By now the word has circulated that the ABA Techshow website has posted the audio file from Richard Susskind’s keynote presentation at the ABA Techshow in Chicago earlier this month. I wasn’t able to attend the event and accept the Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in Elawyering. However, my husband, the programmer who designed my virtual law office software, attended to accept the award on my behalf. The presentation came with a lovely plaque that I will hang in my home office. Of course none of my online clients will get to see it, but I will have to find a way to “decorate” my VLO with some mention of the award.
Thanks to all of the Twitterers in the audience, I followed the presentation from home and got a good overview of the speech from tweets. Today I finally had time to listen to the ABA audio file of Susskind’s speech. He’s a very dynamic speaker which is something that you just can’t get from following a speaker on Twitter. I was also happy to hear that at the end they included the ABA Task Force’s presentation of the award to my VLO and my husband’s acceptance speech. Since I wasn’t there to accept it in person, it was nice to hear how it went.
In other news, my VLO received the Family Favorite Attorney Award for the third year in a row from the Wilmington Parent Magazine, a local parenting publication that many of my online clients read. This award means a lot of me because it comes from some of the individuals and families that I work with online. It has helped each year to build my confidence in my virtual elawyering skills and to generate additional client referrals. A couple articles were also published about my VLO in the NC Lawyer’s Weekly and other law-related publications. Hopefully all the attention will generate additional interest in virtual law practice and the delivery of legal services using technology.
Aside from my own virtual law practice, my company, VLOTech, received the 2009 Coastal Entrepreneur Award and was invited to meet with a panel of business experts to discuss the company. It was a great opportunity to learn from other entrepreneurs who have taken their dreams, accepted the risks and made it happen.
This spring has been a busy one both personally and professionally. My goal is to return to blogging more about actual virtual law practice in the summer months as things settle down a bit.