Virtual Law Practice

Tag: VLOTech

  • Evolution of the VLO 1.0

    When my husband and I sold VLOTech, our legal software as a service solution that created virtual law offices, to Total Attorneys in the fall of 2009 we were anxious to see some of the items on our development list taken to the next level.   Almost a year and a half later, I’m excited to announce that they are releasing VLO 2.0, the next generation of the VLO concept. 

    I’ve been involved at different stages in the process of rebuilding and adding to the software.  A strong focus on the security of the system and attention to the ethics concerns unique to lawyers have been maintained by the developers at Total Attorneys.  It will be exciting to see the reaction from attorneys to the more user-friendly design and workflow. 

    From April to June anyone interested in test driving the beta version of the VLO can sign up with Total Attorneys for a free trial.  After June when the trial period ends those beta users will be offered a discount price if they wish to continue to use the software. 

    More web-based practice management solutions are entering the legal marketplace and more of them are developing client portals and features to facilitate virtual lawyering.  I’m clearly going to be biased in favoring the VLO 2.0 because it is what I’ve used to build my own practice for going on six years, and it is something that I’ve been able to work on closely with others to grow into what I believe is a solid platform for the online delivery of legal services.  I would encourage anyone interested in the development of technology for virtual law practice to take a close look at the VLO 2.0 beta from Total Attorneys and find out about some of the innovative developments that are coming down the pipeline for that software in the near future.

  • Secure Client Portals to Deliver Legal Services Online

    The delivery of legal services online depends on the use of a secure client portal where the attorney and client can interact. This is the key feature of a virtual law practice and what distinguishes it from other online legal services and law firms that claim to be “virtual” by using unencrypted email.

    I’ve noticed in the past year that several new versions of the secure client portal have been introduced. Some of these are even developed specifically for legal professionals and most are designed for use by solos and small firms interested in delivering legal services online. If you are considering opening a virtual law practice, you might want to take a look at these different applications. Some of them have free trials and are still in beta.

    As fast as the technology for virtual law practice changes, it’s worth keeping an eye on what’s coming down the pipeline in client/attorney online communication.  The features that allow you to communicate with your clients online varies.  So far, no one is keen on having their online clients choose avatars or going beyond realtime chat and video communication.  As usual, my imagination fueled by reading too much sci-fi tends to exceed our current capabilities in terms of practical and cost-effective implementation of current technology for law practice management.

    With all of these below, check out the level of security each provides.  Look for end-to-end encyption of the transmission of any sensitive law office data.  You will want the basics — written online communication in some fashion that is recorded with date and time (for ED and CYA of the attorney), online files or other methods of organizing documents, calendaring or the ability to schedule communications with the attorney, uploading and downloading documents, limited client management features to protect them from themselves, etc.  Some client portals are going to work better for unbundling legal services online for many clients and others are more suited to larger online projects with a single client or two.  Keep in mind the chosen structure of your virtual law practice and the needs of your online client base when you are reviewing the products.

    Here are a few new client portal products I’ve run across, along with some that have been around for a few years now.  Know of any other technologies that create secure client portals?  Drop me a note in the comments.

    MyCase Client Manager
    Wizilegal
    DirectLaw
    VLOTech
    Advologix (client portal is not the focus and costs extra)
    HoudiniEsq (was announcing client access this summer, still in beta)
    BaseCamp  (not developed for legal professionals, may not have certain malpractice checks in place)
    ZohoProjects  (not developed for legal professionals, but if your clients are attorneys or other professionals, perhaps a way to collaborate online on a project.  Not sure about the security of this and also there are probably not the same malpractice checks in place)

  • Technology at Techshow to Enable Online Delivery of Legal Services

    Exhibitor Hall at this year’s ABA Techshow has a number of different web-based technologies that allow  for attorneys to take all or portions of their practice online.  Most of them seem to be practice management applications, and not so much geared towards working online securely with clients. However, there are a few new developments that assist virtual law practice that warrant mention.  

