Virtual Law Practice

Tag: online legal services

  • Chapter from New International Report on Online Legal Services

    CoverImageThis summer I wrote a report for Managing Partner, a UK-based publishing company focused on law firm management. The report is for lawyers who are interested in learning about and possibly adding online legal services to their law firms. Here is the Executive Summary and Chapter One.

    This is not intended to be an academic report so there are few citations and more checklists and recommendations for analysis and implementation. It is written for lawyers who want to focus on client-development and customer service for existing clients by adding online services in their firms. The case studies I reviewed are law firms that are successfully doing this. For example, Brilliant Law in the UK and Slater & Gordon in Australia. I’m not focusing on branded networks or companies in this report.

    The chapter I wish they would have given me to share is the final one where I take a look at why online legal service delivery by firms have not been as quickly adopted or as successful as many had hoped and what I think needs to be done to see it evolve and really increase access to legal services for the public. I will try to make this the subject of a blog post soon because I think there are definitely some lessons to be learned from this research that need to be shared. You can purchase a copy of the full report here.

    This report was international in scope, but I had difficulty finding firms in some areas that were marketing and delivering their services online. Some areas I neglected to write about simply because I couldn’t find anything there (Africa, South America, China, Japan, Russia, and others). I’m sure there must be some innovation in online delivery happening there, but to what extent? Already, since turning in the proofs last month, I’ve learned about a new company in Germany that is focused on online delivery. That’s the nature of this topic and why I should only write easily editable ebooks!

    As always, feedback, comments, and connections to others innovating in this space, are gratefully encouraged.

  • 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!

  • State of Online Delivery – Pre-Report Overview

    Last week I finished the first draft of a report for The Ark Group tentatively titled “Online Legal Services for the Client-Centric Law Firm.” This report gave me the opportunity to review the current state of online delivery internationally by private practitioners and law firms. It was a great way to update the material I had written in my earlier book on virtual law practice.

    To set some reasonable parameters for this report, I limited it to a review of only private practitioners and law firms. I did not include the many other forms of online delivery that we are seeing by for-profit companies, branded networks, and other exciting new ventures around the globe. I also excluded firms that only provide clients with online self-help tech tools, such as those for compliance, online libraries of articles, or web calculators or advisers that clients would use on their own. The focus here was on the engagement online between the lawyer and the clients to solve their specific legal need.

    Overall, I was a little surprised and disappointed by the slow growth of online delivery since I started operating my virtual law office back in 2006 and wrote the book on the topic in 2010 – not just the lack of adoption by practitioners but also by the lack of truly new innovative technology solutions for delivery. This strikes me as odd given the fast pace of change in delivery of legal services from the consumer perspective. (more…)

  • Breaking News: Major US Bank Offers Online Legal Services in Business Hub

    An exciting breakthrough in online delivery is occurring through the new offering that Suntrust Bank is launching. They have partnered with a third party to create an online Business Hub which provides legal services in addition to assistance with planning, websites, data backup and finances.

    From the website: “This online portal helps you create legal documents, develop business plans and generate invoices and financial reports.” It appears to be a one-stop shop for small business owners who need accounting and planning software, and even some marketing services. The service also claims to provide risk assessment services for businesses through the legal services tools.

    eyeBusiness Centric Services Group, Inc. is the named developer of the Business Hub according to the Terms of Service. Both Epoq Legal, a company based in the UK, and DirectLaw, a US based company are providing technology components to this project. Mozy Pro, PlanHQ, Moonfruit and Freeagent are also providing software. The link on Suntrust takes the user to a third-party website that is run by the Business Centric Services Group, Inc. All of the tools provided in the Hub cost the user $25 a month which may be debited from the user’s Suntrust account.

    The online legal services are provide through a product called Legal Document Builder. According to the site, this lets the business owner handle the following:

    – Create legal documents for your business from a wide range of templates using a straight forward question and answer process.

    – Templates include: website terms and conditions, privacy policy, tenancy agreement, debt recovery letters, shareholders agreement and many more.

    – Avoid risks and disputes that could financially weaken your business and comply with Health & Safety legislation by performing risk assessments and more.

    That’s a lot of practical software in one place for a small business owner for only $25 a month. I haven’t had time to dig into the details of using each product on the Hub because I have not registered yet. But as a small business owner myself and having been a solo practitioner for many years, I can certainly see the appeal of this package of unbundled legal and other services. I do not at this point see any reference to licensed lawyers providing support for the legal documents. For many small business owners’ legal needs, this would not even be necessary. However, there may be more options available once you register.

