Online posts and podcast:

Jim Calloway and Sharon Nelson have published a new podcast on The Digital Edge entitled “Virtual Lawyering Goes Mainstream.”  Calloway and Nelson discuss ways that virtual lawyering is starting to take off within the legal profession. 

Over at the Slaw.ca blog, Sharon Nelson and John Simek has a post entitled “The Virtual Lawyer Stampede.”

Jim Calloway also discusses virtual lawyering on his practice management blog under the post “Virtual Law Offices Are Becoming a Real-World Alternative.”

Live Presentations:

I will be participating in three events at the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco in a couple weeks that are related to virtual law practice.  

• August 5th, Thursday, 10:30am, 20/20 Vision: The Impact of Technology and Globalization on Ethics for the 21st Century Lawyer. This is a panel discussion in which I will be touching on cloud computing and virtual law practice.
• August 5th, Thursday,12:30 to 2 pm, Legal Rebels: 10 Ways to Build Your Perfect Practice and Career.  I will be attempting to give a 6 minute presentation of 20 slides on a topic related to elawyering.
• August 6th, Friday, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., The Virtual Law Firm: How to Build Your Practice in An Online World.  I will be presenting with Will Hornsby, Richard Granat and Marc Lauritsen at this session.

Update (via elawyering blog):  

eLawyering Task Force Meeting, Saturday, August 7, 2010, Hilton Hotel, Union Square, 9:00 – 11:00 A.M.Open Meeting
National Conference of State Bar Presidents, Joint Workshop 3A – Keeping Pace with the Evolving Practice of Law

Jay Fleischman has a thought-provoking post up on his blog entitled “Being a Virtual Lawyer is all Mindset, Not Technology.”  You can read my comment below the post.

Jay writes that regardless of the form of technology you use to operate a virtual law office, the key is having the right attitude to go with it.  He’s right.  To take advantage of the benefits that the technology gives us to make our professional lives more flexible, we have to be able to change our work habits and know when to unplug. 

However, I would add that the choice of technology is a factor in coming to this mindset and is going to differ depending on the comfort level of the attorney.  Some attorneys are more tech-savvy and experienced working online than others.  What is easy for one attorney to set up and work with clients is not going to be easy for another attorney with less experience.  That will affect their ability to enjoy the benefits of operating a virtual law practice. More »

The delivery of legal services online depends on the use of a secure client portal where the attorney and client can interact. This is the key feature of a virtual law practice and what distinguishes it from other online legal services and law firms that claim to be “virtual” by using unencrypted email.

I’ve noticed in the past year that several new versions of the secure client portal have been introduced. Some of these are even developed specifically for legal professionals and most are designed for use by solos and small firms interested in delivering legal services online. If you are considering opening a virtual law practice, you might want to take a look at these different applications. Some of them have free trials and are still in beta.

As fast as the technology for virtual law practice changes, it’s worth keeping an eye on what’s coming down the pipeline in client/attorney online communication.  The features that allow you to communicate with your clients online varies.  So far, no one is keen on having their online clients choose avatars or going beyond realtime chat and video communication.  As usual, my imagination fueled by reading too much sci-fi tends to exceed our current capabilities in terms of practical and cost-effective implementation of current technology for law practice management.

With all of these below, check out the level of security each provides.  Look for end-to-end encyption of the transmission of any sensitive law office data.  You will want the basics — written online communication in some fashion that is recorded with date and time (for ED and CYA of the attorney), online files or other methods of organizing documents, calendaring or the ability to schedule communications with the attorney, uploading and downloading documents, limited client management features to protect them from themselves, etc.  Some client portals are going to work better for unbundling legal services online for many clients and others are more suited to larger online projects with a single client or two.  Keep in mind the chosen structure of your virtual law practice and the needs of your online client base when you are reviewing the products.

Here are a few new client portal products I’ve run across, along with some that have been around for a few years now.  Know of any other technologies that create secure client portals?  Drop me a note in the comments.

MyCase Client Manager
Wizilegal
DirectLaw
VLOTech
Advologix (client portal is not the focus and costs extra)
HoudiniEsq (was announcing client access this summer, still in beta)
BaseCamp  (not developed for legal professionals, may not have certain malpractice checks in place)
ZohoProjects  (not developed for legal professionals, but if your clients are attorneys or other professionals, perhaps a way to collaborate online on a project.  Not sure about the security of this and also there are probably not the same malpractice checks in place)

Take a look at the new Florida State Bar rule on attorney online advertising, 4-7.6 “Computer Accessed Communications.”  In particular take a look at page 10 of the PDF. The ABA Journal also ran an article this week on the rule.

Fortunately, the State Bar is holding off on the rule enactment until August 16th in order to hear additional comments after groups from the FTC to the ACLU claimed it violates First Amendment rights. If you are an attorney licensed in Florida, where were you when this was going through the comment stage?  Now is the time to chime in.

