Virtual Law Practice

Delivering legal services online

Virginia State Bar Publishes Virtual Law Office Ethics Opinion

By | | Cloud Computing, Delivering Legal Services Online, eLawyering, Ethics, Marketing, Online Marketing, Practice Management, Technology, Virtual practice | Leave a Comment

The Virginia State Bar has published Legal Ethics Opinion 1872 on virtual law offices and the use of temporary office space on March 29, 2013. The ethics opinion acknowledges that virtual law offices and temporary or leased office spaces do not always go together, but it addresses both from the standpoint of ethics issues, such as providing contact information in marketing, supervision of lawyers and nonlawyers in the firm, confidentiality of the tech and competency using it to work with clients online. ...READ MORE

Bitcoin as Payment for Legal Services

By | | Delivering Legal Services Online, Ethics, Online Payments, Practice Management, Technology, Virtual practice | 2 Comments

One of my law students recently raised this question to me: Could a lawyer allow payment for legal services in Bitcoin? It’s not a question I’ve ever gotten before and it’s a good one. Bitcoin is digital currency and it’s not managed by any central authority but the transactions occur through Bitcoin miners which is basically a server that communicates and confirms the transaction and records it on a ledger. They can be transferred by mobile devices. Recent articles have suggested that eBay and Paypal may open up their sites to the use of Bitcoin. ...READ MORE

New York Publishes New Ethics Opinion – Had a Pow-Wow with NJ?

By | | Cloud Computing, Delivering Legal Services Online, eLawyering, Ethics, Marketing, Practice Management, Technology, Virtual practice | 3 Comments

The NY State Bar Association Committee on Professional Ethics has published a new ethics Opinion 964 on April 4, 2013 that affects virtual law offices. The opinion is more related to lawyer advertising rather than about virtual law offices but it affects advertising for virtual, traditional and hybrid delivery models. The opinion was prompted by an inquiry from a lawyer who delivers immigration law services primarily online. Like many lawyers with virtual law offices, the lawyer rarely meets with clients in person and communicates using video conferencing and other digital methods of communication. ...READ MORE

Can’t We Do the Same Thing?

By | | Book, Cloud Computing, Delivering Legal Services Online, eLawyering, Ethics, Practice Management, Technology, Virtual practice | 1 Comment

This weekend I gave a presentation for Avvo’s Lawyernomics Conference in Las Vegas. I was talking about the subject of my new book and giving examples of the online marketing tools that branded networks provide for lawyers in their network to use to connect and work with clients online. There were several great questions from the audience throughout, but one question in particular struck me: Couldn’t we use the same techniques the branded networks are using on our own law firm sites? ...READ MORE

Using Technology to Unbundle in the Legal Services Community

By | | Delivering Legal Services Online, eLawyering, Practice Management, Technology, Virtual practice | Leave a Comment

My article for the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology has been published online. It looks at the building blocks that are already in place and proposes methods of unbundling legal services and delivering them to the public throught the use of technology.  This articles comes from a white paper I wrote for the LSC Tech Summit. ...READ MORE

Slides from ReInventLaw Conference

By | | Book, Delivering Legal Services Online, eLawyering, Ethics, Marketing, Online Marketing, Practice Management, Technology, Virtual practice | 2 Comments

This past Friday, I gave a presentation at the ReInvent Law conference in Silicon Valley. There were 500+ attendees registered and some really interesting speakers. The focus of my talk was about the subject of my new book: lawyers, especially solos and small firms, should learn to collaborate with branded networks and where we are at this stage in that process. ...READ MORE

Unbundling Low Cost Legal Services with Contract Lawyers

By | | Alternative Billing, Ethics, Practice Management, Unbundling - Limited Scope | Leave a Comment

I wanted to give a shout-out to Gabriel Cheong, owner of Infinity Law Group, for creating a new business model that unbundles legal services for reduced fees. Cheong has founded Cambridge Divorce Group which brings together contract lawyers who are willing to unbundle family law services for reduced rates. I’ve mentioned Cheong on here before because his law firm website features a web calculator to assist prospective clients in estimating their legal costs. ...READ MORE

Ethics and the Virtual Law Office – Article in St. Louis Lawyer

By | | Delivering Legal Services Online, eLawyering, Ethics, Practice Management, Technology, Virtual practice | 2 Comments

Michael Downey, a lawyer with Armstrong Teasdale LLP and legal ethics teacher at Washington University School of Law and St. Louis University School of Law, has written an article seeking to balance the messages lawyers might take from two recent events in virtual practice news: 1) Rachel Rodger’s article in Forbes focusing on the benefits of increased work/life balance from virtual law offices and 2) the Virginia disciplinary matter of lawyer Atchuthan Sriskandarah who operated a virtual practice and engaged in misleading lawyer advertising. ...READ MORE

ABA Adopts Unbunding Resolution

By | | Cloud Computing, Delivering Legal Services Online, eLawyering, Ethics, Practice Management, Technology, Unbundling - Limited Scope, Virtual practice | 1 Comment

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. 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. ...READ MORE
MENU