Virtual Law Practice

Category: Online Marketing

  • Wall Street Journal Covers Rivalry in Online Delivery Space

    Last week I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal for an article that was published today regarding companies that deliver basic legal services online and how this impacts both the public and legal professionals.

    I used to write a post every six months compiling developments in virtual law practice. It has become so mainstream now that I think my list that started out a couple years ago with about twenty items would far exceed a reasonable blog post length. The online delivery of legal services is now something larger firms and the media are finally paying attention to. The recent law suit filed by Legal Zoom against Rocket Lawyer has brought the online delivery model on the radar of the legal profession and business world. Why? There is clearly a latent market for online services coupled with a legal profession at a cross roads.

    From today’s WSJ article:

    …demand for high-end legal services fell after the recession, as deals slowed and big companies pushed back on legal bills, and it has yet to recover.

    Meanwhile, some legal entrepreneurs are looking for gold in a largely untapped vein: ordinary people seeking affordable alternatives to traditional lawyers. The idea is to provide access to legal services online, the same way many now look for jobs, pick restaurants and shop.

    Given this recent interest in the space, I’m anxious to get my latest book out there. It will hopefully be published by the spring. I keep having to update the manuscript as more legal tech start-ups enter the market with interesting new models of delivery. (more…)

  • Slides: Final Social Media in Law Practice for Digital Lawyering Program

    This is the slide deck from our final online session in Social Media in Law Practice, part of the Univ. of Dayton School of Law Digital Lawyering Program. It covers time management, the future of social media, its application to the legal profession, and our deliverable for the session.

    The students were asked to create a social media policy for a law practice to prove competency in the subject matter. In the course, we covered blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and Twitter as the core platforms, reviewed management and analytic tools, privacy and security settings, ethics rules and opinions, use of social media in litigation, integration with a larger online marketing strategy, and more.

    In order to teach this session I was forced to go back through all of my own personal and professional uses of social media which was a daunting task at times. I gave the students walkthroughs of the different applications, privacy and account settings, and other features using my own accounts, excluding any confidential or private information. I refered to several practical books from the ABA LPM’s ____in One Hour for Lawyer’s Series for each social media method as well as Niki Black and Carolyn Elefant’s book, Social Media for Lawyers. We also looked across industries to see how other professions and businesses are using social media for client development and professional networking.

    Several interesting questions were raised by the students regarding their transition from student to licensed lawyer and how this should be handled in their existing social media use. For example, upon passing the bar, should they notify friends and family that going forward their use of these applications will be x, or should they post a one-time disclaimer reminding followers that now that they are licensed lawyers, friends should not post any confidential legal questions on public sites? These are real concerns for young lawyers. Hopefully this session provided them with the skills they need to navigate, keep up with, and regularly modify their use of social media in their careers.

     

  • WSJ Covers Virtual Lawyers

    The Wall Street Journal has finally covered virtual law practice in a brief article in the Smart Money section last night. The article focuses on online legal guidance that is limited to unbundled legal advice for fixed fees and delivered through a technology platform owned by a third-party company marketing directly to the consumer. These services are provided by a lawyer who is part of the company’s network. The article does not cover other forms of online legal assistance, such as those provided by a virtual law firm owned and operated by a licensed lawyer.

    One of the concerns mentioned in the article is the qualification of online attorneys, especially those collaborating with third-party providers. This is exactly the topic of my third book which focuses on how lawyers may work with companies providing technology to deliver legal services to the public while maintaining best practices and high quality legal work.

    Virtual lawyers need to be aware of how to ethically provide limited scope representation and use the technology to delivery the services. These best practices and ethics concerns are all things that I have written about in my books and on my blog. The ABA eLawyering Task Force has addressed these concerns for many years as well.

    While I was hoping the first coverage in the WSJ of virtual law practice would be more comprehensive of the different models for lawyers to adopt and the potential to increase access to justice, this is a good starting point. As more nonlawyer legal service companies develop platforms for online delivery, we will see lawyers both traditional and virtual looking to work with them as part of client development and their marketing strategy.

    The articles states:

    Solid data on the online-legal field is hard to come by, but supporters and detractors agree the business model is gaining steam. Already, many traditional law firms have extended their practices to the Web, where they offer services like will preparation and document review for lower fees than what they charge in person.

