eLawyering Blog : Online Legal Services : DirectLaw : Document Automation, Web-Enabled Document Assembly, Virtual Lawyering

Recently several Web sites have emerged that enable consumers to bid for legal services. Examples include: ExpertBids and  Shpoonkle. (Don’t ask me how to pronounce  it). They all work pretty much the same way.

You submit a description of your project or the service you want, your location and your estimated budget. You create a secure account with a user name and password. Your service request is then posted or published to a lawyers who have registered for the service so they can bid on your work. When a lawyer bids for your work, you receive an email (each bid includes a rate, a description, and the lawyer’s profile, rating and client reviews). When the lawyer bids, whether bid by the hour or fixed price, you receive an email which includes a rate, a description, and the lawyer’s profile, rating and client reviews. The process gives you options and a basis for comparing how different lawyer;s will submit bids and pricing for similar work.

The process is always free to the potential client. Once you are connected to a lawyer you can continue your conversation either online or off-line. The sites enable you to communicate with the lawyer online directly, but often you don’t get any free legal advice or any legal service until you accept a retainer agreement and the lawyer/client relationship is established.

For law firms that have learned how to offer legal services for common legal matters for a fixed fee, these bidding sites could be another channel to the consumer and potential clients. These law firms, often virtual law firms, are low-cost producers of legal services, and can out bid more traditional legal firms without sacrificing quality or their profit margins.

Many of these law firms offer what are called, “limited legal services”, which enable these law firms to offer a low cost solution to consumers, but often consumers have no understanding of this concept. See for example the law firms listed in the MyLawyer.com Directory of  Virtual Law Firms. We think that the bidding sites should have articles and information on their web sites describing the “limited legal service” concept as this would be way to educate consumers about another way to cost effectively buy legal services.

A problem that we see with the bidding sites that we reviewed is that there is no easy for the consumer to describe that they want “limited legal services“, as distinguished from traditional legal services. There are options for bidding by the hour, or by the project, but no option for limiting the scope of representation. “Unbundling legal services“, is a relatively new idea, but many states (more than 35) have already passed amendments to their Professional Rules of Responsibility that enable law firms to offer “limited legal services” as long as the retainer clearly defines the scope of representation.

I think this is a critical gap in the way the operators of these site understand how middle class consumers want to purchase legal services. I also think that there is likely to be a disconnect between what the consumer bids for a service, and what they law firm delivers for the bid price. Without a clear specification of the scope of services, there is bound to be miscommunication and confusion.

It is too early to predict whether these “bidding sites” will survive. In the “dot-com boom and bust” era, there were several experiments with lawyer bidding, but all the sites failed because they could not generate enough volume to support their overhead structure.

Susan Cartier Liebel, the President of Solo Practice University has written a good blog post analyzing these sites,  that is worth reviewing by consumers who are interested in this approach to securing legal services.

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After 40 years of leading the self-help law movement, Nolo, is being acquired by Internet Brands an advertising driven Internet company. Nolo was created by two frustrated legal aid lawyers, Charles (Ed) Sherman and Ralph (Jake) Warner, who wanted to figure out a way to help the thousands of consumers with their legal problems who could not afford an attorney and were turned away by legal aid because their incomes were too high.

Based in Berkeley, California, the center of the counter cultural revolution of the 1960's, Nolo assembled a group of radical lawyers, editors, and writers who were determined to do something about a broken legal system where 90% of the US middle class were priced out of the legal system. Championing legal reforms that would make the U.S. justice system accessible to everyone, the company has seen these reforms become mainstream in the US.

Courts now offer their own automated self-help legal forms, legal aid agencies publish state-wide legal information web sites and also distribute automated legal forms, legal form web sites give away legal forms for free as a way to generate traffic, small claims court limits have been raised in many states, and lawyers are delivering "unbundled legal services" and creating virtual law firms,  figuring out ways to deliver legal services online for a fixed and affordable fee.

Its ironic that Nolo is being acquired by  Internet Brands, for an amount rumored to be in the range of $20,970,000, by an advertising company that is focused primarily on generating leads for law firms through their directories and advertising properties. How does self-help law fit into this business model?

The amount being paid is little more than one times revenue -- not exactly a premium.  Although, Nolo  publishes Willmaker and several other excellent web-based legal software programs, it is still primarily a book publisher. In its hey day, before the Internet penetrated almost every household in America, Nolo self-help law books were the primary source for accurate do it yourself legal information and forms.

