Virtual Law Practice

Tag: Solo Practice University

  • Call for eLawyering Solos to Innovate

    Jordan Furlong over at Law21 has published a post describing the 21st-century solo practitioner and announced a competition to drive innovation.

    Furlong lists what he sees are four characteristics of the new solo lawyer.  One of these characteristics is the ability to innovate.  Solos may have more flexibility to take the risks necessary to come up with truly unique methods of delivering legal services and operating a law practice.  Just as the rest of the legal marketplace is having to adapt to changes in the use of technology to practice law, solos are in an ideal situation to take advantage of these trends to give themselves a competitive advantage.

    Furlong calls to solos to come up with new ways to deliver legal services and ends his post with the announcement that he is giving away five scholarships to Solo Practice University to “five current or soon-to-be solos or small-firm lawyers who are now engaging, or are ready to engage, in 21st-century sole practice.”

    Those of you who are solos engaged in elawyering, virtual law practice or are coming up with ways to use cloud computing in your practice, get in the running for one of these scholarships.  I’ve been on the faculty at SPU teaching a course in virtual law practice since it launched a couple years ago.  It’s a wonderful community of entrepreneurial solos with awesome online access to great mentors and teachers.  I’m looking forward to reading about the innovations that come out of this competition and hope at least a few of them involve the online delivery of legal services.

  • Happy New Year – Going on Year 4

    Happy New Year!   I reviewed many of the virtual law practice news from 2009 in my last post.  In this post I want to look forward to the year ahead by providing some news about my own virtual law office and upcoming speaking/sharing engagements.

    2010 will mark year four of owning my own solo, virtual law practice.  I opened Kimbro Legal Services in the winter of 2006 right around the time that I welcomed my daughter to the world.  I remember being so excited about taking the leap into my own solo practice but also trying to ignore the negative comments that other attorneys had shared with me regarding the idea of making the practice completely web-based.  And four years later, virtual law practice is something that is being embraced by the legal profession and expanding in innovation and technology way beyond what I had imagined back in ’06.  I’m so grateful to be able to share my experiences with other attorneys and to assist them in setting up their own virtual law offices.

    Looking forward to 2010, there will be several opportunities to share information about virtual law practices with others in the legal community.  (more…)

  • “In the Meantime…” — Temporary Operation of a Virtual Law Office

    Over the past year I’ve spoken with attorneys who have been laid off from Biglaw firms and are seeking new positions or attorneys who have just passed the bar and are having trouble finding a position to launch their legal careers.  Both groups of individuals are working hard to establish or reinvent themselves within the legal profession and are seeking my advice about using a virtual law practice as a way to do this. They want to operate a solo virtual law practice “in the meantime.”

    Solo virtual law practice is not for everyone, and while I love the independence that it provides me, I recognize that other attorneys have different goals for their legal careers. Therefore, I try to give useful advice that would apply to the attorney’s individual goals and circumstances.

    Can a virtual law practice be used effectively in between phases in an attorney’s career — from firm to firm?  Will the attorney be able to take the virtual law practice with him or her when that dream legal job comes along?  Will it pay the bills if the attorney is only going to be delivering legal services online on a temporary basis?  If the attorney is a newly graduated attorney can he or she work online and learn an entirely new practice area of law without having worked in an actual law office? 

    These are difficult, but critical questions for attorneys in such situations to ask before embarking on a virtual law practice. I’ve combined some of my responses to these questions below. (more…)

  • Online Drafting Resources for your Virtual Law Practice

    One of the most useful methods of teaching yourself how to draft legal documents is to read a variety of samples.  If you’re a virtual solo, you may not have had the previous experience of a traditional firm’s files to learn from.  And let’s face the truth — your client has most likely gone online and searched through a variety of free online forms first to figure out 1) how hard it would be to do themselves, or 2) to compare the pricing of the many cheap, online legal forms for sale without attorney review.  With a virtual law practice, you will be better equipped than most traditional attorneys to compete with these companies, but it’s always good to know what your clients are investigating as alternatives to your services.

    I’m posting below a short list of sites that provide samples of legal documents.  It’s always an option to purchase state-specific documents for use in your own virtual law practice.  However, as we all know, not every client’s legal situation is going to be the same so learning to build on those drafting skills is key. 

