The James Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering is awarded every year at the ABA TECHSHOW (March 29-31, 2012, Chicago, Illinois). James Keane was the founding Chair of the ABA/LPM eLawyering Task Force., which grants the Award.

Last year the Award was given to the Legal Aid Society of Orange County for their Legal Genie Project.  Another recipient was Stephanie Kimbro for her pioneering work in developing the virtual law firm concept at KimbroLaw.

The purpose of the award is to recognize law firms, private or public, that demonstrate innovative ways of using Internet technology to deliver legal services. Nominees may be any individual lawyer, law firm, or other deliver of legal services to individuals within the United States. The nominees can be a large or small law firm, public or private, or a legal services agency.  Self nomination by the Task Force is encouraged.

Here is a summary of the Award criteria:

• Absence of precedent - Never been done or done quite this way before.
• Evidence of action - The innovative idea was transformed into action and not merely reflective of best intentions. The nominee should be prepared to provide evaluation data that documents the effectiveness of the legal service in terms of client satisfaction, revenue enhancement, and/or law productivity. The nomination must provide an analysis of the measures used to define success.
• Effectiveness of innovation - There is some measurable outcome that would indicate that the innovation is accomplishing what it was intended to do.
• The project must demonstrate the use of the Internet to deliver legal services.
• Action must have taken place no more than three years prior to this entry, and the legal service must be operating for at least one year prior to submission of the Application.
• Additional consideration will be given to projects that focus on the delivery of legal services to individuals of moderate means.
• The nomination should describe how the service was developed, how it is managed, and how it has been evaluated.
• The nomination should describe how the service can be replicated by other law firms in terms of development costs, required technology, people requirements, and ongoing maintenance costs.

Click here to go to the ABA Application Page to apply.

The application deadline is February 15, 2012.

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The latest edition of the ABA's Law Practice Today webzine has good articles on elawyering and virtual practice and a really innovative piece by Marc Laurtisen titled,  Dancing in the Cloud, and an introduction to the elawyering concept by Stephanie Kimbro --  Getting Started With eLawyering).

I also wrote a short article on Document Assembly Over the Internet , which as readers of this Blog will know is an old theme for me.

For our latest analysis on what is working in the virtual law firm space, download our White Paper on Virtual Law Practice: Success Factors.

 

 

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A new international bar association was formed last year, based in Miami, Florida, called the Online Bar Association. It is an eclectic group of attorneys some based in the United States and many based internationally, who have come together around a common interest - the online delivery of legal services.

The first inaugural meeting is this weekend, April 29-May 1, 2011 at the Westin Colanade Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida.  Here is information about the meeting and the agenda.

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The James I. Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering for 2011 is going to the Legal Aid Society of Orange County for their Legal Genie Project, reports the eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA, the group that makes the Award.

James Keane was the first appointed Chair of the group, and passed away tragically from cancer six years ago.

Bob Cohen is the long time leader of Orange County Legal Aid, and provided the leadership for this Project. 

This project combines the use of advanced web-enabled document automation technology to generate Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 documents, as well as California divorce pleadings. It is unique because it involves a network of lawyers who provide legal advice, document review,  and other assistance to clients who use the program. The use of Internet technology makes it possible for the lawyers to be involved, and to also get paid a fee, because the entire transaction is made more efficient. The lawyers who participating get the benefit of the Legal Aid brand, and the marketing that results from promoting the project.

The Project demonstrates how a vertical branded network of attorneys, empowered by a robust technology platform, can provide legal services at an affordable fee to individuals who could not normally afford a lawyer.

This is from the Legal Genie website:

 “Legal Genie is a simple, affordable and reliable online service created by Legal Aid Society of Orange County. It is designed for people who do not qualify for legal aid and cannot afford the services of an attorney. It asks simple questions and puts answers on the forms in the correct place.

"Legal Genie is different from other services because it connects you to a licensed attorney on our Lawyers Referral Service panel. The LRS attorney will give you telephone consultations, review your documents and give you legal advice. Legal Genie combines the magic of technology with the help of a professional at a price you can afford.”

The formal granting of the Award will be on April 12, 2011, at a Lunch for all of the attendees of  ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago, Illinois at the Hilton Hotel.

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The eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA is seeking recommendations and applications for the James Keane Award for Excellence in eLawyering which is awarded annually at ABA Tech Show in Chicago ( April 11-13, 2011). This will be the fourth year that the Award has been made. Previous award winners include Stephanie Kimbro for her work in creating the virtual law firm of KimbroLaw and Lee Rosen of the The Rosen Law Firm (both coincidentally located in North Carolina).