Here’s a snip-it. Try to keep your mouth from dropping open when you get to the last line: More »

The second post in my three-part series on virtual law practice has been published on the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program (LOMAP) blog.  This post discusses how to market a virtual law office while complying with state bar rules and regulations regarding law practice marketing and advertising.  From the post:

Marketing a virtual law office requires some out-of-the-box thinking. It also requires careful balancing of the application of non-traditional marketing methods with continuing compliance with state bar rules and regulations regarding attorney advertising. Where state bars are silent on specific forms of online advertising or the use of technology, attorneys must interpret existing advertising rules and regulations to fit the context of modern-day practice. …

While in many ways the strategy for marketing a virtual law office does not differ substantially from the strategy for marketing a traditional law firm, the methods for advertising a virtual law office are most often online options, and are mostly digital, rather than paper-, or phone-, based. The methods used to market the virtual form of practice must be utilized with consideration as to where the prospective online clients are coming from and as to how the firm will deliver legal services to those clients online. In some cases, the marketing of a virtual law practice may cost less than the marketing of a traditional law firm.

However, there are also unique risks associated with marketing unbundled, online legal services. Forms of online marketing and methods of building a brand change rapidly, as the technology underlying the internet and marketing on the internet shift over time. Before you begin to market your virtual law office, you must understand what your firm’s comfort level is with respect to using and keeping up with technology (and that “keeping up” includes addressing prevailing security issues, like those implicated by Massachusetts’ new data privacy regulations); you’ll also need to have a grounded knowledge in your state bar or ethics agency’s stance on attorney advertising and online marketing. …

Continue reading the rest of the post on the LOMAP blog and look for the final post in the series that will cover ethics concerns and how to mitigate the risks.

Here is a link to a recent guest post I wrote for the Lawyerist blog about marketing unbundled legal services. It has basic advice for the virtual law practice providing unbundled legal services to clients online.  From the post:

How do you market a law firm as a provider of unbundled legal services? As with all attorney marketing, the practical considerations must fall in line with the ethical requirements of our profession. To market unbundled legal services, a firm might consider the following:

And then it goes on to discuss each of these topics in more detail.

1. Size up the competition

2. Plan out unbundled services and packages

3. Invest more in online marketing

4. Network, network, network

5. Educate prospective clients

I’m contributing to a public policy paper regarding the risks and benefits to the public from the use of cloud computing in law practice management.   The process has encouraged me to think in-depth about how the general public reaches out to the legal profession for help.  At the same time, I just finished reading Born Digital, by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser.  This has prompted me to add to my analysis how the age-range of clients and their methods of communicating with us change over the course of a law practice.

Born Digital discusses the generation among us that has known only a digital world – “Digital Natives.”  They were the first generation to write papers in high school using online research engines and Wikipedia entries.  They are able to multitask in ways that the generations preceding them cannot understand.   They form complex online social networks and share information and unique online personalities that create digital records of the different phases of their lives from infancy on. More »

It’s time again for another post where I compile many of the interesting news articles and blog posts that have surfaced in the past six months about virtual law practice.  When I started doing this a couple years ago it took a lot longer to find things to list than it will this year.  More legal professionals are aware of virtual law practice and more virtual law firms and innovative technologies have emerged.

The list is in no particular order.  At the end I have also added a couple new social networking resources that have formed where attorneys interested in the use of tech to deliver legal services online can meet up.   I know there are more out there, so please feel free to add them in the comments.

“The Transformation of eLawyering” June 18, 2010, Darryl Mountain, Slaw.ca blog

“Revolution has already happened” June 2010, David Hill, ILTA Magazine

“14% of Lawyers Operate a Virtual Law Firm” June 11, 2010, Larry Bodine, Law Marketing Blog

“North Carolina Bar to Issue Cloud Computing Opinion” April 13, 2010, Daily Record, Nicole Black

“Legal Ethics of Cloud Computing” April 9, 2010, MyShingle, Carolyn Elefant

The North Carolina State Bar & Cloud Computing Podcast, May 20, 2010, Lawyer2Lawyer with J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi interviewing Jack Newton of Clio and Alice Neece Mine with the NC Bar Ethics Commission, LegalTalkNetwork

Exploring the Virtual Law Practice Podcast, May 12, 2010, The Legal Toolkit, hosted by Jared Correia, Law Practice Management Advisor with Mass. LOMAP More »

I’ve written the first in a three-part series of guest posts for the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program (Mass LOMAP). The series covers a basic introduction to virtual law practice and delivering unbundled legal services online.  The other two posts will discuss marketing best practices and ethics issues in virtual law practice.  From the first post:

Two influential forces are driving attorneys and law firms to consider delivering legal services online. The first is the increase in our clients’ expectations for more accessible and affordable legal services through the use of technology. The second is the changing landscape of the legal marketplace and the need for firms to find different means of obtaining a competitive advantage. Larger law firms continue to downsize and consider outsourcing, and more attorneys, many newly-licensed, are opening solo and small firm practices across the country. Virtual law practice provides a way for the legal profession to meet the needs of the general public for greater access to justice, while also addressing the practice management needs of the professionals who serve the public.

Check out the rest of the guest post.  I’ll post links to the next two in the series when they go up on the LOMAP site.  Thanks to Jared Correia for the opportunity to share this information!

On July 13th and 14th, I will be presenting a two-part webinar with CLE credit for the North Carolina Bar Association on the topic of creating a virtual law office and delivering legal services online. 

The first part will be a basic introduction to virtual law practice and how it is used by both completely web-based law firms and traditional law offices for law practice management.  We’ll look at case studies along the way.  This first part will also examine the technology used to create a virtual law practice and include a discussion of the ethics risks that are unique to this form of law practice management and ways to mitigate the risks. 

The second part of the webinar will focus on the practical how-tos of setting up a virtual law office.   If you are interested in joining me, you can register for the webinar on the NCBA site.