Virtual Law Practice

Category: Marketing

  • Collaborating with Branded Networks on LXBN TV

    This is the video of my brief interview with Colin O’Keefe about the topic of my presentation for Avvo’s Lawyernomics Conference next week in Las Vegas.

  • Updates on Events

    Below are a couple of the events I’m scheduled to attend this month. I have not had time to blog because I’ve been finishing up the edits to my book about online marketing tools and branded networks. It is now slated to come out the first of June.

    I have a couple other articles or chapters that should be published between now and the summer as well. I’ll share what I can here. In addition to the firm practice and consulting work, I’ve also been online teaching the second six week session on Social Media and Online Marketing for the Digital Lawyering Program at the University of Dayton School of Law. And I’ve put a few more irons in the fire with a couple other legal tech/legal services related startups that I’m keeping under wraps for now. Too many ideas, too little time.

    ABA Techshow in Chicago April 4-5. I’ll be at a Meet the Author session on Friday at 1:45pm. This is more of a casual event where I will focus on addressing questions from the audience. I’m also hosting a Taste of Techshow dinner with Chad Burton, another Techshow speaker. We will be discussing virtual law practice at that dinner if anyone attending the show wants to sign up and join us for that.

    Lawyernomics Conference in Vegas April 26-27th at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I’ll be speaking on the topic of the Consumer Law Revolution book. Basically, I’ll be giving practical tips for lawyers who want to work with branded networks and discussing the best practices to do so.

  • Slides from ReInventLaw Conference

    This past Friday, I gave a presentation at the ReInvent Law conference in Silicon Valley. Rachel Zahorsky of the ABA Journal wrote about the event here and the American Lawyer wrote about it here. 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. I believe a video of my presentation will be made available at some point online which will probably make way more sense than these slides do alone.

    Overall, there was a lot of energy at this conference and more than a few calls to action, perhaps directed at some of the many legal tech companies and startups in the room.

  • Attorney @ Work: The Next Lawyering Frontier

    talking fingersIn case you missed reading it on the Attorney at Work blog, here is a link to my interview for them. I’ve gotten a huge response from this article in the form of emails from lawyers across the country so something in it must have struck a cord.

    As the article says, I’ll be speaking at the Lawyernomics 2013 conference in Las Vegas on April 27 on “The Consumer Law Revolution: Lawyer Collaboration with Branded Networks.”  More on that later.Here is part of the Attorney at Work interview:

    The greatest opportunities for today’s lawyers are online. This is where the conversation about legal services is happening for the public, whether lawyers are present or not. It’s not just personal legal services that we are talking about. Companies and corporate clients are online, listening and engaging with their customers. Lawyers who understand and stay constantly up to date with the technology and the different opportunities to engage in online conversation are going to continue to grow and succeed. This is not only for client development. Lawyers need to know how their clients communicate and operate their businesses. The lawyer who does not understand online engagement is not going to be the best lawyer for a company whose customers are all engaging with the company online, whether wanted or not.

  • Consumer Law Revolution Ebook

    ConsumerLawEbookCoverI’ve created a new page on this blog for my new ebook: Consumer Law Revolution.

    This ebook is the precursor to my full book that should be published by the ABA LPM sometime later this year. The ebook provides an introduction to the concept of branded networks and online marketing tools for lawyers.

    For the book, I researched almost all of the legal tech startups and branded networks from both the lawyer and consumer perspective. These case studies are in the full book as are all of the important ethics issues surrounding lawyer collaboration with these companies to engage with and provide legal services to the public.

    I wanted to make the best practices portion of this material free and available to practitioners because I don’t know of any other resources out there like this and it’s needed. As most of you know by now from my writing, I believe that the legal profession should find ways to collaborate with companies providing legal services online. It will be a significant way to increase access to justice for certain legal services. Not for all services, not for all clients, and not for all lawyers – see my book on unbundling or that ebook for reasons why not. However, it will be significant for large segments of the public needing basic legal services and may lead to other forms of collaboration and innovation in the delivery of legal services that could expand access in ways we can’t see right now.

    For those who are venturing into this area of lawyer advertising/delivering legal services online in their law practice, this ebook and the full book to come should be a helpful guide.

    As always, I welcome feedback.

  • 15 Technology and Legal Services Delivery Predictions for 2013

    Every six months I used to write a post with a list of virtual law practice updates or related items that had been “in the news.” Elawyering and virtual practice have become so mainstream these days that doing this would result in a ridiculously long list of references.

    Instead, I’m going to compile a list of my top 15 predictions for the coming year that relate to virtual practice. These are based on the research I’ve done for my upcoming book as well as the presentations and consulting work that I’ve done over the past year.

    1. We will continue to see the number of legal technology start-ups being introduced to the consumer legal marketplace. [For a list of these players, stay tuned for the release of my ebook: Consumer Law Revolution coming later in Jan. 2013]. These companies are going to focus their efforts on consumers, but will also attempt to cultivate strong attorney branded networks that will provide their services with the value add of licensed legal assistance.

    2. Existing legal tech startups may be acquired or backed by larger legal service companies, companies catering to other industries in addition to legal services, or fail to obtain the funding necessary to scale to the next level.

    3. Of the technologies introduced in these platforms we will see two interesting developments that will be a little different than the typical Q&A or forum platforms typically offered to consumers. These companies are adding better matching systems using algorithms, consumer preferences, and online behavior to match the legal needs of the individual with the appropriate legal guidance/forms and potentially with the best lawyer to handle their particular legal need. We will also see the expert systems in some of these platforms increase in sophistication as they learn and improve from user feedback.

