Virtual Law Practice

Category: Ethics

  • Pennsylvania Ethics Opinion on Virtual Law Offices

    Pennsylvania Bar Association Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility has published an ethics opinion, FEO 2010-200, which from this Lawyers USA news snip-it apparently approves of virtual law offices.   The ethics opinions accessible online through the PA State Bar site are for members only.  If anyone licensed in PA would care to share this opinion with the rest of us, it would be greatly appreciated. 

    There are so few opinions out there that discuss virtual law practice that it’s important that we all share perspectives on the subject for a full understanding of how the profession is using technology to deliver legal services online.  Especially in a world of multijurisdictional virtual law firms, keeping an ethics opinion on virtual law offices hidden may not be in anyone’s best interests.

  • New ABA Ethics Opinion on Websites

    The ABA has published a short description of its efforts to examine the impact of technology, including cloud computing & SaaS, social media and websites, and has released a new ethics opinion related to attorney websites.  

    Last week I wrote a post about the Commission’s call for comments related to cloud computing and protecting client confidences.  On October 14th, they will hold a public hearing to gather information from interested individuals and entities on the subject.  

    The ABA’s review of technology in law practice management is being conducted through the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 created in 2009 by then ABA President Carolyn Lamm.  One goal of the commission is to review the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct to see if revisions are needed given the changes that technology has brought to the practice of law.  Part of this review also involves an examination of the regulation of attorneys in our country and how the current system may or may not be working well given the increase in globalization of law firms, outsourcing trends and the use of technology to facilitate these practices.   

    More recently, the ABA has released a new ethics opinion pertaining to attorney websites.  The opinion was issued on August 5 of this year, but has only now been posted online.  Formal Opinion 10-457 covers the use of a website by an attorney as a way to communicate with prospective clients.  (more…)

  • No Substitute for an Attorney

    During yesterday’s ABA ELawyering Task Force call, we discussed the recent settlement agreement entered into by LegalZoom and the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.

    In an Assurance of Discontinuation, the online legal services company must not state in advertising to the public that its services are less expensive than those of a law firm without also explaining that its services are not a substitute for an attorney.   With the far-reaching and well-funded advertising campaigns of the company, it is easy to see how the message may be misleading to members of the public, many of whom may have never retained the services of a licensed attorney and who may only have the price points and t.v. ads with which to make a judgement.

    One of the statements in Assurance of Discontinuation pertains to the unauthorized practice of law in the state of Washington – a claim we have seen issued against the company in N.C. and Missouri.  While LegalZoom does not admit to UPL in this document, it does agree not to engage in UPL with regards to providing personalized legal guidance that is state-specific within the legal self-help forms.  

    Other concerns that myself and others have brought up in the past related to the practices of online legal service companies are also covered in the agreement.  It will be interesting to see if other state attorney generals will take notice of this and implement similar actions. 

    Here is the  Assurance of Discontinuation:

    WA & LegalZoom Assurance of Discontinuation

  • Social Media for the Legal Professional

    This past weekend I presented a CLE session for the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys (NCAWA) annual meeting on the topic of social media for legal professionals. Anyone involved in virtual law practice needs to understand social media and how it can be used to market a virtual law office, but also about how online clients might attempt to contact the virtual lawyer using these methods and how to tactfully handle that.

    I’ve had online clients attempt to “friend” me on Facebook or chat on Twitter, but I’ve created a policy for my solo virtual law practice not to “friend” or “follow” clients and to let them know up-front that I won’t use unencyrpted or non-secure methods of communicating with them. Most of the relationships I have within the legal professional are for the most part created and conducted completely online using whatever social media app is trending at the time. It’s an invaluable part of my professional networking so I enjoyed the opportunity to share some of my methods and recommendations at the NCAWA Annual Meeting.

    This presentation covered the basics of social media how-tos with a healthy dose of “watch out for x” and “monitor y”. I also provided suggestions for creating consistent online reputations for law firms using social media and discussed how attorneys might implement social media policies for their firm and educate firm members and even clients about procedures the firm has adopted for the use of social media.

    Here are the slides from the presentation. The final slide has a list of recommended resources for further reading up on the topic.

