Virtual Law Practice

Tag: terms and conditions

  • Minimum Requirements for Delivering Legal Services Online

    Co-chairs of the ABA eLawyering Task Force, Marc Lauritsen and Richard Granat, have submitted a draft set of minimum requirements for delivering legal services online which was published in this month’s Law Practice Today.  As a member of the Task Force, we have discussed these minimum requirements as a set of guidelines that attorneys will be able to turn to when they are interested in forming a virtual law practice .  Once approved by the ABA’s LPM, these requirements may be used by different state bars as a way to guide attorneys in their states who are forming virtual law practices.  You may check out the minimum requirements posted in the article and the Task Force welcomes comments and reactions to the document through their listserv. 

    Keep in mind when reading these minimum requirements that the idea behind them is to provide guidance, but not to be too specific in ways that might stifle future innovation in the delivery of legal service.  The topics covered include website architecture, ethics issues, statement of terms and conditions, retainer agreement acceptance, online payment of legal fees, protecting client confidences, and security certification.

  • 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 .

  • Avoiding the Unauthorized Practice of Law in Other Jurisdictions When Practicing Law Online

    Practicing law from a web-based virtual law office brings the risk of unwittingly establishing an attorney/client relationship regarding a legal matter that the virtual attorney is not licensed to handle. The unauthorized practice of law in other jurisdictions can be avoided by following some simple practice methods.

    First, the virtual law practitioner has the responsibility to provide clear notice throughout the VLO website that he or she is only licensed to practice law in the states in which the attorney holds an active bar license. This information should show up at every turn — from the terms and conditions for the website to the registration and clickwrap agreement allowing access to the online client’s homepage.

    Second, the virtual law office website should contain contact information and the name of the attorney running the VLO. For some state bar associations, such as North Carolina, the requirement extends to providing a physical mailing address for the prospective client. This information should be located in a section that is easily found by the online client, such as an “About Us” section or at the start of the website’s disclaimer. By providing adequate notice throughout the VLO, the attorney should not be found to be soliciting clients from a state where he or she is not able to practice law.

    In addition, a well-designed VLO should contain a jurisdiction check for the benefit of the client and the attorney. This safe-guard was built into the VLOTech software for this purpose.

    VLOTech jurisdiction check

    When the client registers on the attorney’s VLO website, a simple check for the zip code notifies the attorney that the client is a resident outside his or her jurisdiction. A note would appear to the client which states that the attorney may only be retained to answer legal questions and handle legal work related to the laws of the state for which the attorney has an active law license. The jurisdiction check should not prevent the client from continuing with the registration process, but serves the purpose of providing more than adequate notice of the attorney’s jurisdiction. Through this process, the attorney is provided with a red flag on the backend of the law office to let him or her know that the client resides in a different state and may not have a legal matter that the attorney is permitted to handle.

    With the combination of adequate contact information and notice to any prospective clients regarding jurisdictional limitations, the virtual practitioner should be able to safely avoid crossing the line into unauthorized practice of law.

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