Virtual Law Practice

Tag: Ethics

  • Consumer Law Levels Up

    Consumer Law Levels Up

    Two new options for consumer legal services entered the market in the past week. They are different in nature, but both provide alternatives for legal assistance and guidance. Both include different levels of legal guidance from licensed lawyers and some elements of self-help and unbundling of legal services. My stance on that has been that the value of a lawyer is great where the consumer can afford it, but some unbundled help even without a lawyer is better than leaving a consumer to flounder about on their own.

    AvvoAdvisorFirst up, Avvo launched Avvo Advisor. Consumers can go online and connect to the service from an iOS app or their web browser and demand legal advice from a lawyer. The fixed fee is $39 for 15 minutes. Lawyers can join the network to provide services through Avvo, much like other branded networks set up lawyer networks for direct connections to consumers. There is a money back guarantee on the service. The delivery design looks quite simple. The consumer selects their practice area, provides credit card information, and then get to speak with the lawyer. Lawyers providing services through the network are rated with stars and comments to help consumers know what they are purchasing in terms of advice. The lawyer gets a text to let them know that there is an interested consumer in their practice area and jurisdiction. See the ABA Journal article or Bob Ambrogi’s Law Sites blog for more details.

    If I’m understanding it correctly, the first lawyer who responds to the text to claim that consumer is the one who gets to work with them on the phone call. That has traditionally been an issue for companies connecting consumers with practicing lawyers – the lawyers are often sluggish to respond, even when they are paying for leads. Having counseled several legal tech startups and companies that provide services similar to this, I have heard a lot of common themes at that point but this is a common one. Lawyers paying for leads but not knowing how to nurture or close on a lead. However, sending texts to prompt the lawyers to move on it and making it competitive in a way by having the first lawyer to respond get the work, that just might work! With this service, when the lawyer provides the 15 minute call, the money from the consumer is transferred to the bank account the lawyer provided to the company. Not a bad way for a lawyers to pick up a little extra work on the side. Unbundling scores again!

    Does the consumer get the selection of the lawyer from a pool?  It reminds me of the online tech support from a company like Microsoft where you can select from two or three live support technicians based on their ratings and experience. At the bottom of the site, the consumer is reminded the Avvo Q&A free service that has been around for a long time and that they can also use the Avvo network to hire a lawyer which feeds into the company’s lead generation service for their lawyer network. This new service falls in the middle as a new level of legal service alternative. So far it looks like it’s only available in 15 states as it builds out across the country. I also wonder about the establishment of the attorney/client relationship and how the disclaimers and limited scope engagement agreement equivalent are handled from the point that the lawyer calls the consumers to start engaging.

    Overall, I’m glad Avvo is putting themselves out there to experiment with this. I think it could be a good alternative option for consumers to ask questions and get basic legal guidance at an affordable cost.  If you’ve read some of the fascinating and often ridiculous legal questions that get asked in their public Q&A forums, you might hope that the folks who take that extra step to provide their credit card information will be asking questions by phone that are more focused in nature. Lawyers joining this service will also hope of course to convert those phone calls for $39 into the next level of connection through Avvo – retaining them as full clients.

    LegalzoomNext up, LegalZoom has partnered with Sam’s Club to provide discounts on their online legal services packages. The press release provides a couple of examples of the special packages and discounts. The estate planning package for example includes all of the relevant legal documents but also comes with the guidance of a licensed lawyer for a specific amount of review work and then that lawyer can be retained further at a discounted rate. Looks like Walmart Law is finally here! See the ABA Journal article for more details.

    Having written a book on the Consumer Law Revolution, what do I think of these updates? I think they are awesome. I also think they raise a lot of questions about the lawyers who are working with these companies to connect with consumer. While it’s great to encourage these options because they increase access to the public for legal assistance by providing a variety of alternative methods (online, phone, in-person, with or without a lawyer’s guidance, etc.) to the traditional legal service delivery model, I think we also need to be watching the needs and practices of the lawyers that are collaborating with these companies. There is going to be a learning curve here as those lawyers make sure they are unbundling services ethically (for example, knowing what cases are appropriate to unbundle and when it requires full service and making that honest call in the best interests of the client, not their wallet). It will be interesting to watch it develop and no doubt some tweaks will need to be made along the line to ensure that consumers are protected at the same time they are provided with alternatives to access legal services.

  • Online Legal Services Gets a Boost from ABA & Rocket Lawyer Partnership

    connectedI was thrilled to hear the news today from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog that the ABA announced its partnership with Rocket Lawyer on a pilot project to help match up ABA members with online clients.

