Virtual Law Practice

Category: Residency Requirements

  • Bona Fide Office Rule In the News Again

    delawareThe Bona Fide Office Rule has reappeared in the news again. This time it’s an Opinion from the Delaware Supreme Court.

    I’ve written about the Bona Fide Office rule here several times, mostly with regard to New Jersey’s joint ethics opinion on the subject. Other states have been revisiting surrounding issues in terms of the lawyer’s requirements to provide certain contact information on his or her website or other advertising and in that requirement calling for some physical office address.

    Bona Fide Office rules discourage lawyers from finding alternative and often more affordable methods of delivering legal services to clients. Requiring that a member of the bar provide contact information to the regulatory body is obviously necessary. Requiring that a lawyer provide his or her clients with a reliable method of contacting the lawyer is also necessary.

    However, a lawyer does not need to maintain a traditional, physical law office seven days a week during 9-5 business hours in order to accomplish either of these. He or she does not have to retain the services of an employee to work at that law office in order to answer the phone when the lawyer is not present to accomplish adequate and reliable communication with his or her clients.

    The Supreme Court of Delaware recently issued an Opinion that suspended a lawyer who worked from his home office in Pennsylvania while practicing Delaware law. The lawyer’s violation of their Bona Fide Office Rule 12 was not the only item at issue in this opinion which is why I will not go into it in detail except for their discussion of the Bona Fide Office Rule. Why? Because that part of the Opinion will mostly like be read by other lawyers in Delaware and potentially discourage them from considering virtual law practice and delivering legal services online to clients.

    According to the Court:

    “[t]he Rule requires that the office “be a place where the attorney or a responsible person acting on the attorney’s behalf can be reached in person or by telephone,” and have “the customary facilities for engaging in the practice of law.”

    Delaware Supreme Court Rule 12(d) (the Bona Fide Office Rule) states:

    “(d) Office for the practice of law. As used in these rules, an “office for the practice of law” means a  bona fide office maintained in this State for the practice of law in which the attorney practices by being  there a substantial and scheduled portion of time during ordinary business hours in the traditional work  week. An attorney is deemed to be in an office even if temporarily absent from it if the duties of the law  practice are actively conducted by the attorney from that office. An office must be a place where the  attorney or a responsible person acting on the attorney’s behalf can be reached in person or by telephone  during normal business hours and which has the customary facilities for engaging in the practice of law.  A bona fide office is more than a mail drop, a summer home which is unattended during a substantial portion of the year or an answering, telephone forwarding, secretarial or similar service.”

    There is no mention of the possibility of the lawyer working from home and delivering legal services in unbundled fashion to his or her clients online. There is no mention of the use of temporary/as needed renting of office space so that the lawyer can meet with the clients for full service representation, but continue to conduct the majority of their work with clients online. This is an outdated rule.

    There is technology available to securely work with clients online. This technology decreases the cost of overhead of a traditional law office which in turn decreases the cost of legal fees.  There is NO EXCUSE why States should not consider alternative forms of legal service delivery. People need more access to lawyers, not less!

    The lawyer that was suspended in this case was only using the phone to call his clients. There was no mention of any secure client portal or other virtual law office technology. But it’s the way that the Court addressed this Rule in their Opinion that disturbs me. They must start thinking outside of the Bona Fide Office Rule. It does not make sense anymore on so many levels to restrict how lawyers communicate with clients to in-person visits. Supporting an outdated Bona Fide Office Rule is a barrier that is going to continue to discourage lawyers from finding innovative and cost-effective ways to serve the public and increase access.

    See these other posts about the Delaware Opinion from Niki Black and in the ABA Journal.

  • NJ Supreme Court Adopts Amendments to Bona Fide Office Rule 1:21-1

    New JerseyAdopted Amendments to NJ Supreme Court Rule 1:21-1 will be effective February 1 of this year. This is the “bona fide office” rule that I’ve written about on here before. Thanks to Ekaterina Schoenefeld for sharing a copy of the Notice and Amendments.

    Here is a quick rundown of the amendments. The bona fide office rule now states that a lawyer does not need a physical location, but does have to make sure the practice is conducted in a way to ensure “prompt and reliable communication with and accessibility by clients, other counsel, and judicial and administrative tribunals”.