The purpose of this Award is to give recognition to law offices that have developed legal service innovations that are delivered over the Internet. The focus of the Award is on the innovative delivery of personal legal services, with special attention given to firms and entities that serve both moderate income individuals and the broad middle class. 

The Award is technology-focused, in the sense that the Award Committee is seeking innovations that demonstrate the concept of eLawyering - which can be  further defined as the delivery of online legal services. Examples of elawyering include the development of online web advisors, expert systems, innovative uses of web-enabled document automation, on-line client collaboration systems, and on-line dispute settlement systems, to name a few examples.

Nominees may be any individual lawyer, law firm or other deliverer of legal services to individuals within the United States.

The nominee can be a large or small law firm, public or private, or a legal services agency. More than one entry may be submitted, and the Task Force encourages self-nomination. The Application deadline has been extended to March 15, 2011.

For further information and an application form see: http://tinyurl.com/48xvcfq

 

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The Virtual Law Firm: How to Build Your Practice in an Online World, Friday, August 6, 2019, 2:00-3:15 P.M. Moscone Center

Moderated by Marc Lauritsen
Presented by Richard Granat ,Will Hornsby, Stephanie Kimbro
Co-Sponsored by General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division, Standing Committee on Delivery of Legal Services

This program will discuss in a panel format the concept of practicing law virtually and how it can enhance an existing traditional law practice, or be a exist as a totally virtual law firm. The program will discuss the benefits of a delivering legal services online and how it can help a law firm acquire clients who are members of the connected/Facebook generation as well as provide more effective services to existing clients. Topics covered will include: what is a virtual law practice; the web architecture for a virtual law practice; online legal service applications, such as web-enabled document automation; ethical issues in the delivery of online legal services, such as confidentiality, security, unauthorized practice of law, client identification and authentication procedures, conflict of interest checking; criteria of vendor selection; the costs associated with setting up a virtual law practice; and marketing your brand and virtual law practice online.

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eLawyering Task Force Meeting, Saturday, August 7, 2010, Hilton Hotel, Union Square, 9:00 - 11:00 A.M.Open Meeting

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20/20 Vision: The Impact of Technology and Globalization on Ethics for the 21st Century Lawyer. August 5th, Thursday, 10:30am, Moscone Center West Room 2016, 2nd Floor. Stephanie Kimbro, a member of the eLawyering Task Force is participating.

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National Conference of State Bar Presidents

Joint Workshop 3A – Keeping Pace with the Evolving Practice of Law
Continental Parlor 7, Ballroom Level, Hilton San Francisco

Ethics 20/20 continues to explore the impact of technology on the practice of law, as well
as global developments that may redefine and expand our ideas about law practice and
how to regulate it. Join us for a discussion of cutting edge ideas that are going to affect
the profession and your members: the virtual law firm, elawyering and cloud computing,
publicly traded law firms and alternative business models for law firms.

MODERATOR
Frederic S. Ury, Fairfield, CT, Past President, Connecticut Bar Association; NCBP
Secretary, and Member, ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20
PANELISTS
Richard S. Granat, Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Founder, President and CEO, DirectLaw, Inc.,
and Co-Chair, eLawyering Task Force, LPM, and Member, ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services
Steven Mark, Sydney, NSW, Australia, Commissioner, New South Wales Office of the
Legal Services Commissioner, and Chairman, Australian Section of the International
Commission of Jurists

 

 

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The Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association is sponsoring a Teleconference on the The Virtual Law Firm: Benefits, Costs, and Ethical Pitfalls to Avoid, on Thursday, December 17, 2009 between 1:00 P.M. and 2:30 P.M.

The program is a Live Audio Webcast with PowerPoint support.

I am participating in the program, together with Stephanie Kimbro of KimbroLaw Services and Marc Lauritsen, President, Capstone Practice, and Co-Chair, eLawyering Task Force, ABA Law Practicement Section .You can register online.

 

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The Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association awards the James I Keane Memorial Award in Excellence in eLawyering, annually at the ABA TechShow in Chicago. Nominations are now open for the Award to be in March, 2010. Candidates can self-nominate. The Award Requirements can be found here. The nomination form can be found on-line here.

Here is a brief summary of the Award criteria:

• The project or law firm must demonstrate the use of the Internet to deliver legal services.
• It must be unique. It should be an on-line legal service that has never been done before, or not quite this way before.
• Absence of precedent - Never been done or done quite this way before.
• There should be some measurable outcome that would indicate that the innovation is accomplishing what it was intended to do.
• Action must have taken place no more than three years prior to this entry, and the legal service must be operating for at least one year prior to submission of the Application.
• Additional consideration will be given to projects that focus on the delivery of legal services to individuals of moderate means.
• The nomination should describe how the service was developed, how it is managed, and how it has been evaluated.
• The nomination should describe how the service can be replicated by other law firms in terms of development costs, required technology, people requirements, and ongoing maintenance costs.