    Once you have drafted a collection of legal forms and documents, you can keep them in your virtual law office for future editing and use with new clients who have similar legal matters.  This helps to streamline the delivery of legal services online.

    As another option to collecting samples, many state bar associations will have practice area specific or GP/Solo/Small Firm online forums to help you connect with mentors.  Just ask on the listserv if anyone is willing to share a sample legal document and see what you can collect. 

    Listed below are several online resources that let you access and review sample legal documents.  When I first opened my virtual law practice, I used some of these sites to find items, such as client intake forms, sample engagement letters and different small business contracts.  The best samples are not the blank forms, but the many business legal documents that have been made public. 

    I’m absolutely not saying you should copy and paste any of these free legal documents to create your own, but it does help the drafting process if you have the chance to read a variety of different samples and get a feel for the language used with different legal circumstances.   

    JD Supra:  Part marketing and networking opportunity, part repository of form documents.  JD Supra hosts thousands of legal documents submitted by the lawyers who drafted them.

    Legal OnRamp:  This is a lawyer networking site where attorneys contribute content and participate in online forums and groups. 

    OneCLE:  This is a great site for reviewing sample business contracts.  Contracts that have been made public are posted and categorized by area of business law.

    Findlaw’s Free Sample Legal Documents

    Get Free Legal Forms site

  • List of Sites Containing Tips to Market a Virtual Law Office

    In a recent blog post, I discussed how an attorney with a VLO can attract paying, online clients to a VLO.  As promised, below is a list of websites and blogs that provide useful marketing tips and resources for solo and small firm practitioners.  This list only includes sites that provide marketing resources and tips.  I could build a long list of other services and sites that an attorney could join in order to market his or her virtual law practice,  such as sites that help to raise the SEO of the VLO website or blog.  Hopefully, the sites listed below will point you towards many of these online tricks of the trade. 

    Most of the resources below are geared towards a traditional law practice and some of them are not even related to the legal profession specifically, but with a little creativity the tips found in them could easily be used to market a virtual law office.  If I had oodles of free time, I would love to explain in detail how each of these sites and resources can be useful to a virtual law practice.  Instead, I’m just putting it out there and inviting everyone to explore and use their imaginations.  Or better yet, if you become befuddled, contact the folks that run these blogs in person.  Some of them are really kind, helpful individuals who are attorneys themselves and contain a wealth of valuable information and experience to share.  As always, I welcome suggestions to add to this list.  

    [Tip: Since most of these sites are blogs, it might save time to check out their categories section or run a search on their site specifically for marketing tips.]

    Sites with Tips on Marketing a Virtual Law Office”
    1.  Lisa Solomon’s Legal Research and Writing Pro Website and Blog 

    **Lisa is hosting an upcoming teleseminar, PR 101 for Lawyers: How to Write Direct-to-Consumer Press Releases That the Media Will Also Love.  This will take place on November 18 and will be presented by Joan Stewart, a/k/a the Publicity Hound.  Details for this are on her website.

    2.  The Publicity Hound Blog & Tips of the Week Ezine

    3.  Susan Cartier Liebel’s Build a Solo Practice, LLC

    4.  Grant Griffith’s Home Office Warrior, Home Office Lawyer and Blog for Profit 

    5.  CopyBlogger

    6.  ProBlogger

    7.  Guy Kawasaki’s How to Change the World

    8.  Carolyn Elefant’s My Shingle

    9.  Ed Poll’s LawBiz Blog & Ezine

    10.  Stem Legal – “Building Web Profile for the Legal Industry”

    11.  The PR Lawyer

    12.  Law Marketing Blog 

    13.  Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs

    14.  Legal Marketing Blog

    15.  Brett Trout’s BlawgIt

    16.  Ben Glass’s Great Legal Marketing blog

    17.  Gary Vaynerchuk‘s blog

    Resource to Join

    Solo Practice University  (Opening soon, this web-based educational community will provide online courses related to marketing law practices.)

