Virtual Law Practice

Tag: Practice Management

  • Video: Teaching a Virtual Law Firm Simulation

    This is a video I recorded for a technology exposition that is being held at Wake Forest University. It explains how I am using the virtual law firm simulation to teach a course for Wake Forest Law School entitled Technology in Law Practice. Thanks to Total Attorneys for the continued use of their platform for this purpose. I also provide the students in my course with access to a number of legal SaaS products from practice management systems to document automation and assembly tools so that they will have a wide variety of hands-on experience. The video explains the rest.

    I have had a couple years of teaching online courses for different law schools and providing guest lectures on various legal tech related subjects. I am working on a post about distance education in law school from my unique perspective as an adjunct.

  • Slides from ReInventLaw Conference

    This past Friday, I gave a presentation at the ReInvent Law conference in Silicon Valley. Rachel Zahorsky of the ABA Journal wrote about the event here and the American Lawyer wrote about it here. There were 500+ attendees registered and some really interesting speakers. The focus of my talk was about the subject of my new book: lawyers, especially solos and small firms, should learn to collaborate with branded networks and where we are at this stage in that process. I believe a video of my presentation will be made available at some point online which will probably make way more sense than these slides do alone.

    Overall, there was a lot of energy at this conference and more than a few calls to action, perhaps directed at some of the many legal tech companies and startups in the room.

  • Ethics and the Virtual Law Office – Article in St. Louis Lawyer

    Michael Downey, a lawyer with Armstrong Teasdale LLP and legal ethics teacher at Washington University School of Law and St. Louis University School of Law, has written an article for the St. Louis Lawyer seeking to balance the messages lawyers might take from two recent events in virtual practice news: 1) Rachel Rodger’s article in Forbes focusing on the benefits of increased work/life balance from virtual law offices and 2) the Virginia disciplinary matter of lawyer Atchuthan Sriskandarah who operated a virtual practice and engaged in misleading lawyer advertising.

    Michael’s article focuses on the ethics issues that lawyers engaging in virtual practice should be aware of. He concludes

    Advancing technology, changing lifestyles, and the current economic climate will inevitably lead to an increase in virtual law offices. As long as a lawyer takes care to comply with applicable ethics rules, including the eight facets discussed in this article, he or she should be able to have – as the Forbes article discusses – a rewarding virtual practice.

     

  • Attorney @ Work: The Next Lawyering Frontier

    talking fingersIn case you missed reading it on the Attorney at Work blog, here is a link to my interview for them. I’ve gotten a huge response from this article in the form of emails from lawyers across the country so something in it must have struck a cord.

    As the article says, I’ll be speaking at the Lawyernomics 2013 conference in Las Vegas on April 27 on “The Consumer Law Revolution: Lawyer Collaboration with Branded Networks.”  More on that later.Here is part of the Attorney at Work interview:

    The greatest opportunities for today’s lawyers are online. This is where the conversation about legal services is happening for the public, whether lawyers are present or not. It’s not just personal legal services that we are talking about. Companies and corporate clients are online, listening and engaging with their customers. Lawyers who understand and stay constantly up to date with the technology and the different opportunities to engage in online conversation are going to continue to grow and succeed. This is not only for client development. Lawyers need to know how their clients communicate and operate their businesses. The lawyer who does not understand online engagement is not going to be the best lawyer for a company whose customers are all engaging with the company online, whether wanted or not.

  • Click and Mortar Legal Services for the Public Open in CA

    LegalForce1A new hybrid of legal service delivery has launched this week with the opening of the LegalForce storefront in Palo Alto. The delivery model combines online services with the customer service of a traditional store front operation complete with a network of lawyers who charge a flat rate of $45 for 15 minutes of legal advice.

    Raj Abyhanker, the lawyer who created the Trademarkia Enterprise, is responsible for this new innovation in legal service delivery. The LegalForce website provides personal online legal services in a self-help manner. The store front offers access to go online and purchase these services and also sells mobile devices, such as tablets, and legal self-help books. Employees of the store, called concierges, are there to assist customers as needed but do not provide legal advice. Customers may book appointments with lawyers online prior to meeting them in the store.

    The company plans to cultivate relationships with law firms and lawyers so that the store front may be used as a meeting place for lawyers and prospective clients. The store may also be used as a way for community legal education sessions to be offered. This type of collaboration between practitioners, the community, and companies providing legal services online (and now in hybrid form) is only the beginning as I’ve suggested in past posts.

    Richard Granat, who was present for the store’s launch this week, has written his first impressions on his blog and explains the value of this “click and mortar” strategy both for the public and the legal profession. [Many thanks to Richard for sharing the pictures with me as well as the overview of this model. I was unable to make it to the launch of the storefront, but plan to make it out there for a quick tour in March.]

