Virtual Law Practice

Tag: delivering legal services online

  • Unbundling Legal Services in a Virtual Law Practice Benefits the Public

    More middle income Americans are choosing to handle their legal matters themselves because they cannot afford to hire a traditional attorney.  The International Herald Tribune reported this growing trend in an article last week.  The downturn of the economy has made the cost of traditional full-service law firms unavailable for many Americans.  In order to resolve their legal matters, many middle income individuals are turning to self representation.  

    What does this mean for the justice system?

    The increase in numbers of pro se litigants has begun to burden court administrations on different levels.  While court clerks and other assistants are not permitted to provide legal advice to pro se litigants who come to the courthouse seeking free legal guidance, these administrators are obligated to provide pro se litigants with the necessary legal forms and procedures that they will need to proceed with their case.  When the instructions on these legal forms are not followed, court administrators must then go through additional work contacting the pro se litigants to rework the legal forms or assist them with scheduling court dates. 

    Once inside the courtroom, judges are burdened by the increased number of unassisted pro se litigants when they are obliged to provide basic directions to the pro se litigants regarding standard courtroom procedures.  Attorneys who find themselves standing opposite a pro se litigant when presenting a matter to the court must exercise patience.  They may find themselves rewording their statements so that the pro se litigant will understand the issues.  Overall, the case may take more time and become more expensive than it would have been if handled by legal professionals. 

    Unbundling Legal Services Provides A Practical Solution

    There is a high demand for affordable and accessible legal services to fill in the gap between full, traditional legal representation and unassisted, pro se representation.  Unbundled legal services may provide individuals with an affordable option.  By retaining an attorney for assistance in filling out legal forms and for basic guidance on the legal process, the individual who would otherwise be a pro se litigant is assisted to the level where he or she is not as much of a burden on the court administration and other legal professionals he or she encounters in the legal system. 

    Many Americans who are searching for an affordable solution to legal services are turning to online companies like LegalZoom for form-generated legal documents. However, these legal documents and kits for sale are not actually reviewed by an attorney nor is the individual legal situation of the online consumer evaluated by a legal professional before he or she purchases the legal product.  A worse trend is that many members of the public are finding samples of legal documents online and attempting to revise these documents on their own without any legal guidance. 

    Web-Based VLOs Provide a Higher Quality of Unbundled Legal Services

    Web-based virtual law practices can provide the public with unbundled legal services that include more personalized attention to individual legal matters.  Attorneys operating a VLO communicate directly with their clients securely online.  Because of the low overhead associated with running a VLO, the attorney may pass on his or her savings to provide unbundled legal services at a more affordable price than traditional legal services.  Clients may acquire the quality legal assistance they can afford so that they may perform the footwork at the courthouse themselves.  

    As with any prospective client that walks through a physical law office, it is the responsibility of the attorney running the VLO to evaluate each online client on a case by case basis.  If the prospective client’s unique situation requires full-service representation, then the attorney must either meet with the client in person for additional legal assistance or refer the client to another attorney. 

    Given the continuing rise of pro se litigants across the country, an attorney operating a VLO and offering unbundled legal services provides a much needed option in the delivery of legal services to the public.  He or she may provide unbundled legal services online through a VLO either as the sole form of legal services offered or as an addition to a full-service law firm.  In addition, an attorney launching a VLO taps into a vast and growing consumer market that can be served using secure technology that does not raise the attorney’s law practice overhead.

    As more state bars continue to revise their rules of professional conduct and ethics decisions to address the use of technology in the practice of law, legal professionals who understand the importance of using technology to deliver legal services online will need to step forward to educate and defend the critical need for this as an option to provide affordable and convenient legal services to lower and middle income Americans.  A VLO providing unbundled legal services is a practical solution that serves both the public and the legal profession.

  • ABA to Review the Delivery of Legal Services Through Technology

    Yesterday I received an email from a member of the ABA Division for Legal Services regarding the upcoming hearings to be held by the Standing Committee on The Delivery of Legal Services.  The Committee plans to examine the use of technology to deliver legal services online and will listen to presentations by technology providers and attorneys regarding the technologies used and any policies that governs its use. The Committee will then determine from the hearings whether the creation of policies is needed to assist practitioners in providing online legal services. 

    It’s during opportunities such as these when I sincerely wish I had a gift for public speaking and at least an ounce of charisma with which to transmit my ideas in front of a live group of people.  Unfortunately, I am a writer and more comfortable with a keyboard than a video camera and microphone.  I am going to submit to the committee my ebook which I have just finished entitled “Practicing Law Online: Creating a Web-Based Virtual Law Office.”  The ebook discusses the Web 2.0 technology used to practice law online and also looks at ethics considerations and malpractice risks while making best practice recommendations for operating a virtual law office.  

    I wish there were a way to share with the Committee the positive responses that I have received over the past two and half years from my online VLO clients and from the public in general to the delivery of legal services online.  I have formed close relationships with my clients and all of our communications were conducted through my VLO, never face to face. 

    If you can please allow a moment of bragging, recently, a first-time client of mine was so pleased with the online services I provided that she emailed a referral to her 100+ person mother’s group recommending my services and providing all of my online VLO information.  I have small business clients that come back repeatedly and refer their other small business friends.  They tell me that my online services are efficient, fairly priced and most important to them, convenient for the entrepreneur starting a new business who is often working a 9-5 job while getting off the ground.  They enjoy the ability to pay online, set up payment plans through the system and check on their legal matters 24/7 whenever it best suits them. 

    I hope that whatever policies the Committee comes up with will respect the fact that each individual virtual attorney may operate his or her VLO using different technologies and combinations of technology.  It should be the responsbility of the virtual attorney, as I have written in previous posts, to make sure that they understand the security and technology used by the VLO hosting company.  As with traditional law practices, I believe it is the resonsibility of the individual virtual attorney to create policies and standards for their virtual law practice that compy with his or her state bar’s rules and regulations for ethics and professional conduct. 

    My fear is that the delivery of legal services online may be restricted through any policies created by the Committee due to a lack of understanding regarding the security of the technology.  They may not be aware of the ability of features to be created within the VLO system that can provide safe and ethical communications between attorneys and the public, such as the conflict of interest checks, establishing the attorney/client relationship, jurisdiction checks, notice of unbundled services, etc. 

    VLOTech is a small, family-owned company.  We are growing quickly and forming new relationships with other attorneys interested in virtual law practice every day.  It’s an exciting time.  It’s clear to us from the responses we receive that a revolution is quietly happening in the area of the delivery of online legal services.  It’s driven primarily by the public’s desire for these services and secondarily by attorneys, largely solos and small firm practitioners, who want to use the flexibility of the technology to practice law for a variety of reasons.  There is no way VLOTech can pull together for a presentation in two weeks all of the research and positive feedback that we have assembled over the past three years and about which we are so excited to share with VLOTech attorneys and their clients. 

    Instead, I will be submitting my ebook which covers a lot of our research and hopefully this will be accepted for consideration by the Committee.   If you would like a free copy of my ebook, please feel free to contact me at skimbro@vlotech.net.  I will also write a post about the hearings following the presentations and let my readers know what happens as far as any statements or policies issued by the Committee that may affect virtual law practice.   If you would like to view the online hearing, details about the presenters and schedule will be posted on The Standing Committee on The Delivery of Legal Services’ website.

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