    I’ve been researching and writing about lawyer collaboration with branded networks like Rocket Lawyer for the past couple of years with a focus on ethics issues and best practices. I wrote a book about the best practices for lawyers who wanted to work with these companies and make connections with clients through them. I think this partnership integrates wonderfully with virtual law practice and unbundling of legal services. However, I didn’t see this announcement coming because of the resistance I’ve heard from state bars for the past several years to any form of online delivery, even completely lawyer-owned and controlled, that might threaten the traditional lawyer business model. This announcement is huge because it steps back from the usual protectionist stance of the ABA and looks at what the public is asking for from the profession and at what lawyers need in order to connect with them. It is an acknowledgement from the ABA that consumers are going online looking for legal services and that not having licensed lawyers on board with the public’s need for online legal services puts both the lawyer and the public at a disadvantage.

    One of the key themes that came out of the Legal Services Corporation’s Tech Summit Report was the need for mobile access. Rocket Lawyer has developed a mobile app as a part of its online services offerings. Getting lawyers used to using mobile apps and online tools is going to increase the profession’s ability to provide greater access to legal services, especially in rural areas. It’s also going to lead to greater acceptance and use of unbundling as a legal service delivery model. It will be interesting to see how these pilot projects role out. Here is a link to my free ebook with best practices for collaboration by lawyers and companies like Rocket Lawyer.

  • Video – Disruptive Innovation in Legal Services at Harvard

    Last week I attended a conference hosted by Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession, entitled “Disruptive Innovation in the Market for Legal Services.”

    My primary reason for attending was to hear Clayton Christensen, a Professor at Harvard’s Business School and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, speak about disruption in the legal profession. Unfortunately, he admitted to not really having analyzed our profession from the perspective of disruptive innovation so his talk was a bit of a rehash of both Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovative University. It was still really worth it to hear from the man himself, and following his presentation, the Senior VP of IBM Watson, Mike Rhodin, the CEO of Legal Zoom, John Suh, and GC of Charles River Ventures, Sarah Reed, weighed in on what they think disruptive innovation of legal services looks like.

    Chris Kenny, Chief Exec of the UK Legal Services Board, also spoke via video conferencing about how alternative business structures (ABS) are working out across the pond. According to Kenny, ABS is working great in the UK, increasing access to justice and creating healthy competition in the marketplace without risk to consumers or disciplinary issues in the profession. I found his presentation to be informative and encouraging in terms of looking forward towards real structural change in our profession. The ABA President-Elect, William Hubbard, weighed in after Kenny spoke to explain that the ABA was not on board with ABS, but he said he would like to see the gap bridged between main-street lawyers and the innovators and academics pushing for change in the profession. Of course the real reasons why we can’t move forward with ABS have to do with protectionism and the interests of the lawyers who sit at the helm of the Bar. Progress here will come slowly, and I still believe it will be consumers who push the change in the market forward, not the ABA House of Delegates.

    Bob Ambrogi wrote a good run-down of the morning’s presentations. (Note: it’s hidden behind a required registration wall.)

    After a very interesting morning session, the conference broke out into working groups. I attended one called “Lawyers and Technology.” There were also working groups on access, big data and analytics, and corporate pricing and matching. Several legal technology startups spoke briefly at each working group, but the discussions among the attendees was the most stimulating. Below is the video of the Working Group Report to the conference summarizing the key points from each breakout discussion.
    )

  • 15 Questions Before Unbundling Legal Services

    legosI was thrilled to read that unbundling was mentioned several times at Reinvent Law in NYC last Friday. Unbundling, or limited scope representation, is the primary delivery method used by many of the newer, online methods of legal service delivery. Of course, not all lawyers have been trained in how to unbundle legal services ethically. Unbundling tends to get only a footnote in most law schools when and if they cover law practice management.

    In order to compete in a changed legal marketplace it will be imperative for lawyers to learn how to unbundle their services for clients, but also for other lawyers and law firms if they are solo or small firm practitioners. I wrote a book on this topic a couple years ago so I’ll start sharing more of those tips on here for those who are interested in staying competitive. For a virtual law practitioner, this is even more critical because of how much easier it is to deliver unbundled services online than full-service.

    Here are 15 questions that may be added to the client intake process to help a lawyer determine whether the client is a good candidate for unbundling. They may also help the client understand the nature of the limited scope representation and how it differs from full-service assistance.

