Virtual Law Practice

Tag: ABA

  • Commission on Future of Legal Services Seeks Feedback

    Commission on Future of Legal Services Seeks Feedback

    I was honored to be asked to participate in the ABA President’s Commission on the Future of Legal Services this year and next. This Commission is calling for Issues Paper feedback now through December 10th. For my legal tech friends and colleagues, if you have something to say, now is a good time to get it on the table. Details below.

    I like the ABA President this time around. I’ve heard President William Hubbard speak several times by now. I’ve heard him address some difficult criticisms of the ABA with grace at a conference on disruptive innovation in the market for legal services at Harvard Law School. Most importantly, I think he is making an effort to listen and take seriously the fact that technology can be used to increase access to justice in a variety of ways. Whether or not he or any future leader has the ability to actually sway the more traditional (and often tech-averse) mindsets of the lawyers who actually hold up the HOD and prevent progress…..well, I’ll retain my healthy skepticism. That said, President Hubbard is making solid headway with this Commission. The initiative seems like a good follow-up to the initial research and rule changes that the Commission on Ethics 20/20 underwent.

    From the Commission’s site:

    …technology, globalization, and other forces are transforming the ways legal services are accessed and delivered. Familiar practice structures are giving way in a marketplace that continues to evolve. New providers are emerging, online and offline, to offer a range of services in dramatically different ways.

    I joined up with the BlueSky Working Group that formed out of the Commission. The working groups are interesting because they are made up of such a diverse group of people from across the legal profession. I can tell already that a large part of the work process for the group is just going to be educating each other about our different perspectives whether its from practicing in BigLaw, working in legal services, in legal academia, or with legal tech startups.

    The goal of the Commission is to propose new approaches that are not constrained by traditional models for delivering legal services and that are rooted in the essential values of protecting the public.

    To focus these working groups and the entire Commission, the Chair has issued a call for comments on an Issues Paper. I’ve posted the Issues Paper below. The issues are related to the delivery and access of legal services by the public.

     

     IssuesPaperFeedback

     

     

     

     

  • Infographic: Preview of New Access to Justice Project

  • Podcast: How People Search for Lawyers: The Consumer Law Revolution

    Here is the podcast for an edition of The Digital Edge with Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway where we discuss the subject of my new book, The Consumer Law Revolution: The Lawyer’s Guide to the Online Legal Marketplace.

  • Online Legal Marketplace Book Release

    Consumer_Law_Revolution_Cover_ONLY (2)My new book about the online legal marketplace, Consumer Law Revolution, was released today from the publisher and pre-orders should be shipping this week.

    I’m excited to share this book with the legal profession. It dives into an area that is growing in practice and where we don’t have clear, established best practices to guide us. The online legal marketplace naturally involves technology and the unbundling of legal services, but also new forms of online lawyer advertising and collaboration with non-lawyer legal service companies that provide online marketing tools and platforms for lawyers to connect with consumers.

    As with most of the work I do, part of my motivation for writing this book was because growth of the online legal marketplace increases access to justice by providing the public with alternative methods of receiving assistance and of matching them up with the lawyer or self-help service that will be best for them. By alternatives, I mean that more individuals will be able to find a legal service that they can afford to pay and which are delivered in a manner that they are able to receive it without financial or physical hardship.

    The book covers a lot of online marketing basics but also provides case studies of many of the legal technology startups that are coming on the scene to disrupt the delivery of legal services. Lawyers need to be a part of this disruption. For most of these case studies, I joined up as a lawyer and as a prospective client to see how the process worked from both sides. I hope the readers will find this review and my analysis useful in making selections about which branded networks to join. There are checklists and suggested best practices as well as evaluation of the potential ethics issues that may arise.

    I look forward to the conversations and debates this book will generate. I did not mince words in criticizing the outdated lawyer advertising rules and questioned the lack of data behind many of the assumptions that are behind those rules. If there are answers to my questions or reasons my proposals would not be feasible, that’s great. If there are none, then I hope this book sparks some reform or clarification or something useful to further the progress of our profession’s ability to stay relevant and adapt effectively to the changes in the legal marketplace. Thanks to everyone who supported my research and writing for this book.

    Here’s the official marketing copy for the book from the ABA LPM:  (more…)

  • Updates on Events

    Below are a couple of the events I’m scheduled to attend this month. I have not had time to blog because I’ve been finishing up the edits to my book about online marketing tools and branded networks. It is now slated to come out the first of June.

    I have a couple other articles or chapters that should be published between now and the summer as well. I’ll share what I can here. In addition to the firm practice and consulting work, I’ve also been online teaching the second six week session on Social Media and Online Marketing for the Digital Lawyering Program at the University of Dayton School of Law. And I’ve put a few more irons in the fire with a couple other legal tech/legal services related startups that I’m keeping under wraps for now. Too many ideas, too little time.

