Virtual Law Practice

Month: June 2011

  • Guest Post: A Quest to Modernize the Legal Profession

    The following guest post was written by John Wires.  John is part of the Foredex initiative to have all lawyers in Ontario connected online. He practices corporate commercial litigation at Wires Jolley LLP (www.wiresjolleyllp.com) in Toronto.

    I read about this project and was impressed with its broad implications for virtual law practice and greater access to justice in Canada. Could an initiative like this be duplicated in the States?  Some court systems here are attempting to take part of the process online, but nothing on this scale that integrates legal research, case law, local rules, etc. in one online space with regular contributors and a strong online community.  This is something to watch.  A big “thank you” to John for sharing this initiative.
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    The legal system in Canada is facing a crisis. In Ontario, the average cost of a trial is now well over $60,000. Courts are backlogged with 80,000 cases being filed each year and less than 300 judges to hear and manage them. Despite numerous reports by the Attorney General the courts have been slow to adopt appropriate technology to manage cases, digitize and automate the claims process and interact with lawyers.

    Likewise, lawyers fees are often making litigation prohibitive for middle and lower income families and individuals.

    Noticing a similar trend in Europe and the United States, best selling author Richard Susskind now  urges lawyers to ask themselves what elements of their current workload could be undertaken more quickly, more cheaply, more efficiently, or to a higher quality using different and new technologies and methods of working. He argues that the market is unlikely to tolerate expensive lawyers for tasks that can be better discharged with support of modern systems and techniques.

    He claims that the legal profession will be driven by two forces in the coming decade; by a market pull towards the commoditization of legal services, and by the pervasive development and uptake of new and disruptive legal technologies. The threat here for lawyers is clear – their jobs may well be eroded or even displaced. At the same time, for entrepreneurial lawyers, Susskind foresees quite different law jobs emerging which may be highly rewarding, even if very different from those of today.

    In Ontario (as in the Untied States), we have already begun to see the “commoditization of legal services” which Susskind wrote about. The
    rise of online service providers (such as MyLegalBriefCase.com for small claims litigation and legal document providers such as LegalZoom.com) are becoming more attractive to those who can’t afford lawyers and access to the justice system. Yet, few lawyers have ventured into reducing costs by setting up virtual legal practices (Cognition LLP and Sapna Law being the early adopters in Canada). (more…)

  • Top Ten Basic Security Practices for a Virtual Law Office

    I love SaaS.  I depend on SaaS to operate my virtual law office.  I support an attorney’s right to choose their own practice management tools and make their own business decisions whether it’s in the cloud or in a filing cabinet.  But there are responsibilities that come along with choosing any practice management system and that means sticking to your own security policies and best practices.

    I’m a solo virtual lawyer, so the burden is on me alone.  Larger practices can designate an associate or hire an IT consultant to keep them up to date and to make any necessary security policies and safeguards.  Regardless of where you are engaging in virtual law practice, it’s always good be reminded of some basic security practices for delivering legal services online.  Here is my list of the top ten basic security practices for a virtual law office:

    1) Keep up to date on the security issues. Read Lifehacker, Slashdot, TechCrunch, etc.

    2)  If you use wireless networking, ensure that all wireless traffic is encrypted with WPA2.

    3)  Keep antivirus software and all software patches updated and turn on the software firewall for the computer.

    4) Use a safer browser, such as Mozilla with the NoScript add-on installed.  Or use another pop-up blocker. Do not use free Wi-Fi hotspots when using any cloud computing application remotely.  Use a cellular phone modem adapter instead.  I just got the 4G wireless hotspot which I highly recommend.  This also serves as backup internet access in my home office as well.

    5)  Never write down usernames and passwords.  Create strong passwords and change them regularly.  Use Keepass or other password management tool and generator.

    6) Go straight to privacy/account settings in any cloud-based application immediately after you register for and change the defaults for better protection.  Then check back occasionally to make sure they haven’t changed their privacy setting options again.

    7) Watch your back when you work in a public place to make sure the person behind you isn’t able to watch your screen as you enter your username and password or your client’s social security number.

    8) Encrypt your hard drive with Truecrypt, free open source encryption software.  Easy to use, free, protects you if your laptop is stolen.  Backup daily with an external hard drive with Truecrypt on it in addition to regular cloud-based backups.

    9) Make sure that the applications you are using to store and transmit confidential law office data are encrypted.  Look for HTTPS in the URL before proceeding.  Don’t enter data unless you know it will be encrypted.

