The State Bar of California has released a draft formal ethics opinion (No. 10-0003) regarding the use of a “virtual law office practice” by an attorney. This seven page ethics opinion was tentatively approved by the State Bar Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct on November 5th and has been published for a 90-day public comment period.

Imagine shopping for your groceries and remembering that you needed to check in with your attorney regarding the status of your divorce case. You find a private legal services booth and step inside. You touch a few buttons on the computer tablet attached to the kiosk and a video of a receptionist who works for your law firm comes online to take your request. A few minutes later you chat with your attorney face to face via web conferencing and log off.

Twice a year I compile a list of links to published articles and posts related in some  way to virtual law practice.  I’m a bit behind this year largely because of how quickly this area of practice management is evolving. I don’t just pull this together as a resource for the blog. It’s also a [...]

After five years, I finally got around to updating my virtual law office website. I’m still kicking the tires and making a few tweaks, but I’m pretty pleased with it as it is. I’ve got grand plans to update my whitepapers and to send out monthly emails to my online clients.  I’d also like to add realtime [...]

One of the more recent initial resolutions published by the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 clarifies Model Rule 5.5 as it relates to systematic and continous presence and shows the Commission’s acceptance of the growth of alternative law practice structures, such as virtual law practice. Comment [4] of Rule 5.5 covers when systematic and continues presence is [...]

The September/October issue of the ABA Law Practice Magazine is devoted to virtual practice.  I co-authored an article in the publication entitled Popular Cloud Computing Services for Lawyers: Practice Management Online with Tom Mighell.  Other topics in this issue contain discussions of a variety of virtual practice structures and technologies for online delivery and practice management.  [...]

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post for the NC Law Blog entitled “What Contact Information Must a Non-Traditional Law Firm Provide?“. The post discussed how more non-traditional law offices are opening up, many of them delivering legal services online, and how this is raising the question of how to comply with residency requirements, [...]

By now most of you have read the news that Google Ventures invested $18.5 million into Rocket Lawyer. Back in 2008, we read that Rocket Lawyer had partnered with Lexis Nexis and their Lawyers.com service. Should we really be surprised at this next stage of evolution? Many of us in the legal industry are trying to figure out what the [...]

South Carolina has published a new Formal Ethics Opinion 11-05 about attorney’s using services, such as Groupon, to offer discounts and deals on their legal services. To my knowledge, the ethics opinion is the first from a state bar that is specifically related to this topic. The question posed in the opinion is: Does a [...]

The Ethics Committee at the North Carolina State Bar voted to send the proposed formal ethics opinion 6 (FEO 6), entitled ”Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property” back to the subcommittee to reconsider responses they received to inquiries #1 and #2. Both of these inquiries contained worrisome [...]