Virtual Law Practice

Category: SaaS

  • Slides: Engagement and Consumer Law

    This is a slide deck from a presentation I gave this morning as part of a panel for the South Carolina Law Review Symposium entitled, On Task?: Expanding the Boundaries of Legal Education. In it, I look at why increasing online engagement is critical for lawyers to think about, what methods of engagement might work, assessing engagement, and then the transfer that happens after engagement.

    There’s a good balance that must happen here between lawyers pulling in “leads” for new business and at the same time using these engagement methods to educate and empower the public to 1) know when they might have a legal need in the first place and to prevent issues before they happen, and 2) if they do have a legal need, having access to where to go for help (ie, intelligent matching systems). Another piece of the puzzle to explore.

  • Florida Publishes Proposed Cloud Computing Ethics Opinion

    FloridaOn January 25, 2013, the Professional Ethics Committee of the Florida State Bar published Proposed Advisory Opinion 12-3 2 related to the use of cloud computing in law practice.

    The proposed opinion refers to the ethics opinions already published in Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania. Here is a link to my post that lists state bar ethics opinions related to virtual law practice and cloud computing.

    This short proposed opinion in Florida also comes to a similar conclusion as most of the other states that have addressed the topic: Yes. It is o.k. to use cloud computing in law practice. However, there are precautions that the lawyer should take. And then the proposed opinion provides the usual caveats which essentially come down to using “reasonable care” in the selection and use of the technology in law practice to ensure compliance with the Rules of Professional Conduct (in particular Model Rule 1.6(a) regarding confidentiality).

    The conclusion of the opinion states:

    In summary, lawyers may use cloud computing if they take reasonable precautions to ensure that confidentiality of client information is maintained. The lawyer should research the service provider to be used, should ensure that the service provider maintains adequate security, should ensure that the lawyer has adequate access to the information stored remotely, and should consider backing up the data elsewhere as a precaution.

  • LTN Innovative Use of Tech Award

    InnovationI’m pleased to share the news that the virtual law firm I joined last spring, Burton Law LLC, has won a Legal Technology News 2012 Innovation Award in the category of Most Innovative Use of Technology in a Small Law Firm. Here is the ALM press release.

    I’ve described our firm’s tech structure on this blog before when I announced my move from solo virtual lawyering to this different structure of virtual practice. The LTN article announcing the award briefly explains the tech we use in the firm. However, we have also now added DirectLaw to the list of software that we use to deliver services to clients. As someone who has unbundled online services for the past seven years, getting the document automation and assembly piece of the puzzle into our firm’s structure was an important addition to the usual cloud-based delivery of legal work.

    You can read the LTN article’s brief description of our firm’s technology here. Chad Burton, the founder of our firm, will be attending LegalTechNY to receive the award for the firm. Chad is always one step ahead of the curve when it comes to exploring new technologies and processes that might be integrated into our firm’s model. Almost once a week he is sharing with us some new iPad app to increase personal productivity. I’m sure he’ll return from LegalTechNY with a few more new tools and ideas to share with the firm on Yammer.

    I was also very happy to see that John Mayer received an award as Champion of Technology for his work at CALI, eLangdell, and the A2J Author software. The article should have also mentioned the MOOC he developed last year on Digital Topics in Law Practice which is an awesome free online educational resource that all lawyers interested in virtual law practice should go through. Congrats on the well-deserved recognition, John!

  • Increasing Access with Tech: Report from LSC Tech Summit

    This week I attended the second of two Legal Services Corporation (LSC) Technology Summits. The overall mission presented in these Summits was:

    Use technology to provide some form of effective assistance to 100% of persons otherwise unable to afford an attorney for dealing with essential civil legal needs.

    I want to share some of the progress of this Summit towards this goal because I believe virtual lawyers and elawyering from the private bar are key components in using technology to increase access. Keeping all the troops updated seems like a smart idea to me.

    [Typical lawyer disclaimer: This is my own personal report from the meeting so it’s only my take-aways and not that of the collective.]

    This second summit was a smaller gathering of individuals including state-based and national legal aid organizations, the private bar, technologists, administrators in the court, judges, law librarians, programmers, entrepreneurs, academics, and ethics experts. While the first summit was focused on Blue Sky thinking, this second one was for implementation of those ideas into a more concrete plan to move forward.

    Prior to attending the Summit, we were all invited to use Marc Lauritsen’s choiceboxing tool to prioritize the issues we had identified during the first summit. This was a great way to narrow down the collective’s priorities so that we could break out into smaller groups to address these issues.

    The five technologies chosen as the focus included 1) document assembly for self-represented litigants, 2) better triage, 3) mobile technologies, 4) expert systems and checklists, and 5) remote service delivery.

    On the final day of the summit, John Gracean pulled together each of the break-out group’s reports into a single plan and we focused on strategy. My take-aways from this summit are listed below, most of which come from my Twitter stream:

    1. Collaboration is going to be necessary between legal services, private practitioners, courts, and for-profit companies that provide online legal services to the public.
    2. Unbundled legal services are going to be a key component because trying to achieve 100% full service access is not realistic.
    3. Any solution should not focus solely on providing access to justice to the poor but be expanded to include all of those who cannot afford legal services. Opening up a system that would allow for practitioners to volunteer with the potential to make some money doing low-bono work would increase the incentive to volunteer.
    4. A secure access portal for remote delivery is necessary. The expert systems for triage, the document assembly and automation tools, access to mobile resources, and other tools, such as web advisors for self-help representatives (A2J, for example) may be accessible from that secure space. Referrals to the appropriate legal assistance for the individual’s need would be made from that portal to legal aid, self-help resources, private bar members willing to do pro bono and/or reduced fee unbundling or full-service, and maybe even for-profit companies with networks of lawyers willing to deliver services online.
    5. One idea we had in a break-out group was to have an X Prize. Lay out the mission statement and make it an open contest rather than limit the R&D to LSC or legal services resources. Put competition in the marketplace to work for the benefit of access. A legal hackathon as was mentioned in the first summit might also be a fun exercise and provide some different sets of eyes reviewing the issues at hand. A few people were squeamish with the work “hackathon” for lack of understanding so that may be something for someone else to organize for fun.
    6. Here are my tweets and a few RTs from the event in order of last to first: (more…)

  • Updated List of Products that Facilitate Virtual Law Practice

    I have finally updated the list of products and services used by virtual law firms whether its for direct online delivery of legal services to clients or for remote lawyering in general.