    LegalForce2This concept will appeal to the DIY client. It combines elements of unbundling and virtual law practice with more traditional face-time with a lawyer and the in-person customer services of a small business venue. I see two potential benefits to this model: 1) it could increase access to legal services and basic legal education for the public in a local community; and 2) it could provide lawyers with another way to offer services which could be used for client development and as part of their online and offline marketing strategies.

    The company hopes to expand its branded network of lawyers outside of CA and into other states in the future. I am looking forward to seeing how their network grows and plan on including a case study of their business model in my upcoming book providing guidance on ethics issues and best practices for lawyers who want to join up with branded networks such as LegalForce as part of their online marketing strategy.

  • Florida Publishes Proposed Cloud Computing Ethics Opinion

    FloridaOn January 25, 2013, the Professional Ethics Committee of the Florida State Bar published Proposed Advisory Opinion 12-3 2 related to the use of cloud computing in law practice.

    The proposed opinion refers to the ethics opinions already published in Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania. Here is a link to my post that lists state bar ethics opinions related to virtual law practice and cloud computing.

    This short proposed opinion in Florida also comes to a similar conclusion as most of the other states that have addressed the topic: Yes. It is o.k. to use cloud computing in law practice. However, there are precautions that the lawyer should take. And then the proposed opinion provides the usual caveats which essentially come down to using “reasonable care” in the selection and use of the technology in law practice to ensure compliance with the Rules of Professional Conduct (in particular Model Rule 1.6(a) regarding confidentiality).

    The conclusion of the opinion states:

    In summary, lawyers may use cloud computing if they take reasonable precautions to ensure that confidentiality of client information is maintained. The lawyer should research the service provider to be used, should ensure that the service provider maintains adequate security, should ensure that the lawyer has adequate access to the information stored remotely, and should consider backing up the data elsewhere as a precaution.

  • Consumer Law Revolution Ebook

    ConsumerLawEbookCoverI’ve created a new page on this blog for my new ebook: Consumer Law Revolution.

    This ebook is the precursor to my full book that should be published by the ABA LPM sometime later this year. The ebook provides an introduction to the concept of branded networks and online marketing tools for lawyers.

    For the book, I researched almost all of the legal tech startups and branded networks from both the lawyer and consumer perspective. These case studies are in the full book as are all of the important ethics issues surrounding lawyer collaboration with these companies to engage with and provide legal services to the public.

    I wanted to make the best practices portion of this material free and available to practitioners because I don’t know of any other resources out there like this and it’s needed. As most of you know by now from my writing, I believe that the legal profession should find ways to collaborate with companies providing legal services online. It will be a significant way to increase access to justice for certain legal services. Not for all services, not for all clients, and not for all lawyers – see my book on unbundling or that ebook for reasons why not. However, it will be significant for large segments of the public needing basic legal services and may lead to other forms of collaboration and innovation in the delivery of legal services that could expand access in ways we can’t see right now.

    For those who are venturing into this area of lawyer advertising/delivering legal services online in their law practice, this ebook and the full book to come should be a helpful guide.

    As always, I welcome feedback.

  • NJ Supreme Court Adopts Amendments to Bona Fide Office Rule 1:21-1

    New JerseyAdopted Amendments to NJ Supreme Court Rule 1:21-1 will be effective February 1 of this year. This is the “bona fide office” rule that I’ve written about on here before. Thanks to Ekaterina Schoenefeld for sharing a copy of the Notice and Amendments.

    Here is a quick rundown of the amendments. The bona fide office rule now states that a lawyer does not need a physical location, but does have to make sure the practice is conducted in a way to ensure “prompt and reliable communication with and accessibility by clients, other counsel, and judicial and administrative tribunals”.

    To comply, the lawyer may designate “one or more fixed physical locations where the client files and attorney’s business and financial records may be inspected on short notice…where mail or hand-deliveries may be made and promptly received, and where process may be served…including disciplinary actions….” [I still wonder: What could be more accessible and done “on short notice” than giving access to your cloud-based practice?] (more…)

  • LTN Innovative Use of Tech Award

    InnovationI’m pleased to share the news that the virtual law firm I joined last spring, Burton Law LLC, has won a Legal Technology News 2012 Innovation Award in the category of Most Innovative Use of Technology in a Small Law Firm. Here is the ALM press release.

    I’ve described our firm’s tech structure on this blog before when I announced my move from solo virtual lawyering to this different structure of virtual practice. The LTN article announcing the award briefly explains the tech we use in the firm. However, we have also now added DirectLaw to the list of software that we use to deliver services to clients. As someone who has unbundled online services for the past seven years, getting the document automation and assembly piece of the puzzle into our firm’s structure was an important addition to the usual cloud-based delivery of legal work.

