Virtual Law Practice

Month: February 2012

  • 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…)

  • Slides from CALI’s Topics in Digital Law Practice Session

    CALI is hosting a MOOC (massively open online course) called Topics in Digital Law Practice. I gave a presentation for them today. Below are the slides. There is a homework assignment posted on the blog for this session and students are encouraged to create homework wikis. Looking forward to reading some of those.

    There are over 700 people registered for the course, and 270 attended the webinar this afternoon. The sessions will be recorded and archived for those who cannot make the live webinar. Apparently there are registrants from all over the world. I’m looking forward to attending the upcoming sessions taught by Marc Lauritsen, Ron Staudt, Richard Granat, Will Hornsby, Sarah Glassmeyer, Kingsley Martin, and Ernie Svenson. Thanks to John Mayer and CALI for the opportunity to share.

    Digital Law Practice – CALI Session

  • 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…)

  • Educating the Digital Lawyer eBook Available for Free Download

    An exciting new resource for lawyers and legal educators has been published online for free thanks to the sponsorship of Harvard’s Berkman Center LawLab and LexisNexis.

    The book project called Educating the Digital Lawyer is now available for download as an epub file here. Editors Oliver Goodenough and Marc Lauritsen pulled together the collection from contributors most of whom met and discussed issues related to digital legal education during a working group that was part of the Future Ed Conference.

    The book contains suggestions for changes that need to be made to legal education with a strong emphasis on how the law school curriculum needs to better prepare law students to practice law in a digital environment. Other online resources, such as videos, podcasts, webinars, or other written materials, related to topics in the book may be forthcoming. The resources in this book are useful not only to law school faculty and students, but also to practitioners who may need direction on how to fill in their own law school education gap. Yours truly contributed chapter 10 “What Should be in a Digital Curriculum: A Practitioner’s Must Have List.”

     

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