    10) This isn’t going to be a popular one, but be wary of doing a lot of confidential work on your iPad with just any app.  With my virtual law office, I can open the browser and work in https, but other apps, especially iPad and other mobile device apps, do not have this level of security.  Unencrypted email is permitted by the state bars as exercising reasonable care, but most of us know better.  Text messaging your client is not a wise idea for a lot of reasons.

     

  • Feedback on SaaS Ethics Opinion

    Below is the text from my letter to the NC Bar Ethics Committee regarding their proposed ethics opinion on the use of Software as a Service (SaaS) in law practice management.  The Committee has received only two comments so far.  This is an important issue that will have a big impact on attorneys in NC and potentially elsewhere if other state bars follow this example.

    If you are an attorney or IT consultant in NC or even outside the state who uses cloud-based applications, please consider providing the committee with your comments and feedback on the way this opinion should be worded. (more…)

  • Should a SaaS Vendor’s Data Center be an Agent of the Virtual Law Firm?

    Below is a short and to-the-point article that I drafted for the NC Bar Association’s Technical Advisory Committee after our last meeting discussing the proposed NC Ethics Opinion on SaaS.  I wasn’t critical of the opinion at first, until I spoke with a few SaaS vendors and others who explained their positions in greater detail to me.

    If you are licensed in NC and operate a virtual law office, you might want to read the below and consider providing your comments and feedback.  More than one legal SaaS vendor has already indicated that if the ethics opinion is published in its current version, that they will simply pull out of serving the NC legal marketplace.

    Harsh consequences for attorneys practicing here, but also potentially harmful for the public who receive assistance delivered online or from attorneys who use the cost benefits of cloud-computing to make their prices for legal services more affordable.

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    The North Carolina State Bar published the revised version of its proposed ethics opinion on the use of SaaS in law practice management on April 21st, entitled, “Formal Ethics Opinion 6: Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property”.

    Your firm will be in violation of this ethics opinion if it is published as written and your firm uses any of the following products:

    Google (any of their applications or services)

    Yahoo/Hotmail or any other email service attached to a internet service provider, such as Earthlink, Bellsouth, Roadrunner, etc

    Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile

    Lexis or Westlaw for online research and almost all of their other services

    Mozy

    DropBox

    Clio

    Total Attorneys

    Rocket Lawyer

    DirectLaw

    Any other practice management system with a cloud-based component

    Or if your firm engages in the following tasks:

    Email

    Voicemail (Per Erik Mazzone, Director for the Center for Practice Management at the NCBA, “Voicemail on a mobile phone is data hosted on servers owned or contracted by the mobile carrier. The software that enables us to call a number and listen to voicemail is SaaS.”)

    Digital phone’s voicemail services as well as original phone services many of which use voicemail accessible via SaaS.

    Text messaging or SMS

    Online backup or storage

    Online communication with other professionals or clients

    There are two requirements in proposed opinion which may result in the restriction of use by law firms of a majority of the technology software and services that they currently rely on. These provisions are:

    1) “An agreement on how confidential client information will be handled in keeping with the lawyer’s professional responsibilities must be included in the SaaS vendor’s Terms of Service or Service Level Agreement, or in a separate agreement that states that the employees at the vendor’s data center are agents of the law firm and have a fiduciary responsibility to protect confidential client information and client property.” [Emphasis added] ; and

    2) “The agreement with the vendor must specify that firm’s data will be hosted only within a specified geographic area. If by agreement the data is hosted outside of the United States, the law firm must determine that the hosting jurisdiction has privacy laws, data security laws, and protections against unlawful search and seizure that are as rigorous as those of the United States and the state of North Carolina.” [Emphasis added]

    Most software vendors will not sign an agreement assuming this level of liability and agency for client property. Most software vendors will also not restrict their server locations, many of which are georedundant to begin with, to hosting data centers located only in locations with laws as strict as the US and the state of North Carolina. The Legal Cloud Computing Association (LCCA), a group of vendors who provide services to lawyers, and the International Legal Technology Standards Organization (ILTSO) are in the process of writing comments to the NC Bar regarding the negative impact that this opinion will have on legal technology innovation as well as the negative impact that it will have on their customers who practice law in the state.

    There are more practical and realistic ways to address the confidentiality concerns raised in the use of software as a services. It is not practical to expect hundreds of NC practitioners to stop using cloud computing. It is not realistic to expect a technology provider or vendor to assume liability for client property. Minimum requirements should not be imposed on legal practitioners. Instead, this opinion should contain suggestions and guidance for performing due diligence in researching and implementing cloud-based solutions to comply with the rules of professional responsibility.

    There are hundreds of attorneys and law firms in North Carolina that rely on software as a service on a daily basis. If you are one of these firms, please consider writing to the NC Ethics Committee.

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