 

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On Friday, October 2nd, I presented at Vancouver’s Pacific Legal Technology Conference on the topic of Virtual Law Practice with Simon Chester of Heenan Blaikie and Nicole Garton-Jones of Heritage Law.

 

We discussed the two heads of the definition of virtual law practice:  practising law over the Internet through a secure online portal and practising law under one brand through satellite offices (which are often home offices).

 

Nicole is an early adopter who described her experience in managing Heritage Law, a paperless office where most staff work from home.  Some staff are located in places such as Victoria and the Sunshine Coast that are remote from Heritage Law’s central office in West Vancouver.  Heritage Law soon will be implementing DirectLaw through a separate business model called Heritage Law Online, subject to regulatory approval.

 

I analyzed Web-enabled virtual law practice using the Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create grid, which sets out a framework for contrasting innovative value propositions with conventional value propositions.  It comes from a book called Blue Ocean Strategy.  Among other things, Web-enabled virtual law practice eliminates the visit to the lawyer’s office, reduces cost and waste, raises a lawyer’s reach beyond his or her immediate geographical area, and creates a packaged solution.  I also discussed Chrissy Burns’ PhD thesis, entitled “Online Legal Services—A Revolution that Failed?.”  It is found at http://tinyurl.com/kvtden.

 

Simon discussed the regulatory issues involved in setting up a virtual law practice in Canada.   Canadian regulators have not addressed virtual law practice specifically but there are issues with regard to limited scope representation, preservation of data, and the client identification and verification rules.

 

Our PowerPoint slides from the presentation are located here:

 

http://www.pacificlegaltech.com/download/SSF2.pdf

 Reported by Darryl Mountain, President, Ontago, Inc.

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We had an eLawyering Task Force meeting at the ABA/Law Practice Management meeting in New Orleans this weekend. We decided to start publishing "best practices" for delivering legal services on-line to the eLawyering web site, and these "best practices" would be available for comment by others. Another project is to develop one or more tele-seminars on eLawyering in cooperation with LPM's Educational Board. A third project, under development is to work with ABA's public relations team to develop a Public Service Announcement that would inform consumers of the risks in using non-lawyer alternatives on the Internet as compared with an on-line or virtual lawyer which offers advantages that a non-lawyer cannot, such as legal advice.

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Stephanie Kimbro, a solo practitioner who operates Kimbrolaw.com, a virtual law firm in North Carolina, has been selected as this year's winner of the James Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering. This award is given annually by the eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association, a group which was founded by Jim Keane an active and long-standing member of the ABA/LPM section who died tragically from lung cancer several years ago. I am the present Co-Chair with Marc Lauritsen.

Ms. Kimbro's law firm is a completely virtual law firm that serves individuals and small business over the Web. Our group concluded that Kimbrolaw.com  met the criteria for the Award perfectly as it demonstrates an innovative online model for delivering services to the broad middle class. Clients access their own individual web space where they can consult with their attorney, have their documents reviewed, and conduct other legal tasks -- all online.

The Award will be formally given to Ms. Kimbro at the American Bar Association's TECHSHOW on April 2, 2009, immediately before the key note speech by Richard Susskind, who will discuss his new book: The End of Lawyers: The Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services.

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Last week we participated as an Exhibitor at LEGALTECH, New York. This is the largest legal technology show in the world, attracting over 13,000 visitors. The seminar program is excellent and if you want to keep in touch with emerging legal trends in Big Law, this is the place to be.

What is notable about  LEGALTECH , from our point view is how focused it is on ediscovery, litigation support, and the legal technology challenges facing large law firms and corporate legal departments. Our offering - the DirectLaw web service is specifically designed for the needs of solos and small law firms.  Out of the hundreds of technology vendors a very small percentage were targeted to the needs of solos and small law firms. And the number of visitors to the exhibits from solos and small law firms were a relatively small percentage when compared to the number of visitors from larger law firms, corporate legal departments, and technology consultants serving larger organizations.

From passing through the exhibit hall (at the New York Hilton), one would think that the world of legal technology consists of primarily ediscovery vendors. There were so many ediscovery and litigation support vendors that I began to wonder whether the market was either so enormous, or that half these vendors were going broke as they all seemed to be chasing the same business and the same large corporate clients.

To be fair to Incisive Media, the promoter of LEGALTECH, they disclosed that attendees from solos and small law firms would be a smaller percentage would compared to representatives from other sectors of the legal technology community. We didn't realize how small this percentage would be.