As the web expanded hundreds of legal information and legal form web sites also emerged, plus national brands such as LegalZoom. These web-based alternatives also provided  legal solutions without the need to use a lawyer -- the same need that Nolo was meeting. Except that instead of reading a 200-300 page book in order to get to a legal solution --  web-based applications delivered a legal solution more efficiently, faster, and at less cost.

Nolo has migrated many of its legal forms online, too little and too late, and except for a few major products, non-automated forms. Here is another example of a print publisher whose business, despite the excellence of its product, has been eroded by the Internet.

It is well known that Nolo's book business actually declined during this recession and growth has been flat. The fastest growing area of Nolo's business is their Lawyer Directory. This is ironic for a company that prided itself in developing self-help legal solutions that don't require the assistance of an attorney.

The challenge for Internet Brands will be to figure out how to unlock the assets buried within Nolo's vast collection of self-help law books and turn these assets into web-based applications that can be distributed over the Internet. It remains to be seen whether the quality of Nolo's self-help legal content will deteriorate under the management of an advertising-driven company that measures results in page views and unique visitors.

Internet Brands, previously a public company, was recently taken private private when it was acquired by Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm, based in San Francisco,  in December, 2010. Internet Brands has acquired over 70 vertical web sites in areas ranging from travel to cars to real estate. Internet Brands derives more than 70% of its revenues from advertising on its portfolio of web sites.

In December, 2010 Internet Brands also acquired ALLLAW.com , a consumer legal information portal and AttorneyLocate - an Attorney Directory Service. Both of these web sites are relatively weak properties. Compete.com shows that in March, 2011 Nolo had 498,769 unique visitors ( an 8% decline for the year), ALLLAW.com  had 190,069 unique visitors, (for the of March, 2011); AttorneyLocate.com was especially weak with only 18,277 unique visitors (for the month of March, 2011). Internet Brands also owns ExpertHub, which in turn manages web sites in verticals markets such as dentists, plastic surgery, accountants, tummy tuck, and of course lawyers. The ExpertHub site for lawyers only generates 96,289 unique visitors a month (March, 2011), so I wonder if that level of traffic is high enough to support their advertising rates.

There is irony in the fact that LegalZoom, a company that prides itself on offering  legal solutions from a non-law firm generates more traffic than any of the sites mentioned above at 889,762 unique visitors in March, 2011, trailing only Findlaw and Lawyers.com, (both of which offer similar services as the Internet Brands properties).  With the traffic that LegalZoom gets, maybe LegalZoom should consider creating their own lawyers directory for consumers who need just a bit of legal advice to go with their forms to keep them on the right track? I wonder what solos and small law firms would think if LegalZoom moved in that direction?.

It will be interesting to see how Internet Brands integrates these legal properties to leverage the assets in each acquisition as its tries to compete with the likes of Findlaw and Lawyers.com . It will also be interesting to see whether the quality of Nolo's self help legal content deteriorates under the management of an advertising company that measures results in impressions, clicks, and unique visitors. If Jake Warner, the present CEO stays involved, I am sure the quality of Nolo's products will remain "top of class."

It's an odd mix, --the best in class self-help legal book publisher with an excellent reputation, with some less than best in class lawyer directories and a legal information web site. Only time will tell whether this combination will work. (Although Internet Brands may intend to run each of these properties as separate brands, which would help Nolo maintain the quality of it self help legal content).

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We have been evaluating the experience of law firms that have subscribed to our DirectLaw Virtual Law Firm Platform to determine what are the factors that make for success. Subscribers to our service are mostly solo practitioners and small law firms who are experimenting with this new mode of delivering legal services online. We want to share their experiences as we learn from them about what works and what doesn’t work. When we have exemplary examples of success we will develop case studies from which we all can learn.

All kinds of lawyers have subscribed to our DirectLaw client portal which enables the online delivery of legal services:

• recent law school graduates who can't find a job and forced to hang out their own shingle;
   
• lawyers who want to give up on a physical office for one reason or another and want to try working from anywhere, but still see clients face to face when necessary;
   
• lawyers who think they can copy LegalZoom and get rich quick by simply putting a site up that sells legal forms and documents online;
   
• lawyers who are in transition because they have been terminated by their law firm employer because of the impact of a constrained economy which is not growing;
   
• retiring lawyers, with deep experience and expertise, and who want to transition into a part-time practice, rather than give up the law entirely;
   
• “pure-play” virtual law firms, where the lawyer never sees a client face to face in an office setting or goes to court;
   
• more traditional law firms, and the experienced lawyers that run them, that want to extend their brand online by adding what we refer to as a “virtual component” or a “virtual law firm platform.”
   