    This fall I taught a course on technology in law practice which required that I research and update myself on all of the new products and services out there, including iPad and other mobile device apps that could be used in practice management for a virtual law firm. The updated list is here. As always, suggestions are welcome.

  • Massachusetts Bar Association Publishes Cloud Computing Ethics Opinion

    The Massachusetts Bar Association published Ethics Opinion 12-03 regarding the use of cloud computing in law practice, specifically referring to lawyers’ use of Google docs. The scenario posed in the opinion is this: “A lawyer wishes to store and synchronize the electronic work files that he creates in the course of his law practice across multiple computers and devices (e.g., smartphones, iPads, etc.) so that he can access them remotely.”

    The question posed is “whether it [the use of cloud computing] would violate Lawyer’s obligations under the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct to store confidential client information using Google docs or some other Internet based storage solution, and to synchronize his computers and other devices that contain or access such information over the Internet.”

    This opinion mirrors several that we have seen in the past year that focus on compliance with Rule 1.6 and protection of the client’s confidentiality. (more…)

  • Stanford CodeX Speaker Presentation Video

    Last week I gave a presentation at Stanford Law School entitled “Unbundling and the Future of Legal Service Delivery.” There was a good turnout and we had some great questions from the attendees at the end of the talk which I enjoyed.

    Thanks again to Stanford CodeX and the Stanford Center on the Legal Profession for inviting me out there to share my thoughts on these topics. I am introduced by Tony Lai, one of the founders of LawGives, a legal tech startup working with CodeX and StartX, that I also had the pleasure of spending time with while in Palo Alto. Below is the video from my talk.

  • Release of iPad App for Virtual Practice

    Today, the Apple Apps Store has released the Total Attorneys practice management platform’s iPad and iPhone app.  This clean app allows a lawyer to operate a law practice from the iPad and/or iPhone with secure access to the virtual law office platform. Case and client management features are all integrated into the app, and it syncs with the full browser version of the software. It is free for lawyers who have subscribed to the Total Attorney’s platform ($1/month for the service).

    When I logged in for the first time, everything from my virtual law office was pulled in. I can view my tasks, agenda, documents, case files, contacts, leads, and billing. There is a central dashboard to show me recent activities and tasks that are marked due for today. There is also search functionality with filtering by type so that I can quickly find the files or client information that I need. There is also a timer at the top of the app that allows me to track my time. Even though I don’t use the billable hour, it’s still great to be able to record time spend on a web conference with a client or call that can be recorded into their digital file. This is really a clean, beautifully designed app that I will probably end up using more than the full browser version of the system.

    Congratulations to the team at TA who were involved in making this happen (this especially includes my hardworking programmer husband who kept me informed of their progress along the way)!  There has been much discussion about how lawyers need to be careful about using mobile devices for elawyering. I believe a secure system like this that carries over the encryption and other security measures from the full version is the safer way to go if you are a lawyer who intends to work directly with clients and/or with their case files or other lawyers on a cloud-based system.

  • NC Cloud Computing Opinion Published

     

    At its meeting on January 27, the NC State Bar Council adopted and published the last version of 2011 Formal Ethics 6 “Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property”.  The last version of this opinion was sent to subcommittee in July 2011, but the discussion over the structure of the opinion has been almost a year and a half-long process. At one point, a draft of the opinion contained a list of minimum requirements for the use of SaaS which raised some concern with NC lawyers as well as others nationwide who are interested in the development of legal technology.

    The final conclusion of the published Opinion:

    a law firm may contract with a vendor of software as a service provided the lawyer uses reasonable care to safeguard confidential client information.

    The ethics subcommittee that reviewed this issue should be commended for the amount of research and thought that they put into this process. They pulled in experts on both sides on the fence on the issue of using SaaS in law practice and really made an effort to understand the broad impact that the opinion would make on NC practitioners in a variety of practices. At one point, experts in online banking, which also relies on strict security standards for the use of SaaS, were called in to provide their perspective.

    Here are some key items to notice in this opinion: (more…)

  • New Version of NC SaaS Ethics Opinion

     

    The NC Bar has published the revised version of it proposed ethics opinion entitled “Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property”, 2011 FEO 6 on the website. It will also be published in the next issue of the NC State Bar Journal. 

    You can read some of the history of this opinion in this post.  After a year or more of subcommittee review and revision, this latest version will hopefully be the final one that the Ethics Committee recommends for adoption by the Council at their January meeting.

    The subcommittee removed the list of minimum requirements for the selection of a technology vendor. Many of the items on the list had raised concern as detailed here by myself and others. The new version of the opinion sticks with the “reasonable care” standard requiring the attorney to do his or her due diligence in researching the technology and any third-party provider. The proposed opinion states:

    …a law firm may use SaaS if reasonable care is taken to minimize the risks of inadvertent disclosure of confidential information and to protect the security of client information and client files. A lawyer must fulfill the duties to protect confidential client information and to safeguard client files by applying the same diligence and competency to manage the risks of SaaS that the lawyer is required to apply when representing clients.

    (more…)

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