We did pick up enough new clients for DirectLaw to cover our direct expenses, but the time cost of our team doesn't justify the investment . So we won't be back next year and we don't recommend LEGALTECH to legal technology vendors if you are trying to reach solos and small law firms.

We are also exhibiting at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago in April and we think this is a much better venue for reaching solos and small law firms. The seminar program is much more diverse and there are many sessions that would appeal to the smaller law firm. If you plan on attending ABA TECHSHOW in April, stop in see us at Booth #210.

 

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For those of you who are members of the eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA, this is reminder that there is a Task Force Conference call on January 9, 2009 at 10:00 A.M.

There will be a discussion on standards and best practices for elawyering and delivering legal services over the Internet.

Members of the American Bar Association, who wish to become members of the Task Force should contact Marc Lauritsen, Co-Chair of the Task Force at marc@capstonepractice.com directly. In order to be eligible for membership you also have to be a member of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA. 

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For those of you who are members of the eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA, this is reminder that there is a Task Force Conference call on January 9, 2009 at 10:00 A.M.

Our agenda includes a discussion on standards and best practices for elawyering and delivering legal services online.

Members of the American Bar Association, who wish to become members of the Task Force should contact Marc Lauritsen, Co-Chair of the Task Force at marc@capstonepractice.com directly. In order to be eligible for membership you also have to be a member of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA. 

 

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We are exhibiting our DirectLaw Web Service at LEGALTECH in New York on February 2-4, 2009. This show is one of the largest legal technology shows involving over 450 legal technology vendors which attract over 13,000 participants. The show is at the New York Hilton at 1335 Sixth Avenue. We are Booth #1621 on Level II.  If you are planning to attend, please stop by for a demonstration of our DIrectLaw Service or just to chat about new developments in the delivery of online legal services. We will be introducing the latest version of Rapidocs, known as Rapidocs 4.0, which is our web-enabled document automation solution that operates totally within the web browser without requiring the downloading of an Active X control, Java Applet, or other software application.  Come see legal documents assembled in real time within the web browser.

Richard Cohen, CO-CEO of EPOQ, our sister company in the London, will also be in attendance and is up to date on new developments to de-regulate the legal profession in the UK and EPOQ's new mylawyer network of web-enabled UK law firms that serve consumers.

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The James I. Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering is awarded once a year by the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association at the Annual ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago. The  Award is named for James I. Keane, the founding Chair of the ABA eLawyering Task Force. The Task Force was created in 2000, when ABA President William G. Paul, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, took the unusual and creative step of asking a Section to assume responsibility for one of his presidential initiatives, namely an examination of ways that lawyers could use the Internet and other electronic resources to deliver legal services to people of moderate means more efficiently and effectively. Last year's recipient was the law firm of Cowell Taradash, P.C., based in Chicago, for the web site at Illinoisdivorce.com . The ABA eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section will review the nominations and select the recipient. The Award Guidelines and Nomination Forms can be found here. Law firms can nominate themselves. The deadline for submission is January 15. 2009.

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The eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association has its quarterly meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The group discussed projects that are underway including: developing guidelines for malpractice carriers, adding content to the eLawyering part of the LPM/ABA web site; the development of a webinar on eLawyering concepts that would be delivered as a CLE program through the ABA, and the development of a model curriculum unit that could be used in Law Schools on delivering legal services on-line, as part of a law practice management course.

A submission date of December 1, 2008 was set for acceptance of applications from law firms for the James Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering, for next year's award. The Award is given annually at the ABA LEGALTECHSHOW  in Chicago, which this year is scheduled for April, 2009. Last year's award was won by the law firm of Cowell Taradash, P.C. for their website at IllinoisDivorce.com

The next meeting of Task Force is on October 16-18, 2008  during LPM Section Fall Meeting at
The Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa - Tucson, Arizona. Lawyers interested in virtual lawyering are welcome to attend. The meeting is an open meeting, and the Task Force is recruiting new volunteers who want to work on these issues.

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The James E. Keane Memorai Award in Excellence in eLawyering has been award to the Illinois law firm of Cowell Taradash, P.C. for their web site IllinoisDivorce.com. This law firm offers a web-enabled document automation solution that enables pro-se litigants to generate their own divorce documents for $185.00. Wes Cowell, the Managing Partner, reports that that this service, together with an enhanced service where an attorney accompanys the client to a short hearing, which is priced at $500.00, generates about $100,000 in revenue for the firm. More importantly, this feature creates demand for a more full-service approach, as pro se litigants realize that sometimes their divorce is too complicated for a self-help approach. This demand generation feature has resulted in generating revenues in the 7 figure range for the firm that. The Guidelines for the James Keane Memorial Award in Excellence in eLawyering Award can be downloaded from the ABA Law Practice Management web site.

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