Virtual Law Practice

Tag: online clients

  • Attorneys Discuss Virtual Law Practice

    Check out two blog posts discussing virtual law practice from Chuck Newton and Jay Fleischman, both attorneys who use technology to practice law outside a traditional law office.  Newton’s post Is Virtual Virtually Impossible? prompted Fleischman’s post An Open Response to ‘Is Virtual Virtually Impossible?’

    As I commented on Newton’s blog, I believe there is room in our profession for many different law practice methods, including virtual law offices, whether they are completely web-based or integrated into a traditional law office setting.

    Fleischman’s post discusses the definition of the word “virtual” and whether it is the appropriate term to use.  When I was considering what to call my own web-based law office and we were evaluating the name for VLOTech, we looked at all of the existing terms that came close to describing the method of practicing law securely over the Internet, such as elawyering, online law practice, online legal services, web-based law office, online unbundled legal services, etc.

    The term “virtual” and the connotations it brings may depend on an attorney’s concept of how the Internet can be used to recreate real world environments.  Virtual can also mean a software representation of something physical. A virtual reality world is a software representation of the 3D physics of the real world.  Virtual machines, such as VMWare or Virtual PC, are software representations of physical hardware.  Virtual law offices are software representations of a physical law office, including front office, backend office and even secretary.

    What we intended to convey by the term VLO or virtual law practice was that this method was a way of recreating an entire law office environment on the Internet.  Second Life, for example, is a virtual reality world; a digital world accessed completely online.  Likewise, my VLO is a complete virtual law office accessed online.  My waiting room, my conference room, my filing cabinets, my copy machine, my law library, etc. are all in one place online.

    Since I started my own web-based practice I’ve worked with other attorneys who are using technology to run both a traditional law practice and a web-based law office.   As long as the technology used to practice law over the Internet protects the general public that we serve, it should not matter what method or combination of law practice methods legal professionals use to get their work done.  There will always be clients and attorneys who prefer certain methods over others.  It doesn’t make one type of attorney more or less of a professional.

    My prediction is that in the next ten years attorneys will continue to run into more clients who expect them to use web-based methods of communication to provide legal services.  Look even further down the road and expect to see attorney avatars having online conferences with their clients’ avatars.  While some attorneys already have law offices in virtual reality worlds, the security is not there yet for attorney/client confidentiality and the general public is not quite at that level of comfort with the concept.

    I certainly don’t think traditional face-to-face lawyering will ever disappear.  However, attorneys operating VLOs and those practicing law online are at the forefront of an increasingly useful and popular law practice method.

  • How Does a Virtual Law Office Close Shop for the Holidays?

    For the past couple of years, I have kept my VLO open through the holidays.  I can log in remotely and check the case queue while traveling or on vacation so it’s not a problem to keep up with my self-imposed response policy.  The VLO sends a notice to let me know when there is any activity from a client or a new prospective client has registered.  That’s how I know when to log back in and check the queue or a client’s case file. 

    My VLO is open 24/7.  When I started my online practice almost three years ago, I decided that I would respond to each request for legal services within 24 hours of the request being posted on my VLO case queue.  That doesn’t mean I complete the legal services requested in 24 hours, just that I respond to the online prospective or existing client in some way to let them know that I am paying attention.  The VLO sends out a notice to the client if they want email updates to let them know that I have received their message, but I prefer to respond in a more personal manner to each client.

    But this year I need a couple days off.  How do attorneys practicing law with a web-based VLO close up the virtual office door to take a break? Well, I won’t need to prohibit clients or prospective clients from contacting me on the VLO.  What I do need is to provide them with notice that I will not be reading or responding to their requests for a couple days.

    There is the typical auto-responder that most law offices use that will tell each person who logs into my VLO that I am out of the virtual law office and when I will return.  I could also post a sign on the front of my VLO login and register page that tells any online clients and prospective clients that they may request legal services but that I will be unable to respond for a few days.

    For attorneys with completely virtual law practices or for those attorneys whose clients are used to contacting them outside of typical business hours, how do you let your clients know when you need or want to take a few days off?

  • Avoiding the Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) in other Jurisdictions with a Virtual Law Office (Part Two)

    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 licensed?

    How is it clear with a Virtual Law Office (VLO) when the attorney/client relationship is established?