    In my classes, I tell the law students to think about what happened when Intuit got into the tax business. What happened to accountants when Turbo Tax went on the market? Then I ask: “What would happen to estate planning or small business legal services if Turbo Tax added those online options at the end of the annual tax software?” How many consumers are going to go straight through that trusted brand for the convenience and the fact that their confidential information is already being handled in that space. With this new online Business Hub from Suntrust, it seems like that future is starting to get here.

    How will pure-play virtual law offices serving business law manage to compete with $25/month for all of these services? I will leave that for another post.

  • Minimalism & Virtual Law Practice

    This will be a personal post. Fellow virtual lawyers might find my recent experience with minimalism and moving interesting. It touches on the main reason many of us are attracted to online delivery and the use of technology in law practice – more freedom and efficiency.

     

    When I first designed my virtual law office and launched it back in 2006, a large part of my motivation was my daughter who had just been born. I needed the flexibility to care for her and was not interested in racking up the traditional lawyer hours in an office. I also loved working with my clients and thought there was a more convenient way to deliver services to them. I could also use the efficiency to lower my fees to be more affordable.  I have a transactions-based practice so unbundling and online delivery made sense.

     

    BEFORE
    BEFORE

    Over the last seven years, although I was almost completely paperless and virtual, I accumulated “stuff” in my home office and my house. The simplicity of being able to work online and not get lost in the office environment was replaced with recreating an office environment in my own home. Not good.

     

    So I decided to research minimalism. This is a renewed trend that has emerged since the recession hit. It’s a more positive way to embrace being faced with unemployment, foreclosure, debt and other situations that threaten to remove us from our tangible possessions. If you can’t afford to purchase things or are forced to sell or give up your possessions, that involves loss, but if you willingly choose to give up those things there is a greater sense of control over your life and it can be empowering rather than depressing. I like this approach to life in general. I thought I would adopt some of these principles while also doing some reading on mindfulness (a post for another day and very applicable to legal professionals). (more…)

  • Connecting a Mobile Game to Real World Legal Services

    MobilegamerHere is an update on my game project. In my previous posts I’ve explained why I believe we can use the power of games to help us engage and empower the public to learn basic laws and legal issues. I’ve also explained the difference between gamification of the law and games that involve legal topics. The next step is to explain more specifically how a game like what I’m building with my team can increase access to real-world legal services as well as educate the public.

    According to my game designer, this concept is a little revolutionary for the game industry and I’m guessing it will be for the legal profession as well. Please read all the way through before jumping to conclusions.

    The game we are creating is intended to teach the public basic estate planning issues. These are not state specific legal issues. These are very basic. For example, level one of the game addresses this basic, simple fact: If you have children, you should name a guardian in your Will.

    Yes, as a lawyer, I know full well how you can take a simple statement, add a bunch of “but what ifs” and make it the most convoluted and complex thing in the world. But that’s not what we are doing here. Rest assured there will be the usual disclaimer at the start of the game stating that this is not a substitute for legal services provided by a licensed lawyer – as if anyone would actually be misled into thinking that a mobile game featuring a time machine is going to really be able to do that. But still, just in case and mostly for the lawyers, we’ll have those disclaimers on there.

    That aside, now for the fun part. (more…)

  • 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.

  • Client Portal Matrix

    Last week I gave a presentation with Chad Burton at the ABA LPM Spring meeting about the eLawyering Task Force‘s newest project, the Client Portal Matrix, formally titled as the “Comparative Evaluation of Web-based Practice Management Software with Client Portal Applications for Solos and Small Law Firms.” Donna Seyle, who did most of the work gathering data for the matrix, was unable to make the meeting so I filled in to discuss some of the practical uses of a client portal in law practice and the best practices and ethics issues that might come up.

    The matrix will be posted on the eLawyering website in the near future. It is a work in progress, but is already a useful tool and starting point for lawyers considering virtual practice. It was designed primarily for solo and small firm practitioners. The matrix focuses on cloud-based, SaaS solutions and specifically excludes the online client portals and tools provided by branded networks, such as Rocket Lawyer. The focus of this project was on client-facing technology so also excluded were systems that focused on other administrative tasks, such as time and billing, calendaring, or matter management among others. There are fourteen companies with client-facing features on the matrix so far.

    It makes me think back to eight years ago when I opened my solo virtual law office and co-founded the system that is now Total Attorney’s platform with client-facing features. At the time, there weren’t any SaaS options out there for a practitioner. Now there are choices and more most likely in the works. Expect to hear more clients asking their lawyers and firms for online access to their legal accounts. If you don’t have a client portal or any client facing features in the technology you use for your firm, you need to consider in the near future how you will add it to the mix. This is going to be the case whether you are delivering legal services online with a virtual law office or operating a traditional law firm without online delivery options. It’s about client access and good customer service which should apply in any firm structure.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfstyle/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfstyle/

  • Balancing Fun with Legal Nuance in Game Design

    BalanceLawyers are trained to over think things to the point of taking the fun out of them. I’ve learned I am no exception. This was one of the first obstacles in the process of creating a game for legal services.

