Virtual Law Practice

Month: January 2011

  • Death, Succession Planning & the Virtual Law Office

    Death.  The issue recently crept up in a presentation I gave about virtual law practice.  Then, the question that most of us like to avoid came up again on a personal level when in December I needed open surgery myself and in preparation started questioning what would happen to my virtual law office if I weren’t around to handle things. 

    What happens to a completely virtual law office upon the death of a solo, virtual practitioner? 

    All lawyers are aware that they need to have some form of succession planning in place.  In fact, some would argue that it is unethical practice not to have a plan in place that protects your clients and their property that is entrusted into your care.  

    ABA Formal Opinion 92-369 provides that “[t]he sole practitioner should have a [succession] plan in place.” For solo practitioners this issue is even more critical because there may not be anyone else involved in the day to day practice that would know how to notify clients of the death of their lawyer or even how to access the client’s files in order to return their property.  For a virtual law office that is completely web-based, the other issue is that the law office data is hosted in the cloud.  Without some plan in place, how does the SaaS provider know how to proceed?

    A sample scenario: An attorney who operates a completely web-based virtual law office dies unexpectedly without a plan in place.  The SaaS provider sends the attorney’s invoice for the service each month as usual and then follows up with late notices when it does not receive any payment or response from the attorney.  The attorney’s clients are still able to access their secure homepages on the virtual law office, but are not receiving any online responses from the attorney.  (more…)

  • Welcome Competition – Pushing Virtual Law Practice Into the Mainstream

    Be prepared this year to see major changes in new legal SaaS products that promote the online delivery of legal services.  Also expect to see greater acceptance of virtual law practice by the mainstream legal profession as legal SaaS vendors band together to set standards for the industry.  Larger players in the legal technology industry are diving into offering web-based case and client management applications and new investments are being made in innovations focused on web-based delivery of legal services.

    First, Total Attorneys, the company that acquired VLOTech, the start-up tech company that I co-founded, announced last week that it received growth capital investment from BIA Digital Partners II LP.  With this new funding, the company will be able to take their virtual law office platform to a new level of development.  (more…)

  • WebJD: Online Self-Diagnosis of Legal Ailments?

    I’ll confess that I use WebMD’s symptom checker way more than I should.  Sometime it’s to reassure myself that the situation does not warrant a trip to the doctor’s office.  I like the user interface – the fact that I don’t have to come up with a multitude of keywords for symptoms, but can just scroll over the photo of the adult or child and pinpoint the source of my worries. I like that from that point I can use a process of elimination and in a few steps have a list of possible ailments with descriptions of them and suggestions for proceeding with care.

    When the alternative is spending half a day in a doctor’s waiting room, I will take the online self-diagnosis any day.  Sometimes the answers I get just lead to more questions and I actually do end up making that appointment.  But, for the most part, this web advisor answers my question, eases my worry, and I wait and see what happens. 

    Could the legal profession provide something similar for the public?  A “WebJD” webadvisor that helps you figure out what area of law your need is in and what the different types of solutions you might need for that issue?   There are a ton of legal referral sites and directories, but if I were the client I’d want to run a self-diagnosis before I started shopping online for an attorney. 

    I’m familiar with the AJ2 Author and how it walks the client through a process of answering questions until the end where the final legal document is completed with instructions.  There is a similar concept that Foundrs.com has perfected which has virtual incorporation for business ideas and startups to handle the business planning and create unbundled legal documents with online assistance before taking them in to an attorney’s office.  See TechCrunch’s article on FairSoftware.  I’m thinking of something different though; a web advisor that’s even simpler and for lower-level legal guidance without even the document assembly component.  (more…)

  • CA Ethics Opinion: Duty of Confidentiality & Use of Wireless

    The California State Bar has published its newest ethics opinion, FEO 2010-179, related to the use of technology in law practice, specifically addressing the attorney’s duty of confidentiality to clients when using technology that may be accessed by a third-party.  Given the wording of the opinion, this could include everything from an attorney using wireless to connect to the Internet to any cloud computing application used to store or transmit law office data. 

    The specific scenario that the opinion poses will be familiar to those of us engaging in virtual law practice and who deliver legal services online:  The attorney takes his or her firm-provided laptop to a cafe and accesses the public wireless to transmit information to the client and to conduct legal research on a case. The attorney in the scenario also takes his or her work laptop home and conducts work using a personal home wireless connections.  What does the attorney have to do to ensure that he or she is upholding the duty of confidentiality and competence to the client? 

    The opinion was published in December 2010 after an extended period of review and specifically phrases the issue as:

    Does an attorney violate the duties of confidentiality and competence he or she owes to a client by using technology to transmit or store confidential client information when the technology may be susceptible to unauthorized access by third parties?

    (more…)

  • The Xemplar Attorney

    I’m honored to be named the first Xemplar Attorney, a new project sponsored by LexisNexis to acknowledge and encourage attorneys to use innovation in law practice.  The project has an incredible board of well-known attorneys, including Bob Ambrogi,  Nicole Black, Rodney Dowell, Carolyn Elefant and Gina Madsen, who will select an attorney each month to feature on the site.

    Others may submit contributions to the project and nominate another attorney to be featured.  I’m excited to have been included in this project and am looking forward to seeing the many innovative attorneys that it will put a spotlight on.

  • Heading into Year 6 with my Virtual Law Office

    2011 will be the sixth year that I have delivered legal services online using my virtual law office.  Many of the changes I have seen since that first year have been positive.  

    There is greater acceptance within the profession of the use of technology to deliver legal services.  New software products have been developed that allow attorneys in firms of all sizes to communicate and work with their clients and each other over the Internet.  Many courts across the nation now require efiling and some non-profit organizations have implemented cloud computing solutions that provide self-help to the pro se litigant.  More virtual law firms have emerged with different models of providing unbundled legal services to the public.  This is encouraging progress. 

    The number of traditional law firms adding client portals and virtual law offices has risen slightly more than the number of completely web-based law firms.  This is probably due to continued concerns and misunderstandings about the use of cloud computing in law practice management and using a third-party company to host law office data.   It may also be due to the difficulty that some completely web-based virtual law offices have in building their online client base and generating the number of prospective clients necessary to make this form of practice possible. 

    As the ABA’s Commission on Ethics 20/20 evaluates the use of the Internet as a client development tool over this next year, there is the possibility that we may see regulations making online marketing of a virtual law office more difficult.  So the trend of VLOs growing faster in traditional, brick & mortar law offices will probably continue. 

    Even BigLaw firms, such as Rimon Law, have created their own client portals and seem to be focusing more on delivering services online to clients directly.  Once BigLaw embraces the virtual law office, I’ll predict that we see much faster acceptance across the board. 

    Some interesting trends, some positive and others annoying, that I’ve seen in my own virtual law practice over the past five years: (more…)

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