    DirectLaw and VLOTech are again this year the two products intended for the online delivery of legal services. (By way of disclaimer, and as most of my readers know, my husband and I co-founded VLOTech which was acquired by Total Attorneys this past fall).  Both products are SaaS, but with different features and focuses so they will appeal to different types of law practices.  Both products facilitate the unbundling of legal services online and from my exploration of the exhibitors’ booths there are not any other products at the show this year that focus on unbundling legal services for online clients.  DirectLaw has recently launched a new site for members of the public to locate a virtual law firm, MyLawyer.com.  If you operate a virtual law practice, you should see about getting a listing in their directory.  (more…)

  • Spreading the Word about Virtual Law Practice

    Many of you have read the news that VLOTech, the company co-founded by my husband and I, was acquired last week by Total Attorneys (TA), a Chicago-based company providing services and products to legal professionals.  The acquisition is going to be great for clients of VLOTech as well as other attorneys considering virtual law practice.  Check out the post by Richard Granat over at his eLawyering blog about the news.

    Joining forces with TA means that 1) my husband now has the ability to work with other programmers who speak his language and can bounce ideas around with to further develop our vision of the virtual law practice software (I may use the tech but coding is all greek to me), and 2) that I will be able to continue to educate on the topic of virtual law practice and share my experiences and the benefits of this form of law practice management with others.  Over the past couple years, we have gotten wonderful feedback on the VLOTech software and have an exciting development list.  Joining with TA will provide us with the resources to develop the software into the vision that our attorney clients have been and continue to build with us for the software.

    One of the great things about joining up with TA is that they are encouraging me and giving me the freedom to continue writing about virtual law practice and in doing so to continue to remain balanced in the information that I share.  I am writing a book for the ABA’s LPM Section on virtual law practice and will continue to practice law from my NC virtual law office.  In the spring I’m looking forward to attending the Get a Life Conferencefor TA as well as speaking at other state bar association CLE programs.  All of these experiences will help spread the word to the legal profession about online law practice, the delivery of legal services online and the benefits that it provides to attorneys and the general public.

  • lawtechTalk Screencast Features Cloud Computing

    The recent screencast from lawtechTalk features cloud computing and your law practice.  Attorney and law and tech blogger Nicole Black explores features of VLOTech, NKrypt and NetDocuments.  You may watch the screencast for free for a limited time by contacting her.  Nicole is a supporter of cloud computing or using SaaS in law practices but also discusses the necessity of attorneys to be educated regarding the technology, security and ethics issues that may arise in taking all or a part of your law practice online.

  • 20 of the 60 Tips in 60 Minutes

    The NC Bar Association held its Law Tech Expo this past week.  Erik Mazzone, the Director for the Center of Practice Management at the Bar, did a great job of reviving the Expo.  I look forward to this being an annual event for our Bar Association and anticipate its growth considering the important role that technology plays in the legal profession today.  It was a pleasure to meet such well-known speakers as Sharon Nelson, John Simek and Britt Lorish Knuttgen at the event.  VLOTech also had a booth in the hall alongside other exhibitors and we were excited to introduce our SaaS product for virtual law practice to the attendees.

    At the Law Tech Expo, I sat in on a panel discussion on practicing law in the cloud and co-presented the 60 Tips in 60 Minutes session with Erik Mazzone and Lee Rosen.

    This would be an amusing story if it weren’t so frustrating at the time:  I protect my netbook by using Truecrypt so that if it were ever stolen, no one would be able to access my law office data.  One of the sites I was presenting was Truecrypt.  Right before our presentation, we all connected our computers out so that the video will show up on the auditorium screen.  The Truecrypt screen comes up asking for the password, but won’t even let me enter it.  Fortunately, I also travel with the portable CD drive and restore CD so it wasn’t a problem once I got back to the hotel.  However, I had to jump over to the Bar Center’s podium computer to present my 20 sites rather than using my netbook.  It’s the perfect example of how one of my 20 tips can be used to protect your law office data — although not exactly the way I had wanted to demonstrate it.