• Less experienced lawyers who want to compete against older more experienced lawyers with an online service to distinguish themselves from more traditional law firms in their community.

Each of these lawyers see potential in the “virtual law firm” concept acquiring new clients and serving existing clients more effectively.

Almost all of our DirectLaw subscribers hope to acquire new clients by creating a dynamic, and interactive Internet presence that is more than a passive web site, which is no more than an online brochure.

Some law firms are struggling as "virtual law firms" and are not able to generate new clients and new sources of revenues. On the other hand, we know from our own direct experience in running a virtual law firm since 2003, that the concept can work, and our own success in selling automated legal forms directly to consumers through a network of more than 30 legal form websites, indicates that there is real demand for online legal solutions.

So what are the factors that contribute to success?

1. Your law firm web site needs to be findable on the web.

Our analysis indicates that a major cause of failure for law firms trying to market their services online is a poorly constructed front-end website that is not search engine optimized. DirectLaw’s client portal integrates with a law firm’s front end website and it is through the law firm’s web site that the client finds the law firm, and logs on to their own password protected and secure client space.

If the firm’s web site is not findable on the Internet, the site gets little traffic, which translates into no prospects and no new clients. Most lawyers no little about the art and science of inbound internet marketing and the techniques of how to make their web sites findable. Web design firms that create graphically intensive law firm web sites that look beautiful do a disservice to law firms unless the sites they develop are also search engine optimized and the web design firm stresses the importance of  creating new legal content that is practice specific as a magnet for web traffic.

See: Law Firm Web Site Design: Tips and Techniques

2. You need to have a good reputation as a competent attorney in your community with an existing client base if you are going to make it online. There are some exceptions to this rule, but not many.

A major factor that contributes to online success is having a good reputation in a particular area of legal practice. See Case Study

“Pure play” virtual law firms launched by lawyers who can’t quite make it in the real world won’t make it online.

The most successful use of online virtual law firm technology is demonstrated by law firms who already have a successful traditional practice and a base of clients to draw upon. Online law firm technology enhances the experience for existing clients and increases the productivity of the law firm in serving these clients. Word of mouth referral from existing client’s, sends new clients to the law firm’s web site. New online prospects convert to clients because of the credibility of the attorney in the real world, and the potential for a face to face meeting when necessary. The online technology component complements the offline practice, and vice versa. This doesn’t mean that a “pure play” virtual law firm can’t work; it just requires a special type of practice to make a "pure play" business model work. A "click and mortar" law firm model seems to work best, at least during this period of early development of the online legal services concept.

This is a complex subject  that requires more space than can be contained in a single blog post.

For further analysis and discussion of success factors see: Factors That Contribute to the Successful Delivery of Online Legal Services.

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YouGov, a research firm based in Great Britain, in a survey of consumer preferences for legal services recently reported that 60% of respondents said they would buy legal advice from brands like Barclays, AA, Co-op and Virgin. The report states that  “Law firms build their business on their reputation not on their brands and, in a highly fragmented market, recognisable legal brands are few and far between. The large non-legal brands could follow the Co-op’s example and build a strong presence relatively quickly in a market where no strong brands currently exist." In the US there are no national legal brands that serve consumers directly, except for LegalZoom, which isn't even a law firm. It would be interesting to see what would happen if nationally branded networks of law firms emerged to service consumers with a better value proposition than the typical local solo or small law firm practitioner.

The study also asked about online legal services: 34% of respondents said they would be more likely to choose a law firm that offered the convenience of online access to legal documents over one that had no online capability; 22% disagreed and 37% neither agreed nor disagreed.

Younger males were the most likely to choose a law firm with online services and access: 44% of 25-to-39 year-old males (and 40% of such women), along with 40% of 16-to-24 year-old males, would choose a law firm offering online access to documents over another law firm.

There is obviously a generational shift happening.  As a younger generation matures to the age where they have legal problems, their desire to deal with counsel online becomes a preference.

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Another interesting start-up has emerged out of Silicon Valley to provide crowdsourced legal advice to other start-ups for free.

Vertical Q&A web sites seems to be the next new thing among venture capital investors. Even Facebook  rolled out this year a crowd-sourced Q&A service.

LawPivot, a legal Q&A web site founded in 2009,  hopes to fill a niche by providing legal advice to the founders of start-up and early stage high-tech companies based in California at a legal fee they can afford -- FREE.   Legal advice is provided by an experienced network of high-priced business law attorneys, recruited from the top 200 hundred or so law firms, who hope to pick up new clients by entering into discussions by providing free legal advice services to start-up companies.