    An online client receives adequate notice through his or her individual homepage in the VLO as to the different statuses of the case.  Notice is provided to the online client when the attorney has reviewed the client’s question and posted a response, when the attorney has accepted or declined representation, when the attorney provides details of the scope of representation, and when the attorney has completed legal representation and is formally closing the online case file.

    The attorney/client relationship begins when the online client has registered on the VLO and requested legal services from the attorney.  The client is notified when the attorney has reviewed and responded to his or her legal question.  Then the client is asked follow-up questions by the attorney or is presented with the price quote or terms of representation for the online client to accept or decline.

    Through the VLO, the attorney has several options to define the scope of representation, including providing clients with a traditional written retainer letter uploaded to the system, writing out personalized messages to each client and requiring that the client accept a customized clickwrap agreement solidifying the terms of the attorney/client relationship, or using both traditional and online clickwrap methods.  Basically, the same procedures for establishing attorney/client relationship and defining the scope of representation that are used in a traditional law practice can be integrated into a VLO.

    I would argue that using the technology actually provides clearer notice to the clients of the establishment of the attorney/client relationship and the scope of representation. It may also do a better job of keeping the clients informed of their case status than occurs with a traditional law practice.  One of the biggest malpractice complaints from clients is that their attorney does not communicate effectively with them regarding their case.  The VLO handles so much of the process for the attorney automatically. It also gives clients the ability to check for themselves the status of their file and to review their previous discussions with the attorney.

    Is it UPL in another jurisdiction to draft a legal document, such as a Will, for an online client who is a resident in another state?

    It is my understanding that it would constitute the unauthorized practice of law in another jurisdiction if an attorney used his or her VLO to draft a legal document that pertained to the laws of another state where the online client was a resident but where the attorney did not have a license to practice law.

    However, if the attorney operating the VLO were partnering with attorneys or legal assistants on his or her VLO who were licensed in other jurisdictions, then this would be different.  For example, a virtual paralegal could work on the VLO to draft a Will or other estate planning document for a client a jurisdiction where the virtual paralegal was familiar with that state’s estate planning laws.  The virtual paralegal would then flag the document for review by the attorney on the VLO who was licensed in that online client’s state.

    My understanding is that the review and approval of that legal document by the attorney licensed to handle that state’s laws would permit the virtual paralegal to complete the transaction for the online client without it constituting UPL in another jurisdiction.  You can see through this example how a solo law practice taken online with a VLO could grow very quickly across multiple jurisdictions if well planned out.

    How does the issue of UPL in other jurisdictions relate to legal document automation software?

    Some attorneys are choosing to provide legal services online by using document automation software, similar to the way that LegalZoom and similar companies provide legal documents across jurisdictions.  There is a separate issue here which pertains to assisting a nonlawyer (the software vendor or legal form provider) in the practice of law.  If this form of providing legal services interests readers, I recommend that they check out Richard Granat’s recent blog post regarding the automated delivery of online legal services, or online document assembly, as it relates to UPL.

    VLOTech is preparing a feature for the first of next year that allows attorneys to create forms for clients on the VLO to fill out and send to the attorney securely on the system in addition to the existing VLO forms of communicating online with the client.  The forms could be anything from estate planning and family law questionnaires to customized client intake forms based on the attorney’s virtual law practice areas.  Since the forms would be generated by the attorney individually for the VLO and not pre-packaged from a vendor, then it should avoid the UPL issue completely.  It will be interesting to see how attorneys practicing law online will choose to integrate this additional feature in their virtual law practice.

    Online Resources Regarding UPL

    ABA Model Code, Rule 5.5 Unauthorized Practice of Law; Multijurisdictional Practice of Law

    State by state comparative analysis of UPL – Cornell University Law School, American Legal Ethics Library

    BTW:  By no means do I claim to be a legal ethics expert.  I practice law online from my VLO and work with other attorneys nationwide to set up VLOs.  These issues interest me and I love hearing and learning from other’s experiences.  If anyone has specific ethics decisions from their state bar pertaining to UPL in other jurisdictions and online law practice, I’d love to hear about it.  Please share!

  • Assisting a Pro Se Litigant Online – Proposed NC State Bar 2008 Formal Ethics Op. 3

    The winter issue of the North Carolina State Bar’s Journal came out this week.  Of interest to attorneys practicing online with a virtual law practice, the Journal published the Proposed 2008 Formal Ethics Opinion 3, Assisting a Pro Se Litigant.  The proposed opinion had come out earlier this year but was only recently printed in the state bar’s publication.

