Today I gave a presentation which was live but also webcast for the Chicago Bar Association.

One of my law students recently raised this question to me: Could a lawyer allow payment for legal services in Bitcoin? It’s not a question I’ve ever gotten before and it’s a good one. Bitcoin is digital currency and it’s not managed by any central authority but the transactions occur through Bitcoin miners which is basically a server that communicates and confirms the transaction and records it on a ledger. They can be transferred by mobile devices. Recent articles have suggested that eBay and Paypal may open up their sites to the use of Bitcoin.

The NY State Bar Association Committee on Professional Ethics has published a new ethics Opinion 964 on April 4, 2013 that affects virtual law offices.
The opinion is more related to lawyer advertising rather than about virtual law offices but it affects advertising for virtual, traditional and hybrid delivery models. The opinion was prompted by an inquiry from a lawyer who delivers immigration law services primarily online. Like many lawyers with virtual law offices, the lawyer rarely meets with clients in person and communicates using video conferencing and other digital methods of communication.

This 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?

This is a video I recorded for a technology exposition that is being held at Wake Forest University. It explains how I am using the virtual law firm simulation to teach a course for Wake Forest Law School entitled Technology in Law Practice.

This past Friday, I gave a presentation at the ReInvent Law conference in Silicon Valley. 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 wanted to give a shout-out to Gabriel Cheong, owner of Infinity Law Group, for creating a new business model that unbundles legal services for reduced fees. Cheong has founded Cambridge Divorce Group which brings together contract lawyers who are willing to unbundle family law services for reduced rates. I’ve mentioned Cheong on here before because his law firm website features a web calculator to assist prospective clients in estimating their legal costs.

Michael Downey, a lawyer with Armstrong Teasdale LLP and legal ethics teacher at Washington University School of Law and St. Louis University School of Law, has written an article seeking to balance the messages lawyers might take from two recent events in virtual practice news: 1) Rachel Rodger’s article in Forbes focusing on the benefits of increased work/life balance from virtual law offices and 2) the Virginia disciplinary matter of lawyer Atchuthan Sriskandarah who operated a virtual practice and engaged in misleading lawyer advertising.

In 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.

This Monday the ABA House of Delegates voted to adopt Resolution 108 supporting limited scope representation or unbundling. This resolution was crafted by the Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services. Because unbundling is frequently used as a method of legal service delivery for virtual practice, I want to post the actual text of the resolution here.