Free Blogs at Solo Practice University

Today Solo Practice University announced they will offer free blogs to Solo Practice University community members.

Solo Practice University, in development, is "a web-based educational community and networking forum for solo lawyers and entrepreneurial law students." Susan Cartier Liebel is the creator behind this web-based educational venture. The addition of free blogs to Solo Practice University community members will allow them to practice and hone their blogging skills in a constructive environment. It will be a great way to teach members how blogging and other technologies may be used to market their law practices and create valuable networks with other professionals.

This is the perfect combination! I'm so excited to see how this venture will empower solo practitioners and newly practicing lawyers. Plus, it's a web-based application and I am a big fan of using technology to pool collective resources for educational purposes. More information on Solo Practice University may be found here. Or sign up for email notification.

Notice & Understanding: Setting the Scope of Representation for Online Clients

While each state's bar has different rules governing their attorneys, I suspect that many of the rules of professional conduct and ethics opinions are similar. The NC State Bar was one of the first to address virtual law practice. On January 20, 2006, the NC State Bar adopted the 2005 Formal Ethics Opinion 10 (Ethics Opinion 10) providing advice regarding virtual law practice and online unbundled legal services.

The comments in the opinion focus more on email communication and do not envision a web-based application that provides for detailed attorney/client interaction. However, it is still nice to have a standard opinion to work with.

The nature of unbundled legal services and the requirement that prospective clients understand the scope and nature of the legal representation being offered online was one of the topics addressed by the Ethics Opinion 10. The Bar stated that the virtual attorney must be careful to comply with Rule 1.2(c) of the N.C. Rules of Professional Conduct. This rule states “[a] lawyer may limit the scope of representation if the limitation is reasonable under the circumstances.”

Accordingly, the attorney must continue to provide competent and thorough representation to the client regardless of the limited nature of the legal services being conducted. Rule 1.2(c) allows for the limited legal services to be provided to the public as long as the attorney complies with Rule 1.1 regarding competence of legal services provided.

A well-designed VLO provides notice to prospective clients as well as assurances that these notices have been read and accepted by the client. (See my Clickwrap Agreement post) Additionally, the scope of representation may be again communicated through a secure online message from attorney to the client and a traditional limited scope of representation agreement may be uploaded for the client to sign and return to the attorney, either by scanning and uploading to the VLO or by traditional mail or fax methods.

Before offering unbundled legal services, the virtual attorney has the responsibility to explain exactly what services will be provided at what cost to the client. A well-designed VLO operates with this specific process as the foundation for the transactions by requiring multiple steps where the client must read and acknowledge the terms and/or provide information to the attorney which lets the attorney know that the client has moved forward with accepting the scope of representation.

With each VLO, an attorney has the ability to tailor his or her virtual practice to encompass a variety of limited legal services, including the combination of using the VLO in conjunction with a full-service law office. Because each practice will differ in the areas of law practiced by the attorney(s) and by the chosen design and use of the VLOTech application, the responsibility to ensure compliance with Ethics Opinion 10 and Rule 1.2(c) of the N.C. Rules of Professional Conduct will remain with the individual practitioner or law firm.

Here are a couple examples: An attorney whose practice centers on litigation may use a VLO to generate additional client revenue on the side by answering basic traffic ticket questions while maintaining a full-service litigation practice. The same attorney might use the VLOTech application to provide homepages to existing clients that he or she meets with in person and allow those clients to pay bills online, communicate in a more secure method than through email and basically to use the VLO as an amenity to the full-service firm.

As a different example, another attorney may decide to enter retirement from a full-service law firm by creating a VLO that handles only transactional legal services, such as drafting estate planning, contracts or setting up business entities for clients who do not want or need to meet with the attorney in-person. The VLO allows this attorney to work remotely or from home allowing him or her to ease into retirement or create a completely new online law practice that allows for greater work/life balance.

There are a variety of different situations where a VLO may be used to provide unbundled legal services and with each it is possible to provide quality legal services and comply with Rules 1.2(c) and 1.1 of the N.C. Rules of Professional Conduct.