    You can read the LTN article’s brief description of our firm’s technology here. Chad Burton, the founder of our firm, will be attending LegalTechNY to receive the award for the firm. Chad is always one step ahead of the curve when it comes to exploring new technologies and processes that might be integrated into our firm’s model. Almost once a week he is sharing with us some new iPad app to increase personal productivity. I’m sure he’ll return from LegalTechNY with a few more new tools and ideas to share with the firm on Yammer.

    I was also very happy to see that John Mayer received an award as Champion of Technology for his work at CALI, eLangdell, and the A2J Author software. The article should have also mentioned the MOOC he developed last year on Digital Topics in Law Practice which is an awesome free online educational resource that all lawyers interested in virtual law practice should go through. Congrats on the well-deserved recognition, John!

  • Ch-ch-ch-changes: Rocket Lawyer Acquires LawPivot; TR Joins the Club (finally)

    snakeeatsfrogJanuary is the usual month for companies to launch new products or make announcements. Most launches come before the tradeshow at LegalTechNY. Two announcements this month are of interest to the virtual lawyer. First, Rocket Lawyer acquired LawPivot.

    Will this make a huge difference in terms of competition in the online delivery of legal services space? Probably not. I wrote about LawPivot as one of the case studies in my new book. Here was my run-down of what they offer:

    LawPivot provides both the free question and answer service and the paid. However, it uses a crowdsourcing model that allows the individual or company asking a legal question to receive multiple responses from attorneys rather than being limited to just one response. The system analyzes user data and trends on its site to create an algorithm that matches the most qualified lawyers to respond to the user’s legal question. The company received $600,000 in venture capital funding from Google Ventures and other investors in January of 2011.

    Unlike other question and answer sites, the lawyer network at LawPivot is more selective and focuses on “over 2,000 lawyers from some of the most prestigious private practices and law firms.” [This may change since Rocket Lawyer’s network is not selective.] The focus of the company is to provide legal services related to startup entrepreneurs and business law. Consumers who post a question from the network online may receive responses from several lawyers in their jurisdiction. Unlike some services, the user is able to ask additional follow-up questions from the list of respondents before determining if there is one that he or she would like to retain. [This may be integrated into Rocket Lawyer’s referral system to their lawyer network?]

    For lawyers who wish to join the LawPivot network, the company has added a gamification component to motivate lawyers to respond to questions. There is a point system and lawyers may receive points for questions answered. This point system is based on an algorithm that determines how well and how quickly the lawyer answers the question. The acquired points move the lawyer up through different “levels” on their profile. This ranking is visible to the public as well as information about the number of public questions asked, private questions asked, thanks received from users, and profile views. Along with the point system, there is a “Confidential Q&A Percentile Ranking” which displays the lawyer’s percentages regarding “well-received answers”, “questions seldom go unanswered”, “answers promptly” and “contributes to the LawPivot community.” [I’m guessing this will stay in because that’s what makes it such an effective marketing tool for the lawyers as a Q&A feature.]

    But really, the only thing Rocket Lawyer was missing from it’s online menu of offerings to the consumer was a robust Q&A platform. Almost every other legal tech company that I studied for my book had a Q&A component and most started out with that basic piece of the SEO puzzle. I think this means that Rocket Lawyer will have an even broader reach of its services to the public. It will also mean the lawyers joining its network will have another engagement option to consider.

    And for the second announcement of interest, Thompson Reuters has (finally) hopped on the cloud-based practice management bandwagon. Lisa Solomon does not give it a great review. But at this point, lawyers wanting a practice management system in the cloud have plenty of options to find the one that has the right mix of features that their firm needs.

    I remember back at the start of 2009 when I was pitching the concept of online practice management, client portals, and other features for a virtual law office. It is extremely amusing to me years later to see how this has all developed out – which companies listened, what advice they choose to take, which features they choose to develop over others that I told them the legal market would demand.

    What do I see with these two new year announcements? I see a lot more merging to come and maybe a few drop-offs. First adopters of innovative systems and business concepts who ignored the legal industry naysayers and pushed forward are the companies that are staying ahead. Legal tech startup business models that cannot effectively monetize or provide a truly unique online service in the legal marketplace will merge in with larger companies and become feature sets.

    Here’s an open challenge to the legal tech industry for 2013: SURPRISE ME. I’m getting bored and unimpressed.

    Really, this is pretty much business as usual and that’s never at the speed I would like. But hopefully, the consumers will benefit as the most effective technologies and business models are tightened down and push forward to deliver better legal services online. Maybe we can even have some fun getting there.

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