    ABA Techshow in Chicago April 4-5. I’ll be at a Meet the Author session on Friday at 1:45pm. This is more of a casual event where I will focus on addressing questions from the audience. I’m also hosting a Taste of Techshow dinner with Chad Burton, another Techshow speaker. We will be discussing virtual law practice at that dinner if anyone attending the show wants to sign up and join us for that.

    Lawyernomics Conference in Vegas April 26-27th at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I’ll be speaking on the topic of the Consumer Law Revolution book. Basically, I’ll be giving practical tips for lawyers who want to work with branded networks and discussing the best practices to do so.

  • ABA Adopts Unbunding Resolution

    This Monday the ABA House of Delegates voted to adopt Resolution 108 supporting limited scope representation or unbundling. This resolution was crafted by the Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services. ABA Staff Counsel, Will Hornsby, and the Committee Chair, Ritchey Hollenbaugh, presented the Resolution to the House in Dallas.

    Because unbundling is frequently used as a method of legal service delivery for virtual practice, I want to post the actual text of the resolution here. Obviously, unbundling has many different applications in our profession other than being used in online delivery. The adoption of this resolution shows progress on many fronts. Now let’s see the call in the second paragraph of the resolution come into play: state, local and territorial bar associations, the judiciary and court administrations, and CLE providers should increase support and education about unbundling.

    Please also follow the link and read the full report which follows the Resolution.

    RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association encourage practitioners, when appropriate, to consider limiting the scope of their representation as a means of increasing access to legal services.

    FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association encourage and support the efforts of national, state, local and territorial bar associations, the judiciary and court administrations, and CLE providers to take measures to assure that practitioners who limit the scope of their representation do so with full understanding and recognition of their professional obligations.

    FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association encourage and support the efforts of national, state, local and territorial bar associations, the judiciary and court administrations, and those providing legal services to increase public awareness of the availability of limited scope representation as an option to help meet the legal needs of the public.

     

     

  • Slides: Delivering Unbundled Legal Services Over the Internet

    These are slides from the ABA Annual 2012 presentation by Will Hornsby, Richard Granat, and myself.

     

  • Illinois State Bar Ethics Opinion Discussing Virtual Practice

    I discovered another state bar ethics opinion related to virtual practice when researching ethics opinions for the online marketing tools book this weekend. The Illnois State Bar published Ethics Opinion No. 12-09 in March 2012 regarding multijurisdicitonal practice, choice of law issues, and unauthorized practice of law. Here is the text regarding the virtual office scenario:

    The advent of the virtual law office, or online legal practice, has raised several ethical challenges, including concerns about the unauthorized practice of law. Such issues can and should be analyzed under the framework of the Rules of Professional Conduct. See, e.g., Ohio Sup. Ct., Bd. of Comm’rs on Grievances & Discipline, Op. 2011-2 (October 7, 2011).

    In the context of a virtual law office involving lawyers from different states, each lawyer should take care that any out-of-state practice is not systematic and continuous. (more…)

  • Technology to Unbundle Legal Services

    Next week I will join Forrest “Woody” Mosten, Sue Talia, and Richard Granat for an ABA CLE webinar entitled “Unbundling in the 21st Century: Growing Your Practice with Limited Scope Representation.” I am most excited about the conclusion to this webinar where Mr. Mosten, the “grandfather” of unbundling, will discuss where he sees this delivery method going in the future.

    Please join us if you are interested in this topic. Most virtual law practices implement some form of unbundled service delivery so it’s important to understand the ethics issues and best practices that go along with it. For example, below is an excerpt from my book, Limited Scope Legal Services: Unbundling and the Self-Help Client, that discusses some of the technology that may be used in unbundling.

    Excerpt from Beginning of Chapter Seven: Using Technology to Unbundle Legal Services

    NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNET technology have made it even more efficient for a law firm to offer unbundled legal services. A law firm can employ different forms of Web-based applications that can be delivered over the Internet, depending on how much it wants to automate the unbundling process for greater efficiency in delivery. These tools may be used to generate legal work product or to provide decision-making tools to guide and assist a lawyer working with a client’s case. (more…)

  • Webinar: How You Can Deliver Legal Services Online, ALI-CLE

    I’ll be teaching a CLE about how to deliver legal services online this Thursday, August 16th from 1-2:30pm EST for ALI-CLE and co-sponsored by the ABA Law Practice Management Section. A copy of my Virtual Law Practice book in ebook format comes with the program. We’ll cover the following topics: Introduction to virtual law practice; Options for setting up your virtual law office including: case studies, document assembly and automation, and multijurisdictional law firms; technology and understanding security issues of virtual law practice; and Ethical concerns and best practices in online legal services.

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