Free legal advice or the “free consult” has been employed by lawyers for years, pre-Internet, as a tried and true marketing strategy for acquiring new clients. Now many lawyers are beginning to offer free legal advice online from their web sites directly. See for example,  VirtualEsq.Com . By next year there will be hundreds of these free legal advice services offered directly by lawyers from their web sites as the virtual law firm movement begins to scale.

However, free legal advice from an individual law firm's web site, is not the same thing as a vertical web site that aggregates answers from many lawyers, giving consumers a wider variety of responses to their particular situation.

Free legal advice online is not a completely new idea. FreeAdvice has been doing it for years, and consumers can get answers to their basic legal questions from sites such as AVVO, RocketLawyer, and JustAnswer. What is new, is that LawPivot provides through its network of lawyers “real” legal advice that applies to the client’s particular situation, as distinguished from merely legal information. And this advice is reputedly to be "high quality" given the stature of the lawyers recruited to the LawPivot network.

However, genuine legal advice, [as distinguished from “legal advice” that is characterized as “legal information” ],  like any legal service, has to be delivered in an ethically compliant way requiring that the client’s information be kept confidential, that an attorney/client relationship be established, and that the attorney providing the legal advice be a member of the bar within the jurisdiction  where the client is located. Presumably LawPivot is addressing these issues. The LawPivot service is presently limited to California, but the company, according to its representations, plans to expand nationwide.

Although the company recently raised $600,000 from Google Ventures, the venture capital arm of Google, after a $400,0000 round from from a group of angel investors, it will be interesting to see how or whether it survives. At this point, neither the clients are charged for legal advice, nor are the participating attorneys charged an advertising fee. So there is no revenue, and apparently no business model. However, I doubt that the investors thought they were making  charitable contributions, so there must be a business model lurking in the background somewhere?

Unfortunately, the only business model that is ethically compliant in the US, is one where the participating lawyers pay an advertising fee to play (get listed) and get exposure. Splitting legal advice fees between a law firm and a non-law firm , is a big “No, No” and an ethical prohibition that exposes the participating attorneys to bar sanctions which could lead to disbarment.   Perhaps because Google is now involved as a major backer of  LawPivot , and the company is planning to move to the GooglePlex campus start-up incubator,  "they can do no wrong.!"

Many other Western common law jurisdictions, like the United Kingdom, have abolished the division of fees, but the rules against splitting fees with non-lawyers remains sacrosanct  in the US, on the theory that splitting fees would compromise the independent judgment of the attorney. However, in the UK, lawyers are permitted to work for a profit-making company and provide legal advice directly to consumers, and no one seems to be complaining about compromised judgment. [ See: FirstAssist in the UK  for an example ].

Charging clients an administrative fee to “use” the web site, as an alternative revenue source, has been tried before in an earlier Internet era, and it failed then. [ e.g. AmeriCounsel ]. I doubt that this model will work today when consumers are expecting everything on the web to be for free.

I think it is a good sign that innovation is happening in the legal industry, and that private capital is finally looking for a way to get a return by investing in the delivery of legal services. [See: Total Attorneys Receives Multi-Million Dollar Investment ].

I would like to see companies like LawPivot thrive, but at this point I don’t see the juice.  Are advertising revenues sufficient to make this venture sustainable, or has LawPivot  figured out another legitimate source of revenue that doesn't violate US ethical prohibitions? Only time will tell.

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Private capital is beginning to flow into companies that are operating at the intersection of the delivery of legal services and the Internet.

Total Attorneys, a Chicago-based company,  just announced that they received a multimillion dollar investment from BIA Digital Partners, a Virginia-based venture capital firm. Total Attorneys is most known for the marketing services that it provides to law firms and the recent ethical controversy in some states surrounding the use of pay-per-click advertising on behalf of law firms. (Apparently this controversy has been resolved in favor of Total Attorneys in every state where it was considered by bar ethics committees.)

The company plans to extend its technology assisted services to law firms by expanding its virtual law firm Software as a Service offerings (SaaS).   Total Attorneys mission is to become a leading provider of elawyering Services to solos and small law firms by providing a comprehensive suite of outsourced technology services, from marketing to web-based practice management tools to a robust client portal.

The company licenses virtual law office technology to solos and small law firms as a subscription service, that now consists primarily of a robust suite of "back-office" practice management tools. The pan is to expand the service into a more comprehensive "front-office" client portal, providing a total solution to solos and small law firms.