    Snafu aside, the presentation was fun and the audience responsive.  I’m looking forward to presenting another 20 of the 60 Websites in 60 Minutes for the Practical Skills CLE in a couple weeks.

    Here are the 20 tips that I presented from our session with summaries of the sites.

    PrimoPDF:  A free PDF creator allows you to create PDF files from 300+ file types.  For example, turn a Word doc into a PDF and secure with passwords for digital storage, sending to clients, etc.

    Portable Hard Drive:  Easy to use for backup of law office data. Run nightly backups with Truecrypt and Sycntoy for security.  When traveling, it’s easy to take your law practice along with you.

    Truecrypt: Free open source encryption software. Works with PCs & Macs. Multiple uses for this software, especially for the mobile attorney.  Ex.: Encrypt files on your USB key or portable hard drive.

    Zamzar:  Free online file conversion.  Convert files to doc, image, video and music formats.  Useful for working w/clients, other attorneys using different programs to share data.

    ZOHO Projects: Creates a project management space for collaboration that is based on social networking.  Map out projects with a team, assign tasks, schedule meetings, work on documents, hold forum discussions and more.

    Pipes:  A tool that aggregates and mashups up content from around the web to create a customized feed.  Use simple commands combined together to create more useful, powerful feeds.

    Google Voice: Create a Google phone number and route calls to your home, business, or mobile devices.  A useful tool for blocking and screening calls with other features, such as voicemail transcripts, storing, sending and receiving text messages from one device or online to other devices. Rather than calling multiple numbers to reach you, your clients dial one number and it tracks you down to the phone you can answer or takes the call to voice mail.

    Meebo: Communicate in real-time with your contacts across platforms including IM and other social networking apps.  This tool lets you combine all of your contact lists in different apps into one.

    Thunderbird 2:  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.

    Open Office:  Free open source version of Microsoft Office, includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and other applications.  It runs on PCs and Macs, has great compatibility with other programs and you don’t have to buy a new version to install each time it has an update.

    Billeo:  A secure tool to manage online transactions, such as payments, passwords, and receipts.  Works in your browser to allow for one-click access.

    Penzu:  This program is for the attorney who enjoys writing but doesn’t want the world to read it. Does your law firm prohibit or discourage you for writing in a public blog?  Start a free, private online journal and keep writing.

    Scribefire:  This is an extension to your Firefox browser that lets you post easily into your blog.  Click and drag, drop formatted text from pages and post it on your blog.

    Glance:  Easy tool for desktop sharing with audio conferencing.  Use for web presentations, conferences, training, or general communicating.  Allows others to take control of your mouse as well as view your desktop.

    iContact: Send clients newsletters and email blasts about your practice and changes in the law without being blacklisted. Use it in conjunction with your blog or website to transfer subscribers to your email updates.

    Skype:  Free skype-to-skype calls with video, text message from Skype; forward calls to your mobile device, etc.  Multiple uses for online communication.

    Iceberg:  A web-based tool to develop your own custom workflow based app for your law practice or for individual projects.  Provides customizable applications to build on.  No code writing experience necessary.

    Virtual Paralegals:  For an attorney practicing law remotely or online, virtual paralegals are a useful resource for transcription, legal research, legal document preparation or other administrative activities.  There are virtual paralegal companies, independent virtual paralegals and virtual assistants that may work in different arrangements, such as on a regular basis for a solo or small firm or as added support on a project basis for a larger firm.

    Firefox Add-ons:  Download these add-ons for extra security for your Firefox browser.  Use no-scripts for safest web-browsing.

    Bing:  Microsoft’s version of the search engine.  Keep an eye on how it will compete with Google because it does use a different formula for ranking sites.  Attorneys should monitor their personal and professional online presence on a regular basis and this is one more search engine to check.

