Virtual Law Practice

Tag: Technology

  • Podcast Interview about Virtual Law Offices

    Check out the podcast interview of me that was recorded recently by Ed Poll of the LawBiz Blog.  Ed is an expert in law practice management, and his blog is a wealth of useful knowledge and resources.  On the podcast, he and I discussed virtual law practice, VLOs, and how attorneys are using the technology to deliver legal services to clients online. 

    Ed brought up a good point at the end of our discussion that I thought was worth expanding on in a future post on this blog.  He suggested that virtual law offices might be another possible method of transition for an attorney who is looking to wind down their legal career or sell their traditional law practice.  It’s certainly something to think about as many attorney in our profession are nearing retirement age and are looking for more flexibility in the way that they practice law. 

    Thank you to Ed and LawBiz for giving me the opportunity to share my experience in virtual law practice with others in the profession.

  • Top Ten 2008 Developments in Virtual Law Practice

    Happy New Year!  The following is my list of the top ten developments in the delivery of legal services using technology that have happened in the past year.  Please feel free to expand on this list in the comments.  I’m also including at the end my predictions for virtual law practice in the new year.

    1.  Richard Susskind’s book, The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services, is published.  The book discusses “disruptive technologies” that allow attorneys to provide legal services online.  Susskind predicts that attorneys who adopt rather than resist these changes in the technology used to deliver legal services will prosper as the profession adapts to marketplace changes.  The public’s need for affordable and accessible legal services will drive the legal profession’s use of technology to meet this demand.

    2.  State bars and other professional legal organizations offer CLEs and sessions geared at teaching attorneys best practices and security standards for using technology in their law practices.  Popular topics include email security, online backup solutions for law office data, minimizing metadata and using scanners to decrease the use of paper.  See the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center’s website for a list of 2008 articles.  In addition to increased law and technology management education in the profession, several state bars provide specific ethics decisions with approval for virtual law offices (VLOs) and/or allow for attorneys to provide unbundled legal services online.

    3.  More attorneys turn to piecemeal technologies and free online apps to collaborate with each other and their clients online.  Basecamp, Google Docs, Adobe ConnectNow, Webex, GoToMeeting, and Dimdim are a few of the popular web-based tools.  

    4.  New web-based, software as a service (SaaS) law practice management products launch, including Rocket Matter and Clio.  Popular legal blogs and listservs discuss the pros and cons involved in the use of “cloud computing.”  The discussions center on the security and backup concerns with a hosted system.

    5.  VLOTech sets up web-based, virtual law offices (VLOs) in Alabama, Maryland, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia with more VLOs planned in Alaska, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and North Carolina for the upcoming year.  The technology aims to provide attorneys with the flexibility to operate a completely online law office or to combine the technology with a traditional law practice and offer unbundled legal services online.  “VLO” becomes a more recognized term for a web-based virtual law practice and elawyering.

    6.  Virtual Law Partners opens its doors as the newest example of BigLaw using technology to allow its attorneys to work remotely and collaborate on legal cases.

    7.  LegalZoom comes under fire over filing fees that the legal document service company charges to online clients, in particular in relation to the filing of trademark applications with the USPTO.  Critics of invention submission companies and of companies that provide form-generated legal documents in general spoke out about what they saw as the potential misleading of the public by online companies offering legal services where an attorney was not involved in reviewing the final legal product. 

    8.  With more attorneys practicing law using mobile devices and relying on electronic forms of communication with clients and other attorneys, management of electronically stored information (ESI) became more of a concern.  Solos and small firms are expected to understand e-discovery and ESI management in their daily practices.  Check out the archives of the EDD Blog co-authored by Bob Krantz and Jeffery Fehrman.

    9. Larger numbers of attorneys adopted popular online social networking tools to meet up with others in the legal profession.  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Legal OnRamp, JD Supra and other sites connect attorneys with each other and prospective clients. 

    10. Some useful law and tech/practice management blogs came online this year, including Law 21, Above and Beyond KM, 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, and Law Practice Matters, among others.  Blogging continues to grow as an attorney marketing tool and is used as a method of providing the public with basic legal information and resources. Law blogs remain a method for attorneys to educate themselves and network in their individual practice areas.  The Louisiana State Bar’s proposed rules of professional conduct touch on attorney blogging, social networking and other forms of online attorney communication causing some concern and originating in a lawsuit from attorneys in that state. 

    My predictions for virtual law practice in 2009:

    1.  Attorneys will continue to question web-based, hosted software providing law practice management tools. However, companies providing SaaS legal products will band together to establish standards regarding the security of their products for the benefit of the legal profession and the reputation of the companies and the saas business model. 

    2.  The ABA will move forward with proposing standards or policies for the delivery of legal services online. The eLawyering Task Force as well as the Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services will both play a critical role in establishing these guidelines.

    3.   Attorneys hit hard by the downward economy will seek out ways to minimize their law practice overhead using technology.  Some will use piecemeal software solutions to minimize overhead in law office administrative tasks. Others will consider opening completely web-based VLOs to get rid of the law office lease and expand their client base statewide or nationwide depending on their practice areas.  

    4.   More attorneys will realize that customer service is the key to growing a successful practice and that the public is demanding more efficient and convenient legal services through the use of technology.  This will prompt more attorneys to provide unbundled legal services online to clients either as the sole form of virtual law practice or in addition to their traditional law office practice.