  • Joining the Faculty at Solo Practice University

    I am excited to announce that I have joined the faculty at Solo Practice University™, a web-based, legal education community created by Susan Cartier Liebel of Build of Solo Practice, LLC.  Solo Practice University™ (SPU) is opening its doors to law students and legal professionals who want to learn more about the practical aspects of running a law practice that attorneys probably didn’t receive in law school. 

    As faculty, I will teach a course on virtual law practice that covers many different aspects of elawyering, including opening and operating a virtual law office (VLO), marketing techniques for an online practice, and handling technology and ethics issues that may arise from practicing law over the Internet.  Susan is strongly encouraging the faculty at SPU to use a variety of teaching formats so I plan to find creative ways of using technology to foster an active dialogue between myself and SPU students. 

    My goal as faculty will be to provide SPU students with the resources they need to open a virtual law practice and to operate that practice with strong ethical and professional standards that will provide quality online legal services to the public. As with any teaching experience, I expect to gain some new perspectives on virtual law practice as I share my own knowledge with the students.  I’m very excited to get started.

  • 60 Websites to Check Out – From the Practical Skills CLE

    Last week I co-presented a CLE session at the NC Bar Center with Lee Rosen, of Rosen Divorce Law fame, and Erik Mazzone, the Director of the Center for Practice Management at the NC Bar. The conference was the Bar’s Annual Practical Skills CLE which is geared towards newly minted attorneys and others wanting to brush up on practical lawyering skills. The presentation was titled 60 Websites in 60 Minutes, and the goal was to share useful websites with the attorneys in the audience along with throwing in some fun, stress-relieving sites.

    My 20 websites focused on open source or shareware applications that could be useful to an attorney opening a solo or small firm practice and wanting to keep their overhead down. I also tried to focus on security for the mobile attorney, such as Truecrypt or PCTool’s free, secure password generator. Here is the list of websites that were presented. I’ve thrown in brief descriptions under the ones that I covered.

    60 Websites in 60 Minutes – 2008 NC Bar Practice Skills CLE

    Google Maps

    Jott

    Truecrypt
    Truecrypt is free, open-source disk encryption software. There are multiple uses for this software, especially for the mobile attorney. For example, create an encrypted drive containing sensitive data and place it and Truecrypt on a USB key. When you use a laptop to practice law remotely, mount the encrypted file as a drive on your temporary computer and use the file system like a normal drive. When you are done, unmount the drive and the only thing visible left on the USB key will be the encypted file. So if you loose your USB key or it is stolen, all they will be able to see is the encrypted file.

    Cornell Legal Research Engine

    iStockPhoto

    Firefox 3+ No Scripts
    Firefox 3 is the safest web browser to use. Add NoScripts to the program and it’s even better. If you are using web-based apps to practice law, I recommend switching from Internet Explorer to Firefox 3 with add-on security.

    VLOTech

    SugarSync

    Thunderbird
    Thunderbird 2 email application has superior security and privacy features, including phishing protection, industry leading junk mail filters, and support for user privacy and remote image protection.

    Grand Central

    PB Wiki

    Open Office
    OpenOffice.org is the free open source version of Microsoft Office. It includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and other applications. It runs on PCs and Macs which makes it useful if you are collaborating with others. It has easy to use applications, great compatibility with other programs and you don’t have to buy a new version to install each time it has an update.

    Wakerupper

    Jing

    Zaba Search
    ZabaSearch is a website that provides contact information for just about anyone you are trying to locate. The site claims to contain three times more telephone numbers and addresses than the White Pages Directory. Good for investigating.

    Evernote

    Elance

    PCTool’s Password Generator
    PCTools.com provides a secure password generator. You can specify password length, phonetics, letters, mixed case, numbers and punctuation.

    WordPress

    Google Analytics

    7 Zip
    7-Zip is open source software you can use to compress large files. A useful tool if you need to email or upload a larger file to a client or counsel.

    LinkedIn

    Comodo

    Product Wiki
    Productwiki is a free product review site written by consumers. Includes software, computer, electronics products reviews and more. Shows competing products and pros and cons for each.

    Google Docs

    TinyURL

    DaFont
    Designing a logo or letterhead for your law practice or looking for an eye-catching font to use in a presentation? Dafont.com has a large directory of free fonts for install on your Mac or PC.

