Virtual Law Practice

Tag: online legal services

  • D.C. Virtual Law Firm – How the Tech Works

    Here is a blatant redirect to another blog post written by Ron Friedmann who interviewed Bryce Arrowood, co-founder of Clearspire in D.C.

    When I read about this virtual law firm, my first question was about the technology it used and whether it was solely for in-house communication and collaboration or whether the firm members were going to provide their clients with access and deliver a portion of their services online.  Nothing I read gave me enough details to understand how the technology behind their virtual law practice was structured.

    Thankfully, Mr. Friedmann has done the hard work for us and provides a teaser at the end that he may get a demo of the tech and report back at a later point. Let’s hope so.  Here is the meat I was looking for from his post:

    The firm created its own information technology stack to support efficient and collaborative work. The bottom layer consists of several practice management applications, a combination of highly-customized, third-party products and proprietary systems. The custom-built middle layer integrates and aggregates data from the bottom layer. And the proprietary top layer is the user interface. This was an ambitious project and required top talent (see the IT team credentials). Bryce reports the platform can scale to an unlimited number of users.

    The stack runs in secure, hardened data centers with real-time mirroring to a back-up center for disaster recovery. Lawyers and staff can access the system securely anywhere in the world on both notebook computers and multiple brands of mobile devices. Access to data and software features depends on device security and configuration. Users with Clearspire-provided and -configured equipment have maximum access and can use the most features.

    The firm has already successfully used this platform with lawyers and clients around the world. It was built from the ground up to respect varying global data privacy requirements.

    As with some of the other larger firms I’ve spoken with about setting up a virtual law firm, the tech is a balance of proprietary systems with third-party products.  A solo or small firm would never have the funds to build a customized virtual law firm structure such as this.  But that is the benefit of cloud computing – a larger number of users can benefit from pooling their resources into the development of software and keep the costs down.

    Hopefully we will get more details about how the Clearspire system is structured and how they intend to scale with it.  I’d love to know if they use any form of doc assembly and automation, if web or video conferencing tools are added in to the case and client management features, and whether they unbundle any of their services to clients and deliver online.

    Many thanks to Ron Friedmann for sharing.

  • Top Ten Basic Security Practices for a Virtual Law Office

    I love SaaS.  I depend on SaaS to operate my virtual law office.  I support an attorney’s right to choose their own practice management tools and make their own business decisions whether it’s in the cloud or in a filing cabinet.  But there are responsibilities that come along with choosing any practice management system and that means sticking to your own security policies and best practices.

    I’m a solo virtual lawyer, so the burden is on me alone.  Larger practices can designate an associate or hire an IT consultant to keep them up to date and to make any necessary security policies and safeguards.  Regardless of where you are engaging in virtual law practice, it’s always good be reminded of some basic security practices for delivering legal services online.  Here is my list of the top ten basic security practices for a virtual law office:

    1) Keep up to date on the security issues. Read Lifehacker, Slashdot, TechCrunch, etc.

    2)  If you use wireless networking, ensure that all wireless traffic is encrypted with WPA2.

    3)  Keep antivirus software and all software patches updated and turn on the software firewall for the computer.

    4) Use a safer browser, such as Mozilla with the NoScript add-on installed.  Or use another pop-up blocker. Do not use free Wi-Fi hotspots when using any cloud computing application remotely.  Use a cellular phone modem adapter instead.  I just got the 4G wireless hotspot which I highly recommend.  This also serves as backup internet access in my home office as well.

    5)  Never write down usernames and passwords.  Create strong passwords and change them regularly.  Use Keepass or other password management tool and generator.

    6) Go straight to privacy/account settings in any cloud-based application immediately after you register for and change the defaults for better protection.  Then check back occasionally to make sure they haven’t changed their privacy setting options again.

    7) Watch your back when you work in a public place to make sure the person behind you isn’t able to watch your screen as you enter your username and password or your client’s social security number.

    8) Encrypt your hard drive with Truecrypt, free open source encryption software.  Easy to use, free, protects you if your laptop is stolen.  Backup daily with an external hard drive with Truecrypt on it in addition to regular cloud-based backups.

