One of the questions I hear regularly about virtual law practice is related to the execution of legal documents and how that process can be handled through a virtual law office.  I’ve written before on this blog about the establishment of the attorney/client relationship online and how an attorney may rely on a clickwrap agreement to [...]

Part I of this post on the unauthorized practice of law in other jurisdictions addressed the following questions:  How does a virtual law practice avoid UPL in other jurisdictions? and If a website is accessible internationally, then how can a VLO be limited to provide legal services only in the state(s) in which the attorney is [...]

Frequently I am asked about the unauthorized practice of law in other jurisdictions and how a virtual law practice can avoid this malpractice risk.  In a two-part post, I’ll address some of these ethics questions.  As more VLOs open and collaboration among attorneys creates VLOs operated by attorneys licensed in multiple states, the issue grows [...]

The following is a basic checklist for attorneys considering opening up a virtual law practice. ___ Choose a VLO hosting company and find out what it will require in order to set up your VLO. Of course, I’m biased, but I recommend Virtual Law Office Technology (VLOTech). ___ Register a domain. ___ Retain a website [...]

Practicing law from a web-based virtual law office brings the risk of unwittingly establishing an attorney/client relationship regarding a legal matter that the virtual attorney is not licensed to handle. The unauthorized practice of law in other jurisdictions can be avoided by following some simple practice methods. First, the virtual law practitioner has the responsibility [...]

While each state’s bar has different rules governing their attorneys, I suspect that many of the rules of professional conduct and ethics opinions are similar. The NC State Bar was one of the first to address virtual law practice. On January 20, 2006, the NC State Bar adopted the 2005 Formal Ethics Opinion 10 (Ethics [...]

I’ve been doing more blogging for the VLOTech website. A lot of my material is coming from the CLE manuscript that I’m drafting for a presentation this summer on security/ethics issues with virtual law practices. The legality and enforceability of clickwrap agreements in a vlo is a question I’ve gotten from other attorneys. In my [...]