  • Social Networking Policies for a Virtual Law Practice

    Last week I gave a brief presentation for the Legal Services National Technology Assistance Project (LSNTAP) about developing policies for online social networking. While researching for the presentation and round table discussion, it occurred to me that having a policy in place for social networking is a wise idea for a virtual law practice. Considering that a great deal of the marketing and professional networking for a virtual law practice is going to be handled online using social networking tools, it makes good sense to establish a policy for your practice whether you are a solo practitioner or a medium-sized online law practice with virtual assistants.

    If you haven’t already, please check out Carolyn Elefant’s ebook Social Networking for Lawyers: The What, Why and How.  This is a good resource regarding the use of social networking for legal professionals and could be useful for developing your own social networking policies for a virtual law practice.

    Here are some social networking policy suggestions from my presentation that can be applied to a virtual law practice: (more…)

  • Article Notes Rise in Virtual Law Firms

    Today’s Legal Technology section over at Law.com has an article about the increasing number of solo practitioners who are profiting from going virtual.  As I’ve blogged about in the fall of last year, operating a virtual law office is a great way for a solo or small law firm to compete in this difficult economy.  The general public, our clients, are seeking more affordable legal services and they want the convenience of using technology to acquire those services.  After all, being able to take care of your legal needs at 1am without having to take time off of work or arrange for child care saves money as much as a reduced legal fee.

    I have noticed an increase in my virtual law practice since last October and many of my online clients are forthright about why they decided to come to my VLO instead of going to a traditional law firm.  My clients are scattered across the state so at the same time that I am helping my clients, I am also helping my law practice by being able to expand my client base and compete with traditional solo practices in my state.

    Working with VLOTech to set up other attorneys with virtual law practices and seeing the increase in interest in the web-based technology assures me this is a trend that is not going anywhere anytime soon.  Check out some of the newest VLOs in my links to the right.

    The Law.com article talks about virtual law practices that communicate through email (usually unencrypted and not secure), phone and Internet but does not really give us the details on what technologies these virtual law practices are using.  The focus is also on collaboration virtually between attorneys rather than online attorney and client communication.  Let’s hope data security is a primary concern for these practices with whatever technologies they are using to deliver legal services.  Expect to see future articles that focus more on attorney/client online communication to deliver legal services online.

  • Spring Virtual Law Office Update

    By now the word has circulated that the ABA Techshow website has posted the audio file from Richard Susskind’s keynote presentation at the ABA Techshow in Chicago earlier this month.  I wasn’t able to attend the event and accept the Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in Elawyering.  However, my husband, the programmer who designed my virtual law office software, attended to accept the award on my behalf.  The presentation came with a lovely plaque that I will hang in my home office.  Of course none of my online clients will get to see it, but I will have to find a way to “decorate” my VLO with some mention of the award.

    Thanks to all of the Twitterers in the audience, I followed the presentation from home and got a good overview of the speech from tweets.  Today I finally had time to listen to the ABA audio file of Susskind’s speech.  He’s a very dynamic speaker which is something that you just can’t get from following a speaker on Twitter.  I was also happy to hear that at the end they included the ABA Task Force’s presentation of the award to my VLO and my husband’s acceptance speech.  Since I wasn’t there to accept it in person, it was nice to hear how it went.

    In other news, my VLO received the Family Favorite Attorney Award for the third year in a row from the Wilmington Parent Magazine, a local parenting publication that many of my online clients read.  This award means a lot of me because it comes from some of the individuals and families that I work with online.  It has helped each year to build my confidence in my virtual elawyering skills and to generate additional client referrals.  A couple articles were also published about my VLO in the NC Lawyer’s Weekly and other law-related publications.  Hopefully all the attention will generate additional interest in virtual law practice and the delivery of legal services using technology.

    Aside from my own virtual law practice, my company, VLOTech, received the 2009 Coastal Entrepreneur Award and was invited to meet with a panel of business experts to discuss the company.  It was a great opportunity to learn from other entrepreneurs who have taken their dreams, accepted the risks and made it happen.