    The Bar’s summarized its ethics decision:

    Proposed opinion rules a lawyer may assist a pro se litigant by drafting pleadings and giving advice without making an appearance in the proceeding and without disclosing or ensuring the disclosure of his assistance to the court unless required to do so by law or court order.

    How does this relate to a virtual law practice?

    Several virtual law office owners that I have worked with are planning on providing pro se litigants with unbundled legal services.  This would help to lessen the burden on the court systems in their state that are swamped with pro se litigants and at the same time allow the attorneys to tap into a different client base with a large need for legal services. 

    The technology of a web-based virtual law office would allow these attorneys to efficiently assist a large number of pro set litigants in any number of areas of law.  They could charge fees for legal services that are perhaps less than their traditional billable hour rates, but which make economic sense because the client is doing all of the footwork and the technology streamlines the process. 

    Of interest in this NC ethics opinion, the state bar specifically recognizes the public’s need for legal services to be delivered in less traditional ways. The ethics opinion references the NC 2005 Formal Ethics Opinion 10 which permits an internet based law practice to offer to work with and provide clients with online legal services, including providing services to pro se litigants. 

    The key to this new proposed ethics opinion is similar to the NC 2005 FEO Opinion 10 because it requires that the online client provide “informed consent” to the limited online representation.  Through a VLO, the client is given adequate notice of the terms and scope of the online representation multiple times and is asked to accept these terms through two separate clickwrap agreements. 

    The ethics opinion also requires that the attorney make the independent judgment as to whether the services he or she offers can be competently provided to the client based on that client’s unique legal needs.  This is similar to the process any attorney should go through in a traditional law practice and is not different with a virtual law office.

    To summarize, this opinion is another nod from another state bar that a virtual law practice may provide services to pro se litigants, provided that the virtual law practice is handled properly by the attorney practicing law online.

  • Avoiding the Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) in other Jurisdictions with a Virtual Law Office (Part One)

    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 more complex.  For the most part, I’m addressing UPL in other jurisdictions as it pertains to a solo or small firm operating a virtual law practice.

    How does a virtual law practice avoid UPL in other jurisdictions?

    First, the attorney practicing law on a web-based VLO needs to state in their VLO website or blog that he or she is only registered to practice law in whatever state or states he or she is licensed to practice law in.  If the VLO handles federal law, such as patent applications or immigration law, then this is less of an issue because the attorney can work with online clients across state jurisdictions as long as the work pertains to federal law.

    Second, the VLO software should have a jurisdiction check built into it to protect both the client and the attorney from UPL in other jurisdictions.  Before a prospective client may register for a secure homepage on the VLO and even pose his or her legal question, he or she must provide a valid address.  The system will then run a check on the prospective client’s zip code with the jurisdiction(s) in which the attorney is licensed to practice law.  If the client is located in a state where the attorney is not licensed, a notice will appear to the client to remind them that the attorney only handles X state’s law.  The attorney will also receive a red flag notice that tells him or her that the client is located in X state and the legal matter may not be within the attorney’s ability to handle without risking malpractice.  

    This jurisdiction check in the technology does not prevent the attorney from taking the case.  For example, if the prospective client lives in Ohio and his or her legal needs pertain to real estate law for property owned in the state in which the attorney is licensed, then the attorney may accept that case because it pertains to law that he is licensed to practice.  The attorney on the VLO must determine on a case by case basis with the assistance of the jurisdiction check and based on the client’s request for legal services whether accepting the legal case would be UPL in another jurisdiction. 

    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 licensed?  Doesn’t the nature of a website itself make the VLO in violation of advertising for legal services in multiple jurisdictions?

    Here are the basics:

    ABA Model Code Rule 5.5(b) states that

    A lawyer who is not admitted to practice in this jurisdiction shall not:

    (1) except as authorized by these Rules or other law, establish an office or other systematic and continuous presence in this jurisdiction for the practice of law; or

    (2) hold out to the public or otherwise represent that the lawyer is admitted to practice law in this jurisdiction.

    You can review a state by state comparative analysis of the code here.