    I hope the next article on virtual law practice that appears in the WSJ is one that is more in-depth about the impact that this form of legal service delivery is going to have on the solo and small firm practitioners (the profession’s fastest growing firm “type”) and the public seeking affordable online legal assistance.

  • Consumer Law Revolution

    I will be speaking on a panel at the College of Law Practice Management (COLPM) Futures Conference this Friday at Georgetown Law Center in D.C.
    Our panel will be discussing the following topics:
    • How is technology changing delivery of legal services to consumer?
    • How is tech changing how lawyers who serve consumers practice?
    • Will the consumer law movement shape the broader market for legal services?  Do we see signs today that consumer law developments are already doing so?
    • Will constraints – for example, client or lawyer conservatism, immature technology, or ethical barriers – limit a more rapid evolution or a real  revolution?

    I am charged with speaking about lawyer marketing using Internet-based platforms. My co-panelists are Professor Tanina Rostain, Michael Mills, and Marc Lauritsen. I will post any slides from my part of the presentation at a later date.

  • 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…)

  • Virginia Disciplinary Case on Misleading Lawyer Advertising

    A recent disciplinary case out of Virginia addresses the issue of a lawyer’s use of misleading online advertising and references “virtual” law offices. In fact, the objectionable actions taken by the lawyer are those that could apply to any lawyer or law firm that has a website or any online presence. It is not in fact related to the online delivery of legal services, but to lawyer advertising in general.

    The practitioner’s website and other forms of advertising stated that the firm included multiple attorneys, one  devoted to each practice area. These attorneys were actually independent contractors of the firm and each listed that they covered multiple practice areas. At the request of the Bar, the lawyer made changes to his agreements with the lawyers to make them full employees of the firm and amended the lawyer’s profiles on his website to correctly state all of the areas of law that they handled. Other advertisements stated that the firm had six offices in Virginia as well as in other states. Five of those offices were temporary, leased office space.

    The case does not go into detail about the firm’s practice management system, but states that the lawyer claims the client files are “secured electronically” which indicates they are using a cloud-based system to coordinate work among the lawyers in the firm. The lawyer also amended his website to explain the nature of the temporary, leased office space as “client meeting location” rather than permanent offices.

    Of all of the above grievances that were noted and responded to by the lawyer, the court in this case found that the lawyer was in violation of Virginia Rule of Professional Conduct 7.4 regarding communication of the fields of practice and certification, which requires compliance with 7.1 (related to misleading advertising). He was given public reprimand without terms for the violation.

    This disciplinary action raises interesting questions about law firms that outsource legal work to temporary lawyers for hire. Axiom is an example of a practice that leases lawyers to other firms to handle specific work. May these temporary, virtual practitioners be used by the firm for advertising purposes to hold out to the public that the firm provides legal assistance covering more practice areas than their permanent employees may cover? Or that the firm covers jurisdictions where those temporary lawyers are licensed but the primary law firm members are not?

    The Commission on Ethics 20/20 has asked for feedback regarding changes to Model Rule 5.5 and whether any are needed to address the concept of “virtual presence” under the UPL rule. How does the use of temporary virtual lawyers factor into this analysis?

    I am currently writing a book for the ABA/LPM on the topic of online marketing tools for lawyers and am researching the topic of how lawyers must comply with Model Rule 7.1 when using online forms of advertising. My opinion is that if you are going to be using temporary, outsourced lawyers and leased office space in multiple states, that it would be a violation of the Rules to misstate the nature of this law firm structure to the public in any advertising, online or traditional.

    But “misleading” is one thing and “giving them more info than they need to know” is another. Where do we draw the line in notifying the public about our business decisions and the business structures of our law firms?  How do we measure the potential harm to a public that is empowered to search online for alternative sources for legal assistance? [For the record, I am not disagreeing with the Virginia decision referenced above. I am merely posing a general question about the nuances of the term “misleading” in MR 7.1.]

    I think the core question is what is misleading to the public under Rule 7.1? It sounds like such a simple question, but lawyers love to complicate things so this won’t be the last time we will hear about these issues. (In fact, North Carolina recently published a draft ethics opinion discussing some of the these same issues related to false advertising of a lawyer’s law firm location and size.)