    1. Have you worked with a lawyer on any issues surrounding this matter before?
    2. Have you personally researched the law and legal issues involved in this matter?
    3. How much is financially at stake?
    4. How much is emotionally at stake?
    5. What do you see as a positive outcome for this case?
    6. What would you be willing to settle for if that exact outcome is not achievable?
    7. What aspects of this process are you willing and able to handle yourself?
    8. Have you ever been involved in a lawsuit or have any experience in the legal system?
    9. What resources are available to you in terms of time to devote to this matter, such as time away from work, arranging for childcare, etc.?
    10. What resources are available to you in terms of assistance from family members, paralegals, nonlawyer professionals, etc.?
    11. What tasks do you know that you want the lawyer to provide?
    12. How do you expect for us to collaborate to create a strategy for your case?
    13. How do you expect to communicate with the law firm?
    14. Are you comfortable using technology to communicate, such as web conferences, secure real-time chat or encrypted email?
    15. How much are you able to budget for unbundled legal services?

  • Bona Fide Office Rule In the News Again

    delawareThe Bona Fide Office Rule has reappeared in the news again. This time it’s an Opinion from the Delaware Supreme Court.

    I’ve written about the Bona Fide Office rule here several times, mostly with regard to New Jersey’s joint ethics opinion on the subject. Other states have been revisiting surrounding issues in terms of the lawyer’s requirements to provide certain contact information on his or her website or other advertising and in that requirement calling for some physical office address.

    Bona Fide Office rules discourage lawyers from finding alternative and often more affordable methods of delivering legal services to clients. Requiring that a member of the bar provide contact information to the regulatory body is obviously necessary. Requiring that a lawyer provide his or her clients with a reliable method of contacting the lawyer is also necessary.

    However, a lawyer does not need to maintain a traditional, physical law office seven days a week during 9-5 business hours in order to accomplish either of these. He or she does not have to retain the services of an employee to work at that law office in order to answer the phone when the lawyer is not present to accomplish adequate and reliable communication with his or her clients.

    The Supreme Court of Delaware recently issued an Opinion that suspended a lawyer who worked from his home office in Pennsylvania while practicing Delaware law. The lawyer’s violation of their Bona Fide Office Rule 12 was not the only item at issue in this opinion which is why I will not go into it in detail except for their discussion of the Bona Fide Office Rule. Why? Because that part of the Opinion will mostly like be read by other lawyers in Delaware and potentially discourage them from considering virtual law practice and delivering legal services online to clients.

    According to the Court:

    “[t]he Rule requires that the office “be a place where the attorney or a responsible person acting on the attorney’s behalf can be reached in person or by telephone,” and have “the customary facilities for engaging in the practice of law.”

    Delaware Supreme Court Rule 12(d) (the Bona Fide Office Rule) states:

    “(d) Office for the practice of law. As used in these rules, an “office for the practice of law” means a  bona fide office maintained in this State for the practice of law in which the attorney practices by being  there a substantial and scheduled portion of time during ordinary business hours in the traditional work  week. An attorney is deemed to be in an office even if temporarily absent from it if the duties of the law  practice are actively conducted by the attorney from that office. An office must be a place where the  attorney or a responsible person acting on the attorney’s behalf can be reached in person or by telephone  during normal business hours and which has the customary facilities for engaging in the practice of law.  A bona fide office is more than a mail drop, a summer home which is unattended during a substantial portion of the year or an answering, telephone forwarding, secretarial or similar service.”

    There is no mention of the possibility of the lawyer working from home and delivering legal services in unbundled fashion to his or her clients online. There is no mention of the use of temporary/as needed renting of office space so that the lawyer can meet with the clients for full service representation, but continue to conduct the majority of their work with clients online. This is an outdated rule.

    There is technology available to securely work with clients online. This technology decreases the cost of overhead of a traditional law office which in turn decreases the cost of legal fees.  There is NO EXCUSE why States should not consider alternative forms of legal service delivery. People need more access to lawyers, not less!

    The lawyer that was suspended in this case was only using the phone to call his clients. There was no mention of any secure client portal or other virtual law office technology. But it’s the way that the Court addressed this Rule in their Opinion that disturbs me. They must start thinking outside of the Bona Fide Office Rule. It does not make sense anymore on so many levels to restrict how lawyers communicate with clients to in-person visits. Supporting an outdated Bona Fide Office Rule is a barrier that is going to continue to discourage lawyers from finding innovative and cost-effective ways to serve the public and increase access.

    See these other posts about the Delaware Opinion from Niki Black and in the ABA Journal.

  • Regulating Lawyer Online Advertising? Welcome to the Party.

    As many of my readers know, I have strong opinions about the regulation of lawyer advertising and it goes back to the unfounded assumptions about consumers that the advertising rules were originally built upon, and the fact that they have not been updated much since then to account for online methods of advertising and the way the public actually finds lawyers online.