    Social Media and the Legal Profe

  • Call for Comments – ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission Reviews Cloud Computing and Client Confidentiality

    This afternoon the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 sent an email through the listserv announcing a public hearing in mid-October in Chicago.  The Commission is looking for comments on two topics: 1) “Client Confidentiality and Lawyers’ Use of Technology” and 2)  “Lawyers’ Use of Internet Based Client Development Tools.”  I’ve uploaded the first of these issues papers which you can review here: 


    ABA Ethics Commission 20/20: For Comment: Issues Paper Concerning Client Confidentiality and Lawyers’ Use of Technology

    Most of the issues discussed in this paper have some impact on virtual law practice.  One of the Commission’s suggested options for action is to “propose amendments to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, such as Model Rules 1.1 (competency), 1.6 (duty of confidentiality), 1.15 (safeguarding client property), or the comments to those Rules.”  

    Therefore, it’s important that those of us interested in the delivery of legal service online take the time to read this paper, and if there is a perspective that is missing, to submit a comment before the deadline of December 15, 2010.   I contributed Chapter Three of my book and may submit a comment as well after I’ve had time to review and digest the two issues papers again.

  • Technology eReport Features ELawyering

    The September issue of the Technology eReport from the ABA GP, Solo and Small Firm Division has a feature article on elawyering written by virtual lawyering pioneer, Richard Granat.  The article is entitled “Doing Law on the Web: eLawyering for Competitive Advantage” and provides an introduction to elawyering or virtual lawyering, but also goes into a great description of web-enabled document automation and how this can be used to deliver legal services to clients online.

    Also cited in the article is the evidence of growing demand by the public for online legal services.  Granat writes,

    A recent survey of more than 2,000 online users revealed that a majority of consumers expect good law firms to offer their services online in the next couple of years. The online poll revealed that nearly half (47%) of consumers would be more likely to choose a law firm that offered the convenience of online access to legal services and documents over one that had no online service capability. Some 56 percent said they expected good law firms to give customers the ability to use their services online in the next couple of years. Over two-fifths (43%) agreed that they would change law firms if an alternative firm offered a reduced fee in return for the consumer providing initial details about their matter online.

    This is good news for those of us with a virtual law office who have seen the demand from our online clients, but have not seen any report published to confirm this.

  • Michigan Bar Journal Article: Best Practice Tips for the Virtual Law Office

    September’s issue of the Michigan Bar Journal features an article that I wrote entitled “Best Practice Tips for the Virtual Law Office.”  The article summarizes some of the potential malpractice risks of using technology to deliver legal services online and then discuss ways to mitigate those risks. 

  • Virtual Law Pratice at ILTA

    This past week’s ILTA conference was full of great insight about disruptive technologies, virtual law practice and the changes that are expected in practice management as a result.  I wasn’t able to attend the conference in person, but I managed to collect materials and information presented at key sessions.  Here’s what I picked up without the travel expenses and jet lag.

    The Legal Current blog posted about an ILTA session entitled “A New View of the Automated Law Firm.”  The session explained how the commoditization of legal services is leading to the need for automation of the workflow in law practices.  Document assembly and automation will help to streamline the delivery of legal services to meet the consumer demand for legal services based on a fixed fee model.  Here are the slides from that presentation.

    Darryl Mountain, expert on disruptive technologies and document automation, and Marc Lauritsen, co-chair of the ABA elawyering task force and author of The Lawyer’s Guide to Working Smarter With Knowledge Tools, presented a session entitled “Harnessing Disruptive Technologies”.  The slides for that presentation are here.  They covered the nature of disruptive technologies and look at technologies that can be used to create “substantive legal work.”  The presentation slides cover document assembly, web-based document automation and virtual law practice.  Lauritsen covered choiceboxing, an interactive decision support system which has multiple potential forms of application in elawyering and choice management.  The slides also list two stumbling blocks to the use of disruptive technologies in law practice: “1. the knowledge acquisition bottleneck and 2. ethical rules of the legal profession.” (more…)

  • Videos: Ethics and the Virtual Law Office

    Below are two videos taken at ABA Annual a couple weeks ago that were just published on the Legal Currents blog.  I’m talking about virtual law practice, where I see it going in the future and about some of the key ethics issues for attorneys to be aware of before adding a virtual law office to their practice management.

  • Update on Proposed NC Ethics Opinion on Cloud Computing

    I was notified this past week that the NC Bar Ethics Committee met at the end of July and decided to send the proposed ethics opinion, 2010 FEO 7 “Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property” to a subcommittee for further study.  They will be providing an update on the status of the opinion again after the Ethics Committee’s meeting in October. 

    Is anyone aware of other state bar committees that are reviewing this topic?  I believe that the ABA Center for Professionalism is currently reviewing cloud computing and considering the need to create some form of guidance or regulation related to the use of it in practice management.  The elawyering task force is also working on drafting guidelines for the use of cloud computing.   It would be great to know if there are other state bar initiatives related to SaaS, cloud computing or virtual law practice.

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