    4. The focus of these companies’ services will start to shift more from business law and startup legal services to more personal legal services for the average consumer.

    5. We may see companies negotiating with other non-legal social media and networking applications for access to user data which may be used to help predict or identify consumer’s legal needs as a way to target advertising for their platforms.

    6. Lawyers will become more aware of the need for online marketing that extends beyond the use of social media and focuses more on brand building online using analytical tools that focus on ROI rather than just online reach.

    7. More lawyers, especially solos and small firms, will consider joining forces with one or more of these legal startups. Navigating those networks and figuring out how to convert any leads generated from them into paying clients will be a learning process for both the lawyers and the companies looking to maintain and develop strong relationships with lawyers. (more…)

  • Slides: Final Social Media in Law Practice for Digital Lawyering Program

    This is the slide deck from our final online session in Social Media in Law Practice, part of the Univ. of Dayton School of Law Digital Lawyering Program. It covers time management, the future of social media, its application to the legal profession, and our deliverable for the session.

    The students were asked to create a social media policy for a law practice to prove competency in the subject matter. In the course, we covered blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and Twitter as the core platforms, reviewed management and analytic tools, privacy and security settings, ethics rules and opinions, use of social media in litigation, integration with a larger online marketing strategy, and more.

    In order to teach this session I was forced to go back through all of my own personal and professional uses of social media which was a daunting task at times. I gave the students walkthroughs of the different applications, privacy and account settings, and other features using my own accounts, excluding any confidential or private information. I refered to several practical books from the ABA LPM’s ____in One Hour for Lawyer’s Series for each social media method as well as Niki Black and Carolyn Elefant’s book, Social Media for Lawyers. We also looked across industries to see how other professions and businesses are using social media for client development and professional networking.

    Several interesting questions were raised by the students regarding their transition from student to licensed lawyer and how this should be handled in their existing social media use. For example, upon passing the bar, should they notify friends and family that going forward their use of these applications will be x, or should they post a one-time disclaimer reminding followers that now that they are licensed lawyers, friends should not post any confidential legal questions on public sites? These are real concerns for young lawyers. Hopefully this session provided them with the skills they need to navigate, keep up with, and regularly modify their use of social media in their careers.

     

  • Slides – Consumer Law Revolution: Online Marketing Tools for Lawyers

    These are the slides from my part of the panel presentation from the College of Law Practice Management (COLPM) Futures Conference last Friday at Georgetown Law Center in D.C. Some of this talk included research from my forthcoming book on the subject.

    I think Michael Mills, who was on the panel with myself, Marc Lauritsen and Tanina Rostain, made a wonderful point when he asked whether our profession’s reluctance to use available technologies that make legal knowledge available to a larger majority of the public is actually “immoral.” It is certainly malpractice to not use it, but I think he is right, if it’s available and can be implemented by law firms or at least made accessible through legal services organizations to increase access to justice, then yes, it borders on being immoral.

    I tried to argue that some of these companies creating new platforms to deliver legal services might collaborate with  private practitioners as well as legal aid services  to increase alternatives available but also help lawyers to build their online brand and market their full-service or unbundled legal service offerings. I’m not sure about what reception these ideas had because it was the end of the day and that always limits attendee questions.  Would love the feedback.

  • Consumer Law Revolution

    I will be speaking on a panel at the College of Law Practice Management (COLPM) Futures Conference this Friday at Georgetown Law Center in D.C.
    Our panel will be discussing the following topics:
    • How is technology changing delivery of legal services to consumer?
    • How is tech changing how lawyers who serve consumers practice?
    • Will the consumer law movement shape the broader market for legal services?  Do we see signs today that consumer law developments are already doing so?
    • Will constraints – for example, client or lawyer conservatism, immature technology, or ethical barriers – limit a more rapid evolution or a real  revolution?

    I am charged with speaking about lawyer marketing using Internet-based platforms. My co-panelists are Professor Tanina Rostain, Michael Mills, and Marc Lauritsen. I will post any slides from my part of the presentation at a later date.

  • Progress on New Book – Online Marketing Tools

    I wanted to provide a quick update of what I’ve been working on and what I will hopefully be sharing more of on this blog in the near future. I have been finishing up a new book on the topic of online marketing tools for lawyers. If all goes well, it should be out by the spring.

    In the course of researching for this project, I’ve studied and registered for accounts with companies that provide online legal services to the public and seek to collaborate with lawyers. This process has only increased my excitement and optimism about the future of online delivery. The book covers the many ethics questions that come up with respects to these models and provides best practices for lawyers to follow. However, the focus is on lawyer collaboration with the new models of online delivery.

    These companies have found ways to engage with the public in a larger online conversation about the law and legal services in a way that the legal profession has not succeeded in doing. Our existing rules of advertising and different state restrictions on various online models of advertising have caused many lawyers to continue to stay out of the online conversation.

    This is not good for the public because it limits their awareness of and ability to find qualified legal assistance, and it keep our profession isolated from understanding the needs of our clients. The book looks at how lawyers may create a different kind of marketing strategy by working with rather than ignoring or trying to compete with these third-party platforms for legal service delivery. This strategy will generate leads for a lawyer’s practice, giving them a competitive edge over firms that do not engage with the public online. But it may also serve the purpose of improving public opinion about lawyers and the legal profession. (more…)

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