    To comply, the lawyer may designate “one or more fixed physical locations where the client files and attorney’s business and financial records may be inspected on short notice…where mail or hand-deliveries may be made and promptly received, and where process may be served…including disciplinary actions….” [I still wonder: What could be more accessible and done “on short notice” than giving access to your cloud-based practice?] (more…)

  • 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…)

  • NJ May Revise Bona Fide Office Rule

    The New Jersey State Supreme Court Professional Responsibility Rules Committee has recommended an amendment to the bona fide office rule, Rule 1:21-1(a). The proposed changes would no longer require that the lawyer provide a physical office location as long as the lawyer was accessible by his or her clients, the courts and other lawyers, including for purposes of service of process.

    The changes proposed by the committee would overrule the Joint Opinion issued in March 25, 2010 that drew much criticism for denying lawyers the freedom under Rule 1:21-1(a) to use a temporary office location or shared office space with a shared receptionist claiming that such arrangements did not provide sufficient access for clients, courts and other lawyers for lack of a 9-5 traditional business hour office structure. Virtual law practitioners who wished to work from home offices were upset by the Joint Opinion that required that they place their home contact information on any advertising for their practice or on their website.

    This Committee’s proposed changes would allow lawyers, especially those whose work is primarily transactions-based, to use alternative office locations other than a traditional brick and mortar structure. The proposed change are at the bottom of this post.

    However, because they have included access “for service of process”, inspection of records and HAND DELIVERIES,  (more…)

  • NY’s Lawyer Residency Requirements Held Unconstitutional

    A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post for the NC Law Blog entitled “What Contact Information Must a Non-Traditional Law Firm Provide?“. The post discussed how more non-traditional law offices are opening up, many of them delivering legal services online, and how this is raising the question of how to comply with residency requirements, bona fide office rules and providing accessible contact information for a firm that may not have a physical office location in the jurisdiction to which the legal matter pertains. In the past, I’ve written about how residency requirements can be a barrier to entry for a virtual law practice: “Residency Requirements and the Virtual Law Practice.”

    Last week brought good news on this front.  A U.S. District Court Judge in the North District of New York issued an opinion finding that New York’s Judicial Code Section 470 (which creates a residency requirement for members of the NY Bar) infringed on an attorney’s right to practice NY law.  Section 470 was last reenacted in 1945 and hasn’t been changed since then. An overhaul was long overdue.

    In a nutshell, the court found New York’s residency requirement to be unconstitutional.  For a great summary of the opinion read Carolyn Elefant’s post and follow the link out to the full opinion. This decision comes down from the interesting case of Attorney Ekaterina Schoenefeld who filed a lawsuit against the State of New York claiming that by requiring an attorney to maintain a physical law office in the state, New York law discriminates unconstitutionally against attorneys who are out-of-state.

    What I most enjoyed about this opinion was the judge’s willingness to reconsider how we define accessibility in an age when almost all of us are connected online.  As long as the attorney is transparent about where he or she is actually located and working on the client’s legal matter, the question of the need for physical location within the jurisdiction should be based on the needs of the client, the case, and the surrounding circumstances.  As the opinion notes, it would have been more physically convenient for an attorney working in NJ to drive over to courthouse in NY City than it would be for an attorney in Buffalo to drive down. (page 18 of the opinion)

    Even if it is appealed to the Second Circuit, the fact that this issue has been brought to the forefront and reconsidered as a requirement for members of the NY Bar may prompt other states to revisit the effectiveness of their existing residency requirements. As more virtual law offices spring up across the country, it will continue to be a question they will need to address.

     

  • Practicing Law Without An Office Address: Law Review Article Published

    Below is a law review article I wrote recently for the University of Dayton Law Review, Volume 36:1, entitled “Practicing Law Without an Office Address: How the Bona Fide Office Requirement Affects Virtual Law Practice.” 


    PRACTICING LAW WITHOUT AN OFFICE - From the law review article (see citations in full version above):

    This Article will examine virtual law practice as a necessary and inevitable solution to the globalization of law firms and the lack of access to justice in our country, and it will consider how bona fide office requirements in some states may work against this practice management method. Recent changes to the legal profession due to the globalization of law firms, trends in outsourcing of legal services, and the public demand for online legal services all indicate the need for a wider variety of law practice management structures with continued accountability and connection between the legal practitioner and the state bar. (more…)

  • Ethics Considerations: Guest Post on Mass. LOMAP Blog

    The final guest post in my three-part series for the Massachusett’s Law Office Management Assistance Program (LOMAP) has posted on the blog.  This final post covers ethics considerations in virtual law practice including both the attorney’s responsibility to thoroughly research their software provider as well as best practices for the ethical management of a virtual law office.  

    Below is the introduction to the post.  Many thanks to Jared Correia for the opportunity to share my research and writing with the readers of the LOMAP blog.