    Again, while virtual law firms obviously need to be hyper aware of online lawyer advertising restrictions, these new trends in law firm staffing, remote workers, and the use of cloud computing to connect practitioners across jurisdictions is applicable to all law firms, not just those that are delivering their legal services online to clients.

    [Thanks to Brock Rutter for sharing the Legal Profession Blog post about this with the elawyering task force listserv. Also, check out Bob Ambrogi’s post on this case on his LawSites blog.]

  • NC Proposed Ethics Opinion – Use of Leased Time-Shared Office Address

    There is a proposed North Carolina ethics opinion that may affect virtual practitioners who use leased time-shared offices or PO Boxes as addresses because they work from home or only need to meet with clients infrequently.

    Proposed 2012 Formal Ethics Opinion 6 “Use of  Leased Time-Shared Office Address or Post Office Address on Letterhead and Advertising” was considered by the NC State Bar Ethics Committee at their meeting on July 19, 2012. The proposed opinion will be published in the next issue of the State Bar’s Journal and public comments will be accepted. Depending on the feedback received, the Committee will either adopt the opinion or decide whether to drop or revise it before meeting again.

    For those of you familiar with the “bona fide office” rules of some states, the questions raised in the proposed opinion will ring a bell. (more…)

  • Update on the Ethics of Performance-Based Marketing

    Most lawyers who have researched ethics opinions related to online advertising are familiar with the Total Attorneys ethics matter, which began in April, 2009 when a single Connecticut lawyer filed an ethics complaint with the state bar disciplinary counsel in 47 states. The complaints targeted not just the company, but also more than 500 of its bankruptcy law firm customers. Here’s the final update on how this played out along with my thoughts on the significance of this process.

    Established in 2002, Total Attorneys is a cloud-based technology and marketing company that is the country’s oldest and largest performance-based lead generation provider to small law firms. As some of you probably know, this is the company that acquired VLOTech, the software that I co-created and use for my virtual practice. For those not familiar with advertising terminology (after all, we don’t typically receive business education in law school), a “lead” for a law firm would be a “prospective” client. (more…)

  • Standing Committee Recommends Deletion of Problematic Advertising Rule

    Remember how I wrote that virtual practitioners may need to collaborate with “branded network concepts” when updating their marketing strategies?  I also argue that this is necessary in the conclusion of my new book on unbundling because it’s a major component in increasing overall access to justice. Apparently I’m not the only one who sees the potential benefits to the public and the profession from the availability of newer online lawyer advertising methods.

    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. Model Rule 7.2(b) is the rule that prohibits a lawyer from giving anything of value for recommendation for his or her services with four exceptions. It is these exceptions and the speed at which online advertising methods have developed that has caused confusion and controversy over the past few years.

    The Committee’s letter provides a background on how changes in online advertising methods have impacted the options available to the public seeking legal services. Because one of the primary goals of the Committee is to increase access to justice for individuals of moderate income levels, they are quick to point out that these new online methods actually allow for individuals of all income levels to find both the lawyers that they could work with as well as other resources that empower them to make educated decisions about the legal services they might need. (more…)

  • Updating the Marketing Strategy for a Virtual Law Practice

     

    This Saturday I’m giving a live lecture focused on virtual law practice marketing strategy for my students in Concord Law School’s Small Business LLM program. I’m having the students slowly add in components of a business plan with each assignment so that by the end of the semester they have a complete and ready-to-implement business plan for a virtual law practice. Some of them are going to have completely web-based, unbundled practices and others are adding a virtual law office to their traditional, full-service offerings. Each form of virtual practice will require a unique marketing strategy based on their approach to providing unbundled services online and the state of their existing brand development.

    I’ve written about marketing issues in virtual practice on this blog before. But because marketing a virtual practice is so dependant upon web-based forms of marketing which changes at a crazy pace, your strategy has to be regularly re-evaluated and revised.

    Below are some bulleted tips and things to consider. Be warned, I am not even touching how social media plays into your strategy (which should be a major part) and for once, I’m not going to harp on ethical issues other than to tell you to check with your state bar and use some common sense.

    Start out by asking: (more…)

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