    This issue is going to relate to any law firm website, not just a virtual law practice.  However, because clients will be able to work with and purchase legal services from the web-based VLO, the virtual law office website or blog needs to be even clearer to the public about the services that are provided and the nature of unbundled legal services in general. 

    In order to comply with the ABA Model Rule and the rules of most state bars, the attorney setting up a virtual law office needs pay close attention to the website content and advertising rules established by the state bar(s) in which he or she is licensed.  The ABA’s Law Practice Management Section also has a Best Practice Guidelines for Legal Information Web Site Providers which is an excellent resource to follow when setting up a VLO website or blog. 

    The key is to provide the prospective online client with adequate notice that the attorney is only able to provide legal services pertaining to a certain state’s laws.  Updated contact information for the attorney should be posted on the site as well as terms and conditions for website use and a privacy policy. 

    With a VLO, these terms and conditions will be presented to the online client who registers not only on the main VLO website but also in the form of a clickwrap agreement ensuring that the prospective client understands the nature of the services to be provided.  Once the online client has proceeded with opening a case on the VLO and the attorney has agreed to take the case, the online client will for a second time be presented with the terms and conditions for the delivery of legal services through the VLO and be asked to accept the VLO’s terms and conditions for use along with the specific terms and scope of representation from the attorney for that individual case. 

    With multiple opportunities for the client to review this information along with the ability of the attorney to provide additional explanation to the client online through discussion, it seems unlikely that the client could be deemed to have inadequate notice of the nature of the online legal services to be delivered.

    Again, it will be the responsibility of the attorney practicing law online to make the determination, even with the jurisdiction check in the software, that he or she is able to handle the requested legal services without committing UPL in another jurisdiction.  In many respects, this does not differ greatly from the process that an attorney in a traditional law office would have to go through to prevent UPL.  The primary difference is that the notification to the prospective client is handled online rather than in person or through a mailed letter.

    Part II will address the following questions:  How is the attorney/client relationship established on a VLO as to avoid UPL?  Is it UPL in another jurisdiction to draft a legal document, such as a Will, for an online client who is a resident in another state?  How does the issue of UPL in other jurisdictions relate to legal document automation software?

    BTW:  By no means do I claim to be a legal ethics expert.  I practice law online from my VLO and work with other attorneys nationwide to set up VLOs.  These issues interest me and I love hearing and learning from other’s experiences.  If anyone has specific ethics decisions from their state bar pertaining to UPL in other jurisdictions and online law practice, I’d love to hear about it.  Please share!

  • List of Sites Containing Tips to Market a Virtual Law Office

    In a recent blog post, I discussed how an attorney with a VLO can attract paying, online clients to a VLO.  As promised, below is a list of websites and blogs that provide useful marketing tips and resources for solo and small firm practitioners.  This list only includes sites that provide marketing resources and tips.  I could build a long list of other services and sites that an attorney could join in order to market his or her virtual law practice,  such as sites that help to raise the SEO of the VLO website or blog.  Hopefully, the sites listed below will point you towards many of these online tricks of the trade. 

    Most of the resources below are geared towards a traditional law practice and some of them are not even related to the legal profession specifically, but with a little creativity the tips found in them could easily be used to market a virtual law office.  If I had oodles of free time, I would love to explain in detail how each of these sites and resources can be useful to a virtual law practice.  Instead, I’m just putting it out there and inviting everyone to explore and use their imaginations.  Or better yet, if you become befuddled, contact the folks that run these blogs in person.  Some of them are really kind, helpful individuals who are attorneys themselves and contain a wealth of valuable information and experience to share.  As always, I welcome suggestions to add to this list.  

    [Tip: Since most of these sites are blogs, it might save time to check out their categories section or run a search on their site specifically for marketing tips.]

    Sites with Tips on Marketing a Virtual Law Office”
    1.  Lisa Solomon’s Legal Research and Writing Pro Website and Blog 

    **Lisa is hosting an upcoming teleseminar, PR 101 for Lawyers: How to Write Direct-to-Consumer Press Releases That the Media Will Also Love.  This will take place on November 18 and will be presented by Joan Stewart, a/k/a the Publicity Hound.  Details for this are on her website.

