Check out my tech review of iContact that came out in the Law Practice Today Webzine this week. I handle all confidential communications and transactions between myself and my clients through my virtual law office. However, iContact is a service that I’ve used to send newsletters and updates to clients regarding specific areas of law or about my virtual law practice in general. The tech review discusses ways that you can use the application to keep in touch with clients and to help continue your relationship with them even after the final legal product has gone through the VLO.
Tag: online legal services
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New Toy for the Virtual Law Practice
Last week I purchased a notebook, the Eee PC 1000H, for my virtual law practice and I want to recommend it for those attorneys taking their practices online. Since my law office is completely web-based, I have a number of different computers, including a PC and MacBook, which I switch out depending on where I will be working that day and what other programs I have installed on each.
I decided on the Eee PC because I’m not that fast at typing on a smartphone, and my laptop and MacBook, while not that heavy are still too big to comfortably sit in my lap while I work. The Eee PC is just the right size for me.
After I migrated over most of the data I wanted on the machine, I added TrueCrypt and set up the backup to an external harddrive. Basically, I stick in the Alltel wireless card and I’m good to go. Given that it is easily portable and I can type just as fast on it, I think it was well worth the under $400 that I paid.
Some of the drawbacks have included the need to attach an external cd drive in order to install software. The right side shift key is also a little off that of a traditional-sized keyboard so that has taken some adjusting to. Otherwise, I think it will be a valuable tool for my VLO.
Another benefit of this notebook is that I now have a backup Internet connection for my VLO. For anyone practicing with a virtual law practice, I recommend some form of secondary Internet connection if you do not trust what you currently use. Should the connection in my house become unreliable, I have the wireless card in my Eee PC as a backup and can just access all of my law office data and VLO that way. The wireless card is not as fast as the DSL at times, but it hasn’t been that noticeable so far when I’ve been using it around town.
Anyone considering going online with their law practice should check out these notebooks as an affordable mobile device. Have any other new hardware recommendations for the virtual law practice?
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Three Years into My Virtual Law Practice
I’ve been preparing materials to teach a course on virtual law practice for Solo Practice University (SPU). Lawyers USA just published an article about SPU here. I hope some of my blog readers will join me for the virtual law practice course.
One of the topics I’m covering at the beginning of the course has to do with taking the leap from a traditional law practice management method into a virtual law practice. In helping others make the decision to go completely web-based with their solo or small firm or to add some virtual component to their law practice, I’ve been thinking about why I left my position as an associate in a small, traditional law firm to go solo with a VLO.
It’s been three years since I opened my web-based virtual law office, Kimbro Legal Services. In 2006, I hung my virtual shingle using the beta release of the VLOTech virtual law office software. As with any business, after a couple years you realize that your goals and expectations have changed from when you launched, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the support I’ve had from other attorneys and from the great public response over the past three years.
Reasons why I initially formed my virtual law practice:
1. The birth of my first child. I wanted to work from home and spend as much time with her and my family as I could. Childhood is a short time and I didn’t want to miss it.
2. From my experience in the small firm, I noticed that there was a clear market need for individuals of middle income and moderate means to be able to conveniently access and afford legal services. Yet many of them were going to their office supply store and buying legal kits or purchasing LegalZoom documents online. They weren’t consulting an attorney for the guidance they needed because they were 1) afraid they couldn’t afford it, or 2) were just too intimidated to sign a traditional engagement letter with an attorney and put up a sizeable retainer.
Those were my main reasons for opening my VLO. Three years later my reasons for practicing with a virtual law practice are the same, but I have some added observations and experiences that reinforce my decision.
1. Clients want this. The general public response to the VLO in the past three years has been amazing. My clients appreciate the convenience and accessibility to legal services. They have their own homepages on my secure VLO where they can drop me a note at any time, upload and download documents, fill out online forms, pay their invoices, review their invoices, etc. I think the ability for them to access their own case files and review our work together helps them to feel more in charge of their legal needs and more connected with me as their legal representation.
2. Client revenue has come in from across the state. I have not had the collection problems that I was warned about by other attorneys when I first opened my solo practice. I expected it to be a big hassle and in three years I’ve been limited to two or three small collection issues that were not that difficult to resolve. Clients receive their invoices online. They pay me online. We set up recurring billing or payment plans. Maybe it’s the convenience of the invoice being online or maybe it’s being able to pay by credit card. Whatever the reason, ease of collections has been a pleasant surprise.
3. Attention to customer service results in client loyalty They don’t really teach you this in law school, but running a law practice requires business skills. I stopped trying to act like an attorney and instead focused more on being a good business owner. This has made all the difference in the world. I relate to my clients on personal levels through our dialogue on the VLO. I take the time to address all of their concerns and questions with patience and it has resulted in a growing client base for my virtual law practice.