    The game design document, the blueprint for the actual game, is almost finished. We will take this doc to the developers and rest of the team necessary for the next steps in production. Getting the theme nailed down was the first step in the process. The second was to present legal consequences in a way that is humorous and instructs through problem solving.

    I provided my game designer with a variety of different legal scenarios related to estate planning and administration. I have practiced estate planning for ten years and had done estate administration before going into solo practice. I have seen the damage done to families and loved ones when they fail to handle their estate planning. Many Americans should have their wills and medical directives drafted, but most do not know that they need these documents in the first place or the value that they have to protect their families.

    We are dealing with a depressing topic that not many people are eager to discuss. Who wants to think about their eventual demise? How do you make that fun? We are going to try humor.

    I tried to analyze all of the potential ways the player could solve the legal issues that were being presented in the game. This is where my training threatened to take the fun out. This is part of the reason I wanted my team to be made up of individuals from the game industry who do not have a legal background. One lawyer throwing cold water on the production is enough.

    Of course the necessary disclaimers will be slapped on the final product to provide notice that we are not providing legal services and so that no one will assume that the solutions in the game play are the actual solutions the player should take in real life. We are trying to reach players on an emotional level to engage in thinking about estate planning and, through sharing components in the game play, engage in a dialogue with their friends and family about it as well.

    My game designer has her own analysis of the mechanics of the game play that she must work through. That type of over thinking through the process is practical. My analysis as a lawyer needed to stop at a certain point in order for us to proceed with making a good game. In fact, the deeper we went into the “but if this, then that” or “but also this is a possibility”, the closer the game got to becoming a traditional, educational legal game. This game is intended to be broad in scope and to provide basic legal education. The game rewards the player with access to real-world legal services if they choose them and at that point the player can seek assistance that goes deeper into their personal legal needs.

    Then came another issue in the game design when we thought about levels and rewards. How do you rank or assign points to personal choices? How do you place values on choices in game play that result in a reward when the choices made in solving the problem are based on the personal values and priorities of the player?  One potential good solution to a legal problem may not be a priority to another player based on personal preferences or individual circumstances. (more…)

  • Gamification vs Games for Legal Services

    As I’ve started talking about the game I’m developing, I hear people throw out the phrase “gamification of legal services” to describe my project. That’s not what I’m doing, and the terminology does make a difference. There is gamification, serious games and simulations and then there are games. The difference really has to do with the design goal.

    This is a running debate that gets pretty heated in the game industry. The best known example is the “Gamification is Bullshit” position statement given by scholar Dr. Ian Bogost at the Wharton Gamification Symposium. He has since been featured in several pieces explaining his position that have been published in Wired, The Atlantic, and Kotaku. If you want a good book on gamification, one written by a couple of lawyers even, check out For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize your Business, by Dan Hunter and Kevin Werbach. And if you are into that, just re-read Drive by Daniel Pink and you’ll notice how ridiculously connected those books are to each other. (There are also some wonderfully brilliant presentations by designer Sebastian Deterding which help explain what is going wrong currently with gamification efforts in the business world.)

    Again, that’s not what I’m doing with my game. Although concepts of internal and external motivation discussed in Drive hang around when we think about the game design and what will motivate better and recurring game play, but those concepts were around in game design long before Pink’s book. In fact, he references the same American psychologist and creator of the concept of “flow”, Mihaly Csikszentmialyi, that Jane McGonigal (of the “games” camp) writes about in her book, Reality is Broken.  Here is Csikszentmialyi’s TED Talk on flow. Really worth your time. There is overlap here.

    When games cross over into the area of “games for social good” they get classified as “serious games” and that throws them into this semantics debate. If you are trying to do good with your game, such as educate people about their rights, then is it a game if there is an agenda built into it? It seems to come down to the design goal and the game mechanics.

    If you are taking existing process, such as the business of delivering legal services, law firm operations, the judicial process, rules of civil procedure, the process for a criminal or tort case, and adding game elements to those processes to help people learn about them or to encourage them to be handled in a different way, then that is gamification.

    Most of the existing “games” around the law or legal services fall into this camp. They tend to be card games, simulations, text-based walkthroughs or quizzes. Most of them have the goal of teaching civics, legal procedures and basic law practice skills to citizens and law students. Here are a few of the better known ones: (more…)

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