    This spring has been a busy one both personally and professionally.  My goal is to return to blogging more about actual virtual law practice in the summer months as things settle down a bit.

  • Three Years into My Virtual Law Practice

     

    I’ve been preparing materials to teach a course on virtual law practice for Solo Practice University (SPU).  Lawyers USA just published an article about SPU here.  I hope some of my blog readers will join me for the virtual law practice course. 

    One of the topics I’m covering at the beginning of the course has to do with taking the leap from a traditional law practice management method into a virtual law practice.   In helping others make the decision to go completely web-based with their solo or small firm or to add some virtual component to their law practice, I’ve been thinking about why I left my position as an associate in a small, traditional law firm to go solo with a VLO. 

    It’s been three years since I opened my web-based virtual law office, Kimbro Legal Services.   In 2006, I hung my virtual shingle using the beta release of the VLOTech virtual law office software.  As with any business, after a couple years you realize that your goals and expectations have changed from when you launched, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the support I’ve had from other attorneys and from the great public response over the past three years.

    Reasons why I initially formed my virtual law practice:

    1. The birth of my first child.  I wanted to work from home and spend as much time with her and my family as I could.  Childhood is a short time and I didn’t want to miss it.

    2.  From my experience in the small firm, I noticed that there was a clear market need for individuals of middle income and moderate means to be able to conveniently access and afford legal services.  Yet many of them were going to their office supply store and buying legal kits or purchasing LegalZoom documents online.  They weren’t consulting an attorney for the guidance they needed because they were 1) afraid they couldn’t afford it, or 2) were just too intimidated to sign a traditional engagement letter with an attorney and put up a sizeable retainer.

    Those were my main reasons for opening my VLO.  Three years later my reasons for practicing with a virtual law practice are the same, but I have some added observations and experiences that reinforce my decision.

    1.  Clients want this.  The general public response to the VLO in the past three years has been amazing.  My clients appreciate the convenience and accessibility to legal services.  They have their own homepages on my secure VLO where they can drop me a note at any time, upload and download documents, fill out online forms, pay their invoices, review their invoices, etc.  I think the ability for them to access their own case files and review our work together helps them to feel more in charge of their legal needs and more connected with me as their legal representation. 

    2. Client revenue has come in from across the state.  I have not had the collection problems that I was warned about by other attorneys when I first opened my solo practice.  I expected it to be a big hassle and in three years I’ve been limited to two or three small collection issues that were not that difficult to resolve.  Clients receive their invoices online.  They pay me online.  We set up recurring billing or payment plans.  Maybe it’s the convenience of the invoice being online or maybe it’s being able to pay by credit card.  Whatever the reason, ease of collections has been a pleasant surprise.

    3.  Attention to customer service results in client loyalty  They don’t really teach you this in law school, but running a law practice requires business skills.  I stopped trying to act like an attorney and instead focused more on being a good business owner.  This has made all the difference in the world.  I relate to my clients on personal levels through our dialogue on the VLO.  I take the time to address all of their concerns and questions with patience and it has resulted in a growing client base for my virtual law practice. 

    4.  Virtual law practice in some form is the way our profession is headed.   If you haven’t already, read Richard Susskind”s End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services.  The traditional law office will not cease to exist, but it may find ways to incorporate a virutal law practice component to address the needs of its clients and to facilitate attorney online collaboration.  In the past three years, I’ve been overwhelmed with the number of attorneys who support web-based virtual law practice and who see it’s benefits for the public as well as the legal profession.  It’s a growing trend in our profession that would be foolish to ignore. 

    As I’m working more with other attorneys through VLOTech to set up other virtual law practices, I’m spending less time on my own VLO.   Fortunately, we just opened up a new VLO in North Carolina where I can refer some of my online clients and we are in the process of launching another VLO, a multi-attorney firm in NC, this week.  

    Three years may not seem like a long time to have been in business, but considering the novelty of the concept when I started and how popular virtual law practice is becoming now, I’ll give myself a birthday pat on the back for taking the leap.

MENU