    9) Make sure that the applications you are using to store and transmit confidential law office data are encrypted.  Look for HTTPS in the URL before proceeding.  Don’t enter data unless you know it will be encrypted.

    10) This isn’t going to be a popular one, but be wary of doing a lot of confidential work on your iPad with just any app.  With my virtual law office, I can open the browser and work in https, but other apps, especially iPad and other mobile device apps, do not have this level of security.  Unencrypted email is permitted by the state bars as exercising reasonable care, but most of us know better.  Text messaging your client is not a wise idea for a lot of reasons.

     

  • Should a SaaS Vendor’s Data Center be an Agent of the Virtual Law Firm?

    Below is a short and to-the-point article that I drafted for the NC Bar Association’s Technical Advisory Committee after our last meeting discussing the proposed NC Ethics Opinion on SaaS.  I wasn’t critical of the opinion at first, until I spoke with a few SaaS vendors and others who explained their positions in greater detail to me.

    If you are licensed in NC and operate a virtual law office, you might want to read the below and consider providing your comments and feedback.  More than one legal SaaS vendor has already indicated that if the ethics opinion is published in its current version, that they will simply pull out of serving the NC legal marketplace.

    Harsh consequences for attorneys practicing here, but also potentially harmful for the public who receive assistance delivered online or from attorneys who use the cost benefits of cloud-computing to make their prices for legal services more affordable.

    _____________________________________________

    The North Carolina State Bar published the revised version of its proposed ethics opinion on the use of SaaS in law practice management on April 21st, entitled, “Formal Ethics Opinion 6: Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property”.

    Your firm will be in violation of this ethics opinion if it is published as written and your firm uses any of the following products:

    Google (any of their applications or services)

    Yahoo/Hotmail or any other email service attached to a internet service provider, such as Earthlink, Bellsouth, Roadrunner, etc

    Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile

    Lexis or Westlaw for online research and almost all of their other services

    Mozy

    DropBox

    Clio

    Total Attorneys

    Rocket Lawyer

    DirectLaw

    Any other practice management system with a cloud-based component

    Or if your firm engages in the following tasks:

    Email

    Voicemail (Per Erik Mazzone, Director for the Center for Practice Management at the NCBA, “Voicemail on a mobile phone is data hosted on servers owned or contracted by the mobile carrier. The software that enables us to call a number and listen to voicemail is SaaS.”)

    Digital phone’s voicemail services as well as original phone services many of which use voicemail accessible via SaaS.

    Text messaging or SMS

    Online backup or storage

    Online communication with other professionals or clients

    There are two requirements in proposed opinion which may result in the restriction of use by law firms of a majority of the technology software and services that they currently rely on. These provisions are:

    1) “An agreement on how confidential client information will be handled in keeping with the lawyer’s professional responsibilities must be included in the SaaS vendor’s Terms of Service or Service Level Agreement, or in a separate agreement that states that the employees at the vendor’s data center are agents of the law firm and have a fiduciary responsibility to protect confidential client information and client property.” [Emphasis added] ; and

    2) “The agreement with the vendor must specify that firm’s data will be hosted only within a specified geographic area. If by agreement the data is hosted outside of the United States, the law firm must determine that the hosting jurisdiction has privacy laws, data security laws, and protections against unlawful search and seizure that are as rigorous as those of the United States and the state of North Carolina.” [Emphasis added]

    Most software vendors will not sign an agreement assuming this level of liability and agency for client property. Most software vendors will also not restrict their server locations, many of which are georedundant to begin with, to hosting data centers located only in locations with laws as strict as the US and the state of North Carolina. The Legal Cloud Computing Association (LCCA), a group of vendors who provide services to lawyers, and the International Legal Technology Standards Organization (ILTSO) are in the process of writing comments to the NC Bar regarding the negative impact that this opinion will have on legal technology innovation as well as the negative impact that it will have on their customers who practice law in the state.

    There are more practical and realistic ways to address the confidentiality concerns raised in the use of software as a services. It is not practical to expect hundreds of NC practitioners to stop using cloud computing. It is not realistic to expect a technology provider or vendor to assume liability for client property. Minimum requirements should not be imposed on legal practitioners. Instead, this opinion should contain suggestions and guidance for performing due diligence in researching and implementing cloud-based solutions to comply with the rules of professional responsibility.

