce that I have joined the faculty at Solo Practice University™, a web-based, legal education community created by Susan Cartier Liebel of Build of Solo Practice, LLC.  Solo Practice University™ (SPU) is opening its doors to law students and legal professionals who want to learn more about the practical aspects of running a law practice that attorneys probably didn’t receive in law school. 

    As faculty, I will teach a course on virtual law practice that covers many different aspects of elawyering, including opening and operating a virtual law office (VLO), marketing techniques for an online practice, and handling technology and ethics issues that may arise from practicing law over the Internet.  Susan is strongly encouraging the faculty at SPU to use a variety of teaching formats so I plan to find creative ways of using technology to foster an active dialogue between myself and SPU students. 

    My goal as faculty will be to provide SPU students with the resources they need to open a virtual law practice and to operate that practice with strong ethical and professional standards that will provide quality online legal services to the public. As with any teaching experience, I expect to gain some new perspectives on virtual law practice as I share my own knowledge with the students.  I’m very excited to get started.

  • Can’t We All Just Get Along?

    While I don’t like general characterizations of anyone, this post by Jordan Furlog over at Law21 had me smiling as he writes tips for how Gen-Y lawyers can adjust to working with Boomers and Gen-Xers. I found it insightful on most accounts, especially regarding multitasking with different technologies.

    Furlong writes, “Boomers don’t understand multitasking. Well, they do, but in the sense of “I’m carrying 75 files at one time,” rather than “I’m drafting a top-notch memo while IM’ing a friend and listening to a podcast.” Boomers live in a linear and sequential world, while you [Gen-Y] were thinking outside the box before it became a cliché.”

    Oddly enough, when it comes to introducing a virtual practice to other attorneys, I’ve had both Boomer and Gen-Xers who see the benefits of going online. In fact, I have a couple attorneys who are looking to “retire” into running their vlos in the next few years. At the same time, I know several Gen-Xers who have mastered email and that’s as far as it goes.

    My point is that it does take an entrepreneurial spirit and certain tech savvy to start up a virtual law practice — regardless of your generation label. I wonder if virtual attorneys of all generations wouldn’t have more in common with each other than their traditional law office counterparts?

MENU