Entitled “Ethical Obligations on Maintaining a Virtual Office for the Practice of Law in Pennsylvania”, the PA Bar Association Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility published its FEO 2010-200 this month. The opinion is in stark contrast to the out-dated thinking in the ethics opinion discussing virtual law offices published this past spring by its neighboring state of New Jersey.
FEO 2010-200 defines virtual law office (VLO) as
“a law office that exists without a traditional physical counterpart, in which attorneys primarily or exclusively access client and other information online, and where most client communications are conducted electronically, e.g., by email, etc.”
The opinion recognizes that there are different forms of virtual law practice and specifically states that it is not addressing issues related to “client portals” or cloud computing because both traditional and virtual offices may use these.
There are several questions that the 14 page opinion addresses including the following: 1) whether an attorney may operate a VLO in the state, 2) using a VLO to work from home or or in locations outside PA, 3) listing a physical address in ads for the VLO or letterhead, 4) using a PO box as the address, 5) if a geographic location must be given to the client letting them know where the attorney will handle the services or meet with them, 6) for a multiple attorney firm, if it is necessary to disclose all of the cities and states from which those attorneys are performing their services, 7) if the firm or attorney with a VLO can claim that fees are lower than a traditional law office, 8 ) compliance with the duty of confidentiality, 9) if the attorney does not meet face to face with clients, if there are other steps required to confirm client identity and handle issues such as diminished capacity. In clear format, the opinion then lists the direct answers to each of these issues before jumping into its analysis of the PA rules of professional conduct as applied to VLOs. (more…)