    From the guest post:

    The delivery of legal services online carries with it a number of ethical concerns; however, these ethical concerns are not all that unlike those that have traditionally been addressed by offline law firms. The online lawyer is able to mitigate risks associated with virtual law practice just as a traditionally-practicing attorney would with an offline practice when, for example, installing and using software for law practice management. There are two separate categories of ethics matters to address in connection with the virtual practice of law. The first pertains to the attorney’s duty in selecting the service provider that will be setting up, hosting and maintaining the virtual law practice. With any cloud computing service, there are precautions that must be observed in researching and choosing a software provider. The second category of potential ethics concerns relates to the attorney’s daily operation of the virtual law office; and, the focus there is on ways to mitigate potential malpractice risks when working with clients online. Further issues related to each category are discussed in greater detail below; and, in addition, suggestions are made and additional resources are pointed to, for further guidance.

    You can read the rest of the guest post on the LOMAP blog.

  • Revising Ethics Rules to Facilitate Virtual Law Practice

    I’m on a panel discussion this morning at the ABA Annual Meeting about the impact of technology and globalization on ethics for the 21st century lawyer.  One of the questions that I expect will come up will be about the need for ethics rules to be revised to reflect the changes in practice management that involve virtual law practice and cloud computing.  Which rules do I think need to be revised?

    Based on my research, not many state bar ethics rules or advisory opinions actually address the use of cloud computing or the delivery of legal services online.  The North Carolina State Bar’s proposed opinion related to SaaS in law practice managment that was published this summer is one of the first to my knowledge.  There are opinions out there that are related to the hosting of law office data by third-party providers, but none that really discuss the actual delivery of legal services online to clients. 

    My main concern with the development of any future ethics opinions is that they should not attempt to define the technology too narrowly.  This is a problem that attorneys have now in trying to interpret the existing rules and regulations based on way that they were drafted years ago.  Try figuring out how to apply rules related to email, fax and cell phone usage to the cloud computing apps you currently use in practice management.  There is a lot of uncertainty in trying to comply with the rules when the rules weren’t really written to take the rapid growth of technology into consideration.  (more…)

  • Another Opinion Related to Residency Requirements

    If you are keeping up with developments in the bona fide office rules or residency requirements of state bars that govern the practice of law, you might want to read through this recent opinion: In the Matter of the APPLICATION OF CARLTON, No. 10-mc-160 U.S. District Court D. Maryland (April 26, 2010).  I’ve only got the Westlaw citation for it: 2010 WL 1707722 (D.Md.).  I’ll link to it if it ever makes its way online into the zone of free research. 

    The attorney in this case worked from home in Massachusetts for a law firm based in the District of Columbia. She is licensed in the District of Columbia, but not in Massachusetts. The opinion held that her law practice is in D.C. even though she lives in MA and that she was not in violation of a Maryland local rule regarding “principal law office” location.  The opinion discusses the attorney’s use of technology to provide legal services online and collaborate with her firm in D.C. 

    This is another example of where elawyering is called into question because of outdated rules and regulations that do not take into consideration the methods now available to attorneys to ethically and responsibility provide services online.  At least the outcome is a positive one.  It’s worth a read if you keeping up with new development on this topic.

  • NJ Bona Fide Office Rule and Virtual Law Offices

    NJ Bona Fide Office Rule and Virtual Law PracticeNew Jersey’s Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics and the Committee on Attorney Advertising released a joint opinion dated March 25 that states that even when an attorney hires a virtual assistant or receptionist or shares a rented office space for conferences to attempt to create an office presence in the state, this does not create a “bona fide office” that complies with the state’s residency requirements for practicing law.

    This opinion limits attorneys licensed in New Jersey to having a physical law office where clients may call during regular business hours.  Such restriction on business discriminates against many solos and in particular women attorneys who may need to practice law from home, but for personal and security reasons, they do not want to provide their home address or phone number to clients.

    The opinion refers to “virtual offices” but defines them as “a type of time-share arrangement whereby one leases the right to reserve space in an office building on an hourly or daily basis” and does not address web-based, virtual law offices or the use of technology to deliver legal services online.  From the discussion in the opinion it may be assumed that any law practice without a physical, dedicated office building would be included as violating Rule 1:21-1(a).

    How this restriction will affect solos and small firms wanting to form completely virtual law offices is yet to be seen. However, the joint opinion does allow for attorneys with traditional law practice to also operate virtual law office with adequate notice to prospective clients of the firm’s physical office location. This does not sound like it protects the solo practitioner wanting to operate a home-based virtual law office. Or an attorney located in another state who is licensed in NJ and wants to provide NJ legal services through their virtual law office. (more…)

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