Virtual Law Practice

Tag: online marketing

  • Updates on Events

    Below are a couple of the events I’m scheduled to attend this month. I have not had time to blog because I’ve been finishing up the edits to my book about online marketing tools and branded networks. It is now slated to come out the first of June.

    I have a couple other articles or chapters that should be published between now and the summer as well. I’ll share what I can here. In addition to the firm practice and consulting work, I’ve also been online teaching the second six week session on Social Media and Online Marketing for the Digital Lawyering Program at the University of Dayton School of Law. And I’ve put a few more irons in the fire with a couple other legal tech/legal services related startups that I’m keeping under wraps for now. Too many ideas, too little time.

    ABA Techshow in Chicago April 4-5. I’ll be at a Meet the Author session on Friday at 1:45pm. This is more of a casual event where I will focus on addressing questions from the audience. I’m also hosting a Taste of Techshow dinner with Chad Burton, another Techshow speaker. We will be discussing virtual law practice at that dinner if anyone attending the show wants to sign up and join us for that.

    Lawyernomics Conference in Vegas April 26-27th at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I’ll be speaking on the topic of the Consumer Law Revolution book. Basically, I’ll be giving practical tips for lawyers who want to work with branded networks and discussing the best practices to do so.

  • Lawyerist Guest Post: Marketing Unbundled Legal Services in a DIY Economy

    Here is a link to a recent guest post I wrote for the Lawyerist blog about marketing unbundled legal services. It has basic advice for the virtual law practice providing unbundled legal services to clients online.  From the post:

    How do you market a law firm as a provider of unbundled legal services? As with all attorney marketing, the practical considerations must fall in line with the ethical requirements of our profession. To market unbundled legal services, a firm might consider the following:

    And then it goes on to discuss each of these topics in more detail.

    1. Size up the competition

    2. Plan out unbundled services and packages

    3. Invest more in online marketing

    4. Network, network, network

    5. Educate prospective clients

  • Microblogging about VLOs

    Yesterday Martindale Hubbell’s Connected kicked off an event centered around virtual law firms with a two-hour Twitter conversation hosted by Larry Bodine. You can read through all of the tweets by running a search for #MHVT on your Twitter account. There was a lot of great discussion about how to define a VLO, what they are used for — for the benefit of the attorneys or the clients or both, what types of online work generate the most revenue on a VLO, what some security concerns are with delivering legal services online, and how to market a VLO. Below are my contributions to the discussion.

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  • NC State Bar Journal Covers the Online Legal Professional

    Attorneys practicing law online and licensed in North Carolina may be interested in checking out the fall issue of the North Carolina State Bar Journal.  Several of the articles in the issue cover topics related to attorneys creating online presences, including avoiding ethical risks for law firm websites and using social networking, such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging. 

    As with most state bar publications covering topics related to technology, at least one of the articles comes with a stern reminder to follow the Rules of Professional Conduct and advises attorneys to consult with the ethics counsel at the State Bar before attempting to use any social networking as a marketing tool.  Wise advice.  I’ll freely admit that I took advantage of the ability to call the ethics hotline a few times both while working at a small firm and when I first went out as a solo with a virtual law practice.  The service is anonymous and a great way to get the reassurance and confidence you might need before taking any action.  There are more formal methods of getting written ethics advisory opinions, but being able to make a quick phone call for small matters, many of which may just be affirmation of good common sense, is a valuable service from the Bar. 

    With the lines between the personal and professional being so thin with many popular forms of online social networking, it’s good to know you can check with someone from the Bar who handles ethics issues on a daily basis.  It’s a “measure twice, cut once” philosophy and serves well for any professional placed in a position of trust by members of  the general public.

  • Checklist for Opening a Virtual Law Office

    The following is a basic checklist for attorneys considering opening up a virtual law practice.

    ___ Choose a VLO hosting company and find out what it will require in order to set up your VLO. Of course, I’m biased, but I recommend Virtual Law Office Technology (VLOTech).

    ___ Register a domain.

    ___ Retain a website designer to create a VLO website. It can be as simple as a single homepage or a more complex site with legal resources and articles for the public and your clients. Consider having a VLO website with blog functionality. Blogging on your VLO can be a useful marketing tool and resource for your clients. VLOTech refers its clients to Grant Griffith’s company, G2WebMedia. Griffiths, of Home Office Lawyer blog fame, has experience working with solo and small firm practitioners and creates websites with blog functionality to improve VLO marketing.

    ___ Make sure that any part of your website that handles confidential information, the actual VLO, registration and login for clients, is protected by an SSL certificate (https and the browser lock symbol). Your web hosting company may help you with this or you may need to purchase an SSL certificate separately.

    ___ Establish an account with a credit card processing company to use for your online payments, such as PayPal or your bank. If you plan on taking retainers through the VLO, make sure that you have the approval of your state bar regarding transfer of the client’s funds to a credit card processing company before going into your trust account. There was some discussion about this on Solosez not long ago and I’ve posted about it here.

    ___ Draft the terms and conditions for use for your general website and the clickwrap agreement for your secure VLO website.

    ___ Establish a response time policy. For example, let clients know that you will respond to their online requests within 24 hours.

    ___ If you will be handling transactional matters, prepare any forms or worksheets for collection of client data. These may be uploaded to the clients through the VLO and downloaded for you to review once completed by the client.

    ___ If you will be using the VLO with existing clients or in a litigation practice, draft a letter or email to clients notifying them to register and use the VLO to keep track of their cases.

    ___ Decide how you plan on handling client engagement letters, either through the VLO case dialogue and clickwrap agreement or by traditional letter uploaded to the client, or a combination of both methods.

    ___ Decide which billing method or combination of methods you plan to use. Consider providing sample fixed fees, billable hour rates or a range of costs on your VLO website.

    ___ Discuss your planned VLO practices with your malpractice insurance carrier and ask about discounted rates due to the use of technology to reduce malpractice risks.

    ___ If you will be practicing remotely, review the security of your mobile devices.

    ___ If you plan on using the VLO in conjunction with other law office software, have a data backup policy in place.

    ___ Create a backup Internet access plan in the event that you only have one method of connecting to the Internet and it goes out.

    ___ Check with your state bar’s rules of professional conduct regarding advertising and website content before getting started on any marketing campaigns. (Hat tip to Aaron Johnston for reminding me to add this one!) I’ve written a little about this here .

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