Virtual Law Practice

Delivering legal services online

Ethics

Writing, Writing and More Writing

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A few articles to note: •A Symposium on Justice, Lawyering and Legal Education in the Digital Age will be held by Chicago-Kent College of Law this week in conjunction with the CALI’s 2013 Conference for Law School Computing. Richard Granat and I co-wrote an article entitled The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm, for the symposium which has been published in the law school’s law review. ...READ MORE

Online Legal Marketplace Book Release

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My new book about the online legal marketplace, Consumer Law Revolution, was released today from the publisher and pre-orders should be shipping this week. I’m excited to share this book with the legal profession. It dives into an area that is growing in practice and where we don’t have clear, established best practices to guide us. The online legal marketplace naturally involves technology and the unbundling of legal services, but also new forms of online lawyer advertising and collaboration with non-lawyer legal service companies that provide online marketing tools and platforms for lawyers to connect with consumers. ...READ MORE

Virginia State Bar Publishes Virtual Law Office Ethics Opinion

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The Virginia State Bar has published Legal Ethics Opinion 1872 on virtual law offices and the use of temporary office space on March 29, 2013. The ethics opinion acknowledges that virtual law offices and temporary or leased office spaces do not always go together, but it addresses both from the standpoint of ethics issues, such as providing contact information in marketing, supervision of lawyers and nonlawyers in the firm, confidentiality of the tech and competency using it to work with clients online. ...READ MORE

Bitcoin as Payment for Legal Services

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One of my law students recently raised this question to me: Could a lawyer allow payment for legal services in Bitcoin? It’s not a question I’ve ever gotten before and it’s a good one. Bitcoin is digital currency and it’s not managed by any central authority but the transactions occur through Bitcoin miners which is basically a server that communicates and confirms the transaction and records it on a ledger. They can be transferred by mobile devices. Recent articles have suggested that eBay and Paypal may open up their sites to the use of Bitcoin. ...READ MORE

New York Publishes New Ethics Opinion – Had a Pow-Wow with NJ?

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The NY State Bar Association Committee on Professional Ethics has published a new ethics Opinion 964 on April 4, 2013 that affects virtual law offices. The opinion is more related to lawyer advertising rather than about virtual law offices but it affects advertising for virtual, traditional and hybrid delivery models. The opinion was prompted by an inquiry from a lawyer who delivers immigration law services primarily online. Like many lawyers with virtual law offices, the lawyer rarely meets with clients in person and communicates using video conferencing and other digital methods of communication. ...READ MORE

Can’t We Do the Same Thing?

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This weekend I gave a presentation for Avvo’s Lawyernomics Conference in Las Vegas. I was talking about the subject of my new book and giving examples of the online marketing tools that branded networks provide for lawyers in their network to use to connect and work with clients online. There were several great questions from the audience throughout, but one question in particular struck me: Couldn’t we use the same techniques the branded networks are using on our own law firm sites? ...READ MORE

Slides from ReInventLaw Conference

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This past Friday, I gave a presentation at the ReInvent Law conference in Silicon Valley. There were 500+ attendees registered and some really interesting speakers. The focus of my talk was about the subject of my new book: lawyers, especially solos and small firms, should learn to collaborate with branded networks and where we are at this stage in that process. ...READ MORE