    Alltop

    DimDim

    Twitter
    Twitter has become a popular social networking site for attorneys. You can follow individuals as well as different news and business organizations, such as the ABA Journal or Legal Voices, which follows twitter commentary from the legal industry.

    Public Library of Law

    Project Draw

    Second Life Bar Association
    If you are interested in learning about the developing legal system in the virtual reality world, Second Life, or if you just want to meet up with other tech-savvy lawyers from across the world, consider attending a meeting of the SLBA at the Second Life Justice Center. Free CLEs and other legal conferences are being held at the center on a regular basis with speakers who are in the top of the IP and Cyberlaw fields.

    Todoist

    Soocial

    Uncyclopedia
    Strictly for stress relief, Uncyclopedia is a parody of Wikipedia with over 100,000 humorous encyclopedia-style entries created by users. Check out the entries related to the legal profession or feel free to edit an entry for a creative writing break.

    Google Calendar

    37 Signals

    Solo Practice University
    Solo Practice University is a new web-based educational community for attorneys that teaches the “practice of law” and fills in the gaps that law schools tend to ignore, such as the practical, how-tos of running a law practice. Teachers will include law professors and legal professionals and the courses will be a combination of media from web conferences to podcasts and ebooks.

    Goog 411

    Pandora

    Home Office Lawyer
    Home Office Lawyer is a popular law blog written by Grant Griffiths, a Kansas Family Law Attorney, who runs his law practice from a home office. Home Office Lawyer as well as Grant’s other blog, Home Office Warrior, have great information on the latest technology and other law practice management tools that can help an attorney run a home-based law practice or lower their law office overhead.

    Chrome

    Manager Tools

    Legal OnRamp
    Legal OnRamp is a lawyer networking site where attorneys contribute content and participate in online forums and groups. Members may use the site to meet other attorneys worldwide who specialize in a particular area of the law or join in the OnRamp marketplace to find out about new client opportunities.

    Lojack for Laptops

    Duct Tape Marketing

    Adobe Connect Now
    Adobe ConnectNow, currently in Beta, is a great way to interact with other professionals from your computer. The application is free and you may use screen sharing, chat, notes, audio and video to hold online meetings. If you are planning on using a virtual or remote legal assistant, this might be a great way to handle an orientation or training. The security may not yet be there with this application, so I would not recommend using it for communicating with clients at this stage in its development.

    JD Supra

    NewsGator

    Open Congress
    OpenCongress combines official government information with related news and blog coverage. If you want to find out the story behind a bill, this is the place to go.

    Clipperz

    Law Practice Matters

    ABA eLawyering Task Force
    ABA’s Elawyering Task Force is part of the ABA Law Practice Management Section and provides an introduction to the increasingly popular trend of using technology to provide legal services online. Even if all you are doing is setting up a web site for your law office, this is a good site to visit for practice tips.

    Delicious

    Presentation Zen

    Techmeme
    Techmeme is popular website that can keep you up to date with technology and trends that can help you run your law practice and your life. Focusing on the practical application of technology in daily life, it combines the best tech stories of the day into an easy-to-scan page with 24/7 updated content.

    Stay Happily Married

    Kiva

    Major Geeks
    MajorGeeks is a trusted website that provides downloads for your computer that will repair, back-up, and protect your system. Check out the anti-virus and backup downloads.

  • Free Blogs at Solo Practice University

    Today Solo Practice University announced they will offer free blogs to Solo Practice University community members.

    Solo Practice University, in development, is “a web-based educational community and networking forum for solo lawyers and entrepreneurial law students.” Susan Cartier Liebel is the creator behind this web-based educational venture. The addition of free blogs to Solo Practice University community members will allow them to practice and hone their blogging skills in a constructive environment. It will be a great way to teach members how blogging and other technologies may be used to market their law practices and create valuable networks with other professionals.

    This is the perfect combination! I’m so excited to see how this venture will empower solo practitioners and newly practicing lawyers. Plus, it’s a web-based application and I am a big fan of using technology to pool collective resources for educational purposes. More information on Solo Practice University may be found here. Or sign up for email notification.

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