  • ABA eLawyering Task Force Conference Call

    The ABA’s eLawyering Task Force will hold a conference call next week on January 9th at 10:00am Eastern time.  The website has an incorrect date on it as the meeting had to be rescheduled for the first of the new year.  If anyone is interested in discussing the delivery of legal services using technology, you might want to consider joining the group’s listserv and taking part in the conference call.  Participants must also be a member of the ABA’s Law Practice Management Section in order to join the Task Force.

    One of the eLawyering Task Force’s goals will be to discuss setting standards for the use of technology to deliver legal services.  This will be my first conference call with the group so I’m looking forward to speaking with some of the individuals I’ve been reading about and emailing over the past year or so.  Anyone operating a virtual law office or considering hanging a virtual shingle should take an interest in this group’s activities. 

    If you are reading Richard Susskind’s new book, The End of Lawyers?, you will know why I think this group is going to have growing relevance for the ABA and the legal profession in general.  For anyone who can’t join in on the conference call, I’ll try to post a summary of the meeting in the near future.

  • ABA’s Excellence in Elawyering Award Accepting Nominations

    The ABA’s eLawyering Task Force has announced that it is accepting nominations for The James I. Keane Memorial Award.  This annual award gives recognition to law offices or legal organizations that have developed legal service innovations delivered over the Internet.  According to the Task Force, the focus of the award is the innovative delivery of personal legal services, with special attention given to firms and entities that serve both moderate income individuals and the broad middle class.

    From the Task Force’s website:

    “The Jim Keane Award is named for James I. Keane, the founding Chair of the ABA eLawyering Task Force. The Task Force was created in 2000, when ABA President William G. Paul, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, took the unusual and creative step of asking a Section to assume responsibility for one of his presidential initiatives, namely an examination of ways that lawyers could use the Internet and other electronic resources to deliver legal services to people of moderate means more efficiently and effectively.”

    To learn more about eligibility requirements for the award or to submit a nomination, click here.

  • Legal Aid of North Carolina – Going Tech…slowly

    I just volunteered to do some pro bono work for Legal Aid of N.C. via their Wilmington branch. I filled out the volunteer form online which was an option newly available on their website. When I spoke with the very friendly PAI coordinator about my website and how I was able to offer services at a lower price because of no overhead costs and how that could benefit clients that Legal Aid could take, she said that the attorneys in their office were “traditionalists” and believed it was important to meet with the client face to face.

    I had a feeling that was the case. And sure, if I didn’t have mountains and mountains of student loan debt and I had a nice savings or trust fund, I might could afford my own physical law office and would enjoy counseling clients face-to-face. However, I still stand behind my virtual law practice as a great alternative way to provide legal services. When it comes to money versus a nice, friendly in person conversation, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most middle to lower income folks (myself included) are thinking about the money and not the friendly face-to-face chatting. If we can get the same legal service and it costs less, then I’m all for that.

    I think it is a generational difference. Also, the PAI coordinator mentioned that most of their clients did not have access to the internet and therefore, the website office wouldn’t be of use to them. Again, there is so much resistance before the idea is even really introduced to the public. So I mentioned that the public library and law library offer free internet to the public. Plus, personally, I have been in some of the lower income neighborhoods in town and you would be surprised how many of the younger generations living there are decently current in their use of technology. Almost every kid you see has a cellphone and I find it very hard to believe that for many of them someone in their family doesn’t have access to a computer and the internet somewhere.

    Again, I just think that if it’s between no legal assistance because Legal Aid can’t help you and affordable legal services, they would prefer the help however it comes. For example, I just finished working with a client this morning. Never met her in person. Only talked to her on the phone. Did my research and work on her matter online and through the cell phone to assist her. Got back with her by phone and that was all she needed. Before she had contacted me for help, she had gone to Legal Aid and they had not been able to take her case due the nature of the matter and their funding restrictions. If I hadn’t offered an alternative way to get legal services, she would have had to go back to looking up random attorneys in the phone book and listening to the brush-off from many of them as she had before she was referred to me.

    So, I sincerely hope that the more traditional attorneys don’t immediately disregard what I am trying to do with the virtual law practice and at least take the time to consider it as an alternative way of practicing the law that can be of service to the citizens of our state and local community.

  • Starting a Debate

    In marketing my virtual law practice, I’m considering throwing a little fuel on the fire. It’s well known that the law is a very traditional profession. The basic staples of a traditional law practice are proudly guarded as sacred by the old guard; business rules proven time and time again to work so why change them.

    While the N.C. Bar Association has made many wonderful efforts to push the legal profession in N.C. into wider usage of technology, there remains a large percentage of practicing attorneys who have the mind-set that nothing beats face-to-face legal counseling. On the other hand, there are a handful of younger attorneys coming into the profession who grew up attached to their laptops, took the bar exam on their laptop even, and can’t imagine work or life without the methods of communication afforded by the Internet and other technological devices. I’m of the latter group which is why I chose to practice online.

    I think both the traditional way of practicing law and my way have something different to provide the public. Provided that the rules of ethics are closely followed, I don’t think that either way of practicing is going to shame or ruin the reputations of attorneys (which has not been in good shape in the past twenty years anyway). In fact, I think both practices can compliment each other and attend to different markets in the legal field. So, in marketing my business, I am planning on presenting this debate between the traditional method of practicing and the virtual way as an article for the local paper and see if they recognize it as a topic that affects and would interest their readers. It would be great to have a dialogue with local attorneys about the pros and cons of a more technological law practice. Can’t wait for the feedback!

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