    2.  The Publicity Hound Blog & Tips of the Week Ezine

    3.  Susan Cartier Liebel’s Build a Solo Practice, LLC

    4.  Grant Griffith’s Home Office Warrior, Home Office Lawyer and Blog for Profit 

    5.  CopyBlogger

    6.  ProBlogger

    7.  Guy Kawasaki’s How to Change the World

    8.  Carolyn Elefant’s My Shingle

    9.  Ed Poll’s LawBiz Blog & Ezine

    10.  Stem Legal – “Building Web Profile for the Legal Industry”

    11.  The PR Lawyer

    12.  Law Marketing Blog 

    13.  Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs

    14.  Legal Marketing Blog

    15.  Brett Trout’s BlawgIt

    16.  Ben Glass’s Great Legal Marketing blog

    17.  Gary Vaynerchuk‘s blog

    Resource to Join

    Solo Practice University  (Opening soon, this web-based educational community will provide online courses related to marketing law practices.)

  • How to Get Online Clients – Marketing A Virtual Law Practice

    I’ve been working closely with attorneys who are launching web-based virtual law practices powered by VLOTech.  I provide them with marketing suggestions and tips based on my own virtual law practice experience and share lessons I’ve learned from such wise attorneys as Lisa Solomon, Susan Cartier Liebel, Grant Griffiths, and others who have been generous in sharing their time and marketing wisdom with me. 

    One of the most frequent questions I receive from attorneys considering opening a VLO is “How can I be sure that I will get online clients once I set up a VLO?”  I thought I’d share my response here for the benefit of others who are interested in learning how to obtain online clients for a web-based virtual law practice.

    How do I get paying, online clients to my VLO?

    The goal of a VLO is to provide legal services to the public online.  From the attorney’s prospective, the primary goal of a web-based virtual law office is to generate online client revenue for his or her law practice. My VLO is my law office.   I handle everything through the web-based system.  It is the sole place where I retain, meet with and work with my clients.  Some attorneys are combining VLOs with traditional law practices, so they will do a combination of meeting with clients online and in a physical law office.  Others are taking their VLOs completely web-based. 

    So how do I get prospective clients in the virtual door?   I use many of the same marketing techniques that any attorney would use after hanging his or her own shingle, except I market my VLO website address rather than a physical law office address. Most of the advertising I use for my VLO is free.  Instead, I pay with my time and dedicated energy.  

    I’ll use my own virtual law practice as an example of how I began pulling in paying online clients.  Right after my VLO launch, I emailed simple press releases to local papers and then to the technology, legal and news editors at the papers in larger cities in my state announcing the opening of my VLO.  There are media lists that you can purchase online that will tell exactly who to email the press releases to, but you can do the footwork yourself which is what I did.  I announced in my release that I was opening a virtual law office and explained why this was beneficial for the public, their readers.  Editors realized that this was useful information for the public and helped spread the word.  Once you get one article or even a blurb written about you, that article has the potential to be picked up by other media outlets.  This is what happened in my case and the press spread from there. 

    The press releases are just one example.  Each publication that came out regarding my VLO resulted in about two weeks of new online client activity.  I also used and continue to use a lot of free online postings that direct people to my VLO.  Of course I am careful about my wording in these posts so that I comply my state bar’s rules for advertising and avoid the unauthorized practice of law in other jurisdictions. 

    Some Early Mistakes

    Initially I made the mistake of entering into a contract with Lawyers.com for a $2,000 a year listing that came with a tacky splash page to my VLO.  Because I didn’t have the advertising budget of BigLaw or even a smaller established firm, I couldn’t pay them enough to get a “top” listing under any practice area categories and was limited to listings in the city where I am physically located only.  The result was a total cost of $2,000 for one paying client the entire year from that service.  Today I have the free listing with them which is satisfactory.  I also have a free listing with FindLaw.  These companies will try to scare you by saying that without a listing clients will never find you online in any search engines.  Not true.  You can build your own web presence if you stay dedicated to your marketing strategy.

    Today I boost my search engine ratings for my VLO by blogging about my practice, by using free listings and by sharing my legal knowledge with others through forums, listservs and other social networking sites.  Recently, Grant Griffiths wrote a blog post over at Home Office Lawyer about using blogs to pull clients into a home office which you might want to check out.  I also donate estate planning packages or small business counseling sessions to silent auctions or raffles for organizations, such as MOPs, SBCs or other groups that might be interested in estate planning or small business assistance.  This leads to referrals, but often not for several months after I’ve donated the legal work.  Again, these methods take time, but they are free and have resulted in a growing client base that’s built on referrals from other attorneys and existing clients.