This expansion would entitle the company to claim that it is a leading provider in the eLawyering space  and it would compete more directly with our own DirectLaw virtual law firm platform service and other web-based companies moving in the same direction.  [ See:  Legal Vendors Cloud Computing Association ] .

The concept of "technology-assisted service" is an interesting category for  the legal industry for it describes a form of outsourcing which combines both a digitally-based service combined with human service. Thus Total Attorneys also provides "virtual receptionist services", and at one point virtual support services to bankruptcy law firms. One management solution for solos and small law firms it to out source to independent specialized companies functions which can be done more effectively and at less cost than the law firm can do itself using internal resources.

It is good to see competition heating up in the eLawyering space, which has been moribund for a long period of time.  The eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA was created in 2000, more than a decade ago. For many  years there was not much to report in terms of the innovative delivery of on-line legal services by law firms. The last 2 years has witnessed an explosion in elawyering industry developments as lawyers adapt to change -- caused by a severe recession, widespread unemployment of recent law school graduates, and the challenges created by consumers who are seeking lower-cost and "good enough" alternatives to lawyers, [such as LegalZoom.]

Competition among a variety of vendors provides choices to law firms.  Competition focuses attention on the fact that delivering legal applications as a SaaS is emerging as a new paradigm for enabling solos and small law firms to access complex Internet technologies at a fraction of the capital cost of developing these applications internally.  Private capital moving into the legal industry will create more choices for law firms, and as a consequence more choices for consumers.

Creative legal outsourcing will enable solos and small law firms to become more productive and survive in an increasingly competitive environment.

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LegalZoom has been beta testing a concept which links its marketing capabilities to a network of law firms that offer legal services under the LegalZoom brand. With some state bar associations accusing LegalZoom of  the unauthorized practice of law,  it might makes sense for the company to seek deeper alliances with networks of attorneys who are able to offer a full and ethically compliant legal service. Solos and small law firms, leveraging off the visibility and prominence of the LegalZoom brand, could reduce their marketing costs and enable these firms to better capture consumers who are part of the “latent legal market”  on the Internet. It could be a win/win for both parties.

Unfortunately, linking the capital and management resources of profit-making organization with private law firms is almost impossible in the United States, given the regulatory framework that governs law practice. Unlike, the United Kingdom, which is in the process of deregulating the legal profession, enabling profit-making companies, from banks  and insurance companies to retail chains like Tesco,  to actually own a law firm, and/or split legal fees with a non-law firm, these practices in the US are strictly taboo.

In the US, law directories can charge a flat marketing fee for a listing, but sharing legal fees with a marketing organization can get you disbarred.

During the dot-com boom around 1999-2000, a company emerged by the name of AmeriCounsel that tried to create a hybrid organizational structure similar to the LegalZoom experiment. The company sought to enable a network of attorneys to offer legal services at a fixed and reasonable price and to mediate between the consumer and the law firm in terms of guaranteeing the quality of the legal services offered. The company failed during the dot-com bust for various reasons, including lack of financing, but on the way to failure, secured some opinions from state bar associations that blessed their model and provides a blue print for hybrid delivery systems which combine the expertise of a law firm with the marketing, management, and technological resources of a non-law firm.

One such opinion was issued by the Nassau County Bar Association New York State.

The Bar Association reasoned that the AmeriCounsel scheme was permissible because:

[S]ince AmeriCounsel does not charge attorneys any fee and since AmeriCounsel does not “recommend” or “promote” the use of any particular lawyer ’s services, it does not fall within the purview of DR 2-103(B) or (D). Rather, AmeriCounsel is a form of group advertising permitted by the Code of Professional Responsibility and by ethics opinions interpreting the Code.

In this model, AmeriCounsel provided technology and administrative services to link the client with the lawyer, but the law firm made no payment to AmeriCounsel. Instead, a separate administrative/technology fee was paid by the consumer to AmericCounsel for using the web site and gaining access to the lawyer. (This is not a practical scheme in today’s web environment, in my opinion), Moreover, AmeriCounsel did not choose the lawyer. The client was able to compare the credentials of different attorneys and choose their own lawyer. Thus no legal referral was involved, which would not be permitted in New York, as only an approved non-profit organization can make legal referrals.

In my opinion, this model, forced on AmeriCounsel, by the Rules of Professional Responsibility, is cumbersome, hard to implement, and was not economically viable for AmeriCounsel. Perhaps this was one of the causes of its failure.