4. Virtual law practice in some form is the way our profession is headed. If you haven’t already, read Richard Susskind”s End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services. The traditional law office will not cease to exist, but it may find ways to incorporate a virutal law practice component to address the needs of its clients and to facilitate attorney online collaboration. In the past three years, I’ve been overwhelmed with the number of attorneys who support web-based virtual law practice and who see it’s benefits for the public as well as the legal profession. It’s a growing trend in our profession that would be foolish to ignore.
As I’m working more with other attorneys through VLOTech to set up other virtual law practices, I’m spending less time on my own VLO. Fortunately, we just opened up a new VLO in North Carolina where I can refer some of my online clients and we are in the process of launching another VLO, a multi-attorney firm in NC, this week.
Three years may not seem like a long time to have been in business, but considering the novelty of the concept when I started and how popular virtual law practice is becoming now, I’ll give myself a birthday pat on the back for taking the leap.
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Congrats to the Virtual Courthouse
Congratulations goes out to the Virtual Courthouse for receiving the 2009 ABA Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access. Each year the ABA gives out the Brown Award to recognize projects or programs that have addressed the need for legal services to members of the public who are in the middle class or of moderate means. The project must not only have exhibited an innovative solution to delivering legal services to the public but also be replicable for others in the legal profession. Since this year’s winner provides an unique virtual solution to a specific area of law practice, I thought I’d share it with this blog’s readers.
The Virtual Courthouse provides an online method of dispute resolution. According to its website the Virtual Courthouse “enables parties to submit disputed claims, responses and supporting material in digital form for resolution by a neutral provider of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services. These ADR services can include arbitration, mediation, neutral case evaluation or a settlement conference by members of a panel of neutrals.” There are screenshots of the technology on the website, but not many details regarding data security or the actual technology behind the solution.
This company is a good example of how attorneys are finding ways to integrate different forms of virtual law practice into their traditional practice methods to provide the public with access to more affordable and convenient legal services. If your practice includes ADR and you have considered adding a virtual component to your practice, then you may want to check this out.
The ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services also recognized Heisler, Feldman, McCormick & Garrow, PC and Have Justice Will Travel for their law practice methods.
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Setting Guidelines for Virtual Law Best Practices
A small group of companies providing software as a service (SaaS) products to legal professionals will begin meeting to discuss the use of SaaS technology in law practice management. The group also hopes to discuss among other things a set of minimum security requirements for SaaS products used by attorneys. As a co-owner of VLOTech, I am excited to be included in this group of innovators and entrepreneurs when they meet for the first time next week.
Last week, the ABA’s eLawyering Task Force held a conference call which I was able to join in on. Over the next several months the Task Force will be working to establish a set of malpractice standards or guidelines for attorneys using technology to deliver legal services. The Task Force plans to meet at least once a month to discuss these malpractice standards among other issues. The goal would be to establish a set of guidelines that could be approved by the ABA’s Law Practice Management Section and posted on the ABA’s website. Attorneys interested in establishing virtual law practices or in using technology to practice law in any form would be able to refer to these standards and present them to their state bars in support of their virtual practice methods.
Hopefully input from both the SaaS group and the Task Force will be combined in the final version of any guidelines, and that these guidelines will address both the needs of the legal professional as well as the general public’s need for more affordable and convenient legal services.
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Podcast Interview about Virtual Law Offices
Check out the podcast interview of me that was recorded recently by Ed Poll of the LawBiz Blog. Ed is an expert in law practice management, and his blog is a wealth of useful knowledge and resources. On the podcast, he and I discussed virtual law practice, VLOs, and how attorneys are using the technology to deliver legal services to clients online.
Ed brought up a good point at the end of our discussion that I thought was worth expanding on in a future post on this blog. He suggested that virtual law offices might be another possible method of transition for an attorney who is looking to wind down their legal career or sell their traditional law practice. It’s certainly something to think about as many attorney in our profession are nearing retirement age and are looking for more flexibility in the way that they practice law.
Thank you to Ed and LawBiz for giving me the opportunity to share my experience in virtual law practice with others in the profession.
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ABA eLawyering Task Force Conference Call
The ABA’s eLawyering Task Force will hold a conference call next week on January 9th at 10:00am Eastern time. The website has an incorrect date on it as the meeting had to be rescheduled for the first of the new year. If anyone is interested in discussing the delivery of legal services using technology, you might want to consider joining the group’s listserv and taking part in the conference call. Participants must also be a member of the ABA’s Law Practice Management Section in order to join the Task Force.
One of the eLawyering Task Force’s goals will be to discuss setting standards for the use of technology to deliver legal services. This will be my first conference call with the group so I’m looking forward to speaking with some of the individuals I’ve been reading about and emailing over the past year or so. Anyone operating a virtual law office or considering hanging a virtual shingle should take an interest in this group’s activities.
If you are reading Richard Susskind’s new book, The End of Lawyers?, you will know why I think this group is going to have growing relevance for the ABA and the legal profession in general. For anyone who can’t join in on the conference call, I’ll try to post a summary of the meeting in the near future.
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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.