    Ongoing VLO Client Development

    Just as with any solo practice, I have to make an effort every week towards client development.  What I do this month may not pay off with online clients until three months from now, but as long as I keep it up I have a steady client base.  I think that’s pretty typical of most small businesses whether law-related or not.

    Currently, the only traditional advertising that I commit to is for a local parenting magazine ad for $190/month.  It has consistently and easily paid for itself so I keep it.  Other than this local publication, the rest of my marketing is conducted online on a regular basis and is geared towards the entire state since my potential client base extends outside of the town where I reside.  

    I have created an online client development to-do list.  At the end of every other week, I commit to going through each of the steps to maintain a steady client base in the future.

    How Long Will It Take To Build A VLO Client Base?

    To be honest, a VLO is not much different than hanging a shingle on a traditional law practice.  It will probably take six months or longer of marketing the virtual law practice before there will be a steady online client base.  However, it depends on what state the virtual law practice is located in and how dedicated the attorney is to his or her online marketing plan. 

    The clients are not going to magically waltz into the VLO just because you set up a website or blog and add the web-based VLO.  It takes time and significant effort.  However, in my experience, it is worth it.  After three years of practicing law online from my home office, I find that most of my new clients come from referrals from other online clients.  I can stay busy now working with clients on the VLO and be less aggressive with my marketing strategies.  That said, I still keep and revise a business plan and marketing strategy, and stick with my client development to-do list to ensure that my practice will keep growing. 

    VLO Marketing Strategies

    As I mentioned above, I provide VLOTech clients with more detailed information and tips for how to specifically market a VLO using online methods.  I ask others attorneys practicing with a web-based VLO to provide me with the strategies that they have found work best with pulling in paying online clients to their VLO.  Then I compile these tips to share with all of the VLOTech attorneys.  

    In addition to these tips, there are a great number of marketing resources online for attorneys to learn from.  Many of these resources are geared towards the traditional solo practitioner, but they can easily be modified to apply to marketing a VLO.  My next post will provide a list of these blogs/websites and resources.

  • How Does a VLO Fit In With the Paperless Law Office Tech Trends?

    This is an excerpt from a post I made on the VLOTech website explaining how a virtual law office (VLO) fits into the trend of attorneys using technology to create more paperless law offices. As more of VLOTech’s clients go live with VLOs across the nation, the examples of virtual law practices will be clear. In the meantime, I’m saying forget about thinking outside the box to understand the virtual law office concept. Just don’t get in a box in the first place.

    In the past two years, the legal profession has seen the introduction of several web-based law practice management tools. These web-based systems focus primarily on time and billing management for attorneys. Separate systems are devoted entirely to online case management. Many attorneys seeking to have “paperless” law offices are creatively combining different web-based applications with software products, such as Adobe, to create a more digital law practice.

    VLOTech strongly supports this movement by the legal profession to use the most current technologies to provide better services to clients and to create more productivity and balance in the lives of legal professionals.

    Where do completely virtual law offices fit into this trend?

    To understand what VLOTech and it’s attorneys are envisioning and practicing, think one step beyond web-based practice management systems and tools. Look at the way other businesses successfully function in virtual reality worlds and how avatar-based forms of communication are breaking down the barriers of geographic location and economic limitations. Less extreme, think about how many people handle all of their banking and financial matters completely online without ever walking into a brick & mortar bank building to chat confidentially with a financial consultant. A virtual law office capitalizes on the secure web-based technology available to create the infrastructure of an attorney’s law office online. VLOTech provides the technology and each individual attorney or law practice uses it to design the virtual law practice that meets their needs.

    By the basic definition, a completely virtual law office (VLO) is a professional law practice that exists online through a secure portal and is accessible to the client and the attorney anywhere the parties may access the Internet. A VLO provides attorneys and clients with the ability to securely discuss matters online, download and upload documents for review and handle other business transactions in a secure digital environment. With a VLO, an attorney’s clients benefit from the convenience and accessibility. The attorney benefits from the flexibility of a virtual law practice, an online client and revenue generating software, and lower overhead associated with setup and maintenance of a nontraditional law office.

MENU