    There are hundreds of attorneys and law firms in North Carolina that rely on software as a service on a daily basis. If you are one of these firms, please consider writing to the NC Ethics Committee.

  • A Little History (& Perspective) for Your eLawyering Bookshelf

    Consider adding the books below to your reading list.  They are not new.  They are a piece of history and offer a unique perspective on the digital revolution and how we communicate.  It’s great to look forward, but looking back has its value as well.

    These authors motivate me to think outside the box and to rely on my own intuition and view of the world rather than the whispers of naysayers who may just be too afraid or too comfortable.   These should be on your digital or real bookshelf.  Know of any other good “history” books?  Please share.

    By Alvin Toffler:

    Future Shock (1970)

    The Third Wave (1980)  (Where I first heard about the third wave years ago: Attorney Chuck Newton’s blog)

    Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990)

    By Marshall McLuhan:

    The Medium is the Massage (1967)

  • Choice of Law in Cross-Border Practice

    Below is the comment I submitted this morning to the ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission Working Group on Uniformity, Choice of Law, and Conflicts of Interest in response to their request for feedback on the issues paper on Choice of Law in Cross-Border Practice.  One of the fact patterns in the issues paper specifically referrred to a virtual law office and several of the other fact patterns might also apply to a multijurisdictional virtual law firm.

    Virtual Law Practice and Choice of Law in Cross-Border Practice

  • Animated Movie Intro for a Virtual Law Office

    An attorney operating a virtual law office relies more on online marketing and social media to develop their reputation and an online client base.  Some virtual law offices are creating YouTube tutorial videos that will walk prospective online clients through their virtual law office registration process and explain how legal services are delivered online.

    Below is my experiment using animated movies to introduce a virtual law office.   Check out this Wall Street Journal article from last week about the use of animated movies. A movie like this could be placed on an attorney’s website and then circulated on different social media networks.  It was simple to put together and took less than a half hour.  The dialogue for the avatar in the movie comes straight from the text you provide.  Many of us could cut and paste the text from existing law office marketing materials and just adjust it with the avatar’s facial expressions and motions to make it less stiff.  There are many different characters and backgrounds to choose from.

    As the ABA and other state bars analyze the use of the Internet as a tool for client development, here is yet another example of a technology that they will have to factor into their research on the topic. 

    This type of video could be used to market the online delivery of legal services of a virtual law office or used to educate the general public about basic legal issues, but in a fun format.  While you might think it would appeal only to a select target client base, most likely younger or tech-savvy clients, I think that to rule out a larger audience interested in watching an animated movie would be ignoring the value of novelty.  Much of the public gathers their information from the television screen or movie. Maybe those of us wanting to provide a basic legal education to the public are not using the correct form of media to reach them. 

    What do you think?  Does this format have potential in elawyering?  Could we use this to market our virtual law offices?  Could we create educational movies using animated characters – one an attorney and one a client – to explain how unbundled legal services are delivered online or walk prospective clients through limited scope representation legal issues?

  • ABA Ethics 20/20 Addresses Choice of Law Issue in Virtual Law Practice

    Virtual lawyers and multijurisdictional virtual law firms take note: The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 has released yet another issues paper proposing changes to ethics rules that could affect the delivery of legal services online.  This newest paper comes from the Working Group on Uniformity, Choice of Law, and Conflicts of Interest and is entitled “Choice of Law in Cross-Border Practice.”  It even includes a sample scenario for the virtual law practice which I’ve posted below.

    With lawyers and clients more frequently not located in the same geographic location and many of them communicating and receiving legal services online, this raises the question of which jurisdiction’s ethics laws apply.  The Commission recognizes the need for guidance and greater clarity for a growing number of lawyer and law firms faced with questions about choice of ethics law. (more…)

  • Upcoming Events Related to ELawyering, Virtual Law Practice

    – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Law presentation on virtual law offices, next Thursday, February 10th at noon. 

    – Unbundling Legal Services: Ethics and Best Practices, ALI-ABA Teleconference, February 24, noon-1:30pm EST.