Similar to a traditional law office, a virtual law attorney must use his or her judgment on a case by case basis when deciding whether he or she may competently and ethically handle a particular matter. If the client’s needs would be better suited if handled by a full-service attorney and the virtual law attorney does not provide this services, then it is his or her responsibility to refer the client out. This is no different from the responsibility of every attorney – whether practicing virtually or with a traditional, brick and mortar law office.

What Are Your Top Five Questions About Virtual Practice?

I'm writing a CLE manuscript for my state bar regarding Virtual Law Practice. The working title is Virtual Law Practice: Technology and Ethics Considerations. The writing is going well, but I want to make sure I have covered all my bases.

What are your top five questions about virtual law practice?

They can be questions about technology, practice management, ecommerce, ediscovery, security, SaaS, ethics, business, etc. So far, I'm feeling pretty confident that I've touched on most of the hot topics. Surprise me and maybe I'll blog with the answers.

Virtual Law Office Voted Family Favorite

I need to brag for a minute. I am proud to announce that for the second year in a row my virtual law practice was voted the Family Favorite by the readers of the Wilmington Parent Magazine. The publication is a local parenting magazine that covers several major counties across the southeastern coast of North Carolina.

Most of my estate planning clients have young families and many of my small business clients are parents, including a number of work-at-home mothers. Of any career-related accolades, this one makes me the proudest because it means that my clients think enough of my legal services to take the time to vote for me and send in the survey to the publication - without my asking, I might add. The fixed fees and the convenience of working with an attorney online are the biggest selling points for my virtual practice based on client feedback. Here's looking forward to another strong year with my virtual practice!

Ethics Question for the Virtual Attorney

Practicing online I often receive this question as an ethics challenge to my virtual practice: How can you be sure that the person you are communicating with online is really person you are drafting the documents for?

Because I handle estate planning, attorneys who operate more traditional practices express specific concern about the power of attorney and the broad authority that it provides to the attorney-in-fact. What if the person I am drafting the document for is really someone else who plans to use the power of attorney for nefarious purposes?

While I will conceed that the Internet facilitates the potential for individuals to commit fraud regarding their true identities, I do not believe it is my responsibility as an attorney to ensure that the final use of the legal documents I have created never fall into the wrong hands. Superwoman, I am not. I can draft legal documents to the best of my abilities with the information the client provides to me, and after that, I cannot control my client's actions or the actions of their families in enforcing or following through with the dictates of these documents. To claim that I could control this or should be reponsible for a client's conduct would be ridiculous.

I provide my clients with fixed fees through my VLO and the majority of my business comes from packages containing several different estate planning documents. My clients are required to accept two clickwrap agreements and a price quote for services which tells them upfront both the nature of unbundled online legal services and the exact legal fees which they will owe me for my services.

Once I complete the documents, it is my client's reponsibility to take them to a notary public in North Carolina to have them properly executed. I provide my clients with detailed instructions to provide the notary public and they know that they may contact me if they run into any questions during this process. It is the notary public's responsibility to check the driver's license of the individuals signing these documents to ensure that they are who they say they are. Additionally, most of the estate planning documents require two witnesses to also be present for the execution.

How do I know my online clients are who they say they are if I never meet them face to face?

Do most attorneys (or their paralegals) in a brick and mortar law office check the driver's license and photo id of every client for whom they provide legal services? Nope. In fact, I recall hearing of a case at one of the firms I worked for before going solo where an attorney had filed an lawsuit on behalf of the client only to find out during discovery that the client had multiple identities in several states and was not who he claimed to be. Had that attorney met with the false client face to face in the brick & mortar law office? Yes, several times. Did that prevent the client from pulling the wool over the eyes of the law firm he retained? Nope.

Professional standards of conduct require that I communicate with reasonable diligence and promptness when dealing with clients. Operating a virtual law practice does not mean that I mass generate legal forms in an impersonal manner. I communicate individually with each of my clients. I ask the questions that I need to know to handle their legal matters. Sometimes they upload documents for me to review and we often work on mulitple drafts. Rarely do I need to call a client on the phone discuss something in person, but if it's necessary to provide the best legal services for them, then I do it.

Many of us reconnect online with family and friends through Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. We create strong online business connections through networking websites, such as LinkedIn. Likewise, the virtual law practitioner uses the web-based technology to build personal and ongoing professional relationships with clients.