    I’m preparing for a panel presentation at the Univ. of San Francisco where we will be discussing lawyer advertising and regulation. The event is entitled Legal Ethics in the 21st Century: Technology, Speech, and Money. I‘m going back through some of my materials on this topic. Below is a sidebar from my book about lawyer online advertising. With the Florida Bar going crazy with restrictions on lawyer blogs, it’s time to start pushing this matter forward starting with education about the marketplace for legal services.  In the meantime, people looking for access to lawyers who are the right match for their legal needs are still out there looking for help and they don’t really care about First Amendment or lawyer protectionist arguments. (#A2J)

    internet-marketing-abcRestructuring Lawyer Marketing Vocabulary to Adapt to eCommerce

    A 2010 BIA/Kelsey report found that 97 percent of all consumers use online methods of researching and selecting services in their local area.  Even those law firms that claim their practice is “only local-based” or that they meet with all their clients in-person, in the office and at the courthouse, have no excuse to continue to ignore the Internet as a marketing tool. Online marketing methods are impacting all law firms. Below are some suggestions for redefining the legal profession’s marketing vocabulary.

    • The term “market” should not be used as a verb, but as a noun. Marketing is not something a lawyer does “to” or “at” prospective clients. A market is a place where individuals come together to discuss common interests and to create relationships based on supply and demand. The focus in lawyer marketing should be on engagement and conversation.
    • Separate the concepts of the lawyer’s “duty” to the public in advertising from “etiquette” or not being “tacky” in advertising online. Lacking good taste is subjective. Being misleading or false is another matter.  Lawyer regulations should not attempt to dictate taste.
    • The Internet is not a tool; it is a place. We don’t do things through it or on it; we do them “in” it.  Welcome to the party.
    • Commercialism and professionalism: these two concepts do not have to be at odds with each other. Does maintaining an attitude of sitting up on a high-horse of education and presumed privilege hinder the ability to interact with the average client? Of course it does. Intimidation may be useful in the courtroom or during negotiations, but it should not completely define the professional image of lawyers. The legal profession should refocus on the respect, trust, and expertise that falls under professionally rendered services, but present it in a way that is not condescending or intimidating to the average American citizen. Movies and television shows with negative or hostile images of lawyers will be difficult to supplant, but if lawyers start engaging more in open, online dialogue with the public, this can change.
    • Customer service is a concept most law firms do not think about, but it is a basic best practice for business owners in every industry. There are online methods of providing consumer service. For example, sending a simple “thank you for being a client” email  or providing free, basic legal education and content on a firm website or in an online marketing tool. These provide a platform for delivery of educational legal material. Content controls the Internet. Sharing is both good online consumer service and a method of starting conversations with prospective clients and other lawyers.
    • Lawyers should not rely too strongly on the term “consumer” when thinking about marketing strategies for client development. Consumption implies a swallowing up of something in return for monetary value. We do not want our clients consuming legal services because in many cases the relationship between the attorney and client is what is so valuable to them and what makes our work meaningful beyond the financial rewards. Let’s remember they are our clients, but balance this with the knowledge that they are also our customers which implies another level of care beyond the attorney/client privilege; one that includes their satisfaction with our work and their overall experience with the delivery of legal services and the legal profession.

  • Infographic: Technology in Legal Education

    This was my first attempt at creating an infographic using Piktochart. Any feedback is welcome! It’s challenging for a writer to think in terms of graphic design, but I’m trying!

  • Video: ReInvent Law Presentation

    This is the video of my “ignite-style” presentation at the ReInvent Law Conference in Silicon Valley a couple months ago. I’m speaking at a super fast pace about branded networks, lawyer advertising, and online delivery of legal services.

    Stephanie Kimbro – Consumer Law Revolution from ReInvent Law Channel on Vimeo.

  • Writing, Writing and More Writing

    A few articles to note and a request for leads:

    • A Symposium on Justice, Lawyering and Legal Education in the Digital Age will be held by Chicago-Kent College of Law this week in conjunction with the CALI’s 2013 Conference for Law School Computing. Richard Granat and I co-wrote an article entitled The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm, for the symposium which has been published in the law school’s law review.
    • I also wanted to point out Will Hornsby’s article in this journal entitled, Gaming the System: Approaching 100% Access to Legal Services Through Online Games, an earlier copy of which I read with great interest. I incorporated some of his research on this topic into the business plan for my game project.
    • My chapter entitled “eProfessionalism” has been published this month in the new book from the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility entitled Essential Qualities of the Professional Lawyer.
    • I’m collecting research and case studies for an international report on online legal services that I’ve been commissioned to write. In particular, I’m looking for examples of online delivery methods by private practitioners and law firms in Asia, Africa and South America. If you know of any studies that cover these countries, please share.

    I like to write.

  • 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…)

MENU