    – AVVO webinar on unbundling legal services which will also discuss the use of technology to unbundle and deliver legal services.   Thursday March 10th at 10:00 am PT.

    – ABA/LPM Meet the Author Series Podcast, 1pm

    – ABA TECHSHOW, Chicago

                     – April 11, 10:30-11:30am, “Expanding Your Practice with an Online Office”, co-presented with Catherine Sanders Reach

                      -April 12, 8:00- 9:00am, Meet the Author, “Virtual Law Practice: How to Deliver Legal Services Online”

                                      10:00 – 11:00am, “Popular Cloud Services for Lawyers”, co-presented with Tom Mighell

                                       7:00pm, Hosting Taste of Techshow Dinner with an “elawyering theme”

  • WebJD: Online Self-Diagnosis of Legal Ailments?

    I’ll confess that I use WebMD’s symptom checker way more than I should.  Sometime it’s to reassure myself that the situation does not warrant a trip to the doctor’s office.  I like the user interface – the fact that I don’t have to come up with a multitude of keywords for symptoms, but can just scroll over the photo of the adult or child and pinpoint the source of my worries. I like that from that point I can use a process of elimination and in a few steps have a list of possible ailments with descriptions of them and suggestions for proceeding with care.

    When the alternative is spending half a day in a doctor’s waiting room, I will take the online self-diagnosis any day.  Sometimes the answers I get just lead to more questions and I actually do end up making that appointment.  But, for the most part, this web advisor answers my question, eases my worry, and I wait and see what happens. 

    Could the legal profession provide something similar for the public?  A “WebJD” webadvisor that helps you figure out what area of law your need is in and what the different types of solutions you might need for that issue?   There are a ton of legal referral sites and directories, but if I were the client I’d want to run a self-diagnosis before I started shopping online for an attorney. 

    I’m familiar with the AJ2 Author and how it walks the client through a process of answering questions until the end where the final legal document is completed with instructions.  There is a similar concept that Foundrs.com has perfected which has virtual incorporation for business ideas and startups to handle the business planning and create unbundled legal documents with online assistance before taking them in to an attorney’s office.  See TechCrunch’s article on FairSoftware.  I’m thinking of something different though; a web advisor that’s even simpler and for lower-level legal guidance without even the document assembly component.  (more…)

  • Legal Cloud Computing Association Forms, Responds to ABA 20/20 Ethics Commission

    I’m excited to announce the formation of the Legal Cloud Computing Association (LCCA).  See the formal press release below my comments. 

    About two years ago when I was owner of VLOTech, Larry Port of Rocket Matter reached out to me, Jack Newton (Clio) and Richard Granat (DirectLaw) about forming a group to address the concerns that legal professionals had surrounding cloud computing.  At the time, we were noticing the many questions about cloud computing and security that would pop up on different practice management listservs.  We were concerned with the fact that so many attorneys didn’t seem to know much about cloud computing basics or where to go to get the answers.  The group loosely communicated back and forth on a Google group and over the phone about the best ways to educate the legal profession about the risks and benefits, but did not take any action until this fall when the ABA 20/20 Ethics Commission published its issues paper related to cloud computing.  

    I think it’s remarkable that these competing companies were able to organize an association and collaborate to draft a comment to submit to the Ethics Commission in response to the issues papers.   Since VLOTech was acquired by Total Attorneys last fall, David Dahl, the CTO of Total Attorneys, has taken over my role in the LCCA.  However, I was able to join in where I could and offered suggestions as a practicing attorney who uses cloud computing on a daily basis.  I expect that other cloud computing providers will get involved in the group as well adding to its knowledge base and expanding its ability to provide educational content to the profession.   I look forward to the LCCA continuing to take a role in helping to provide balanced technology education to the profession. 

    Below is the formal press release which links to the comment they submitted to the ABA 20/20 Ethics Commission addressing the following points:  1)  Desired form of the Committee’s Recommendations, 2) Minimal Set of Technology Standards for Cloud Computing Providers, 3) Model Terms of Service for Cloud Computing Providers, 4) Is Cloud Computing Outsourcing?, and 5) Cloud Computing Security vis-à-vis E-mail Security. 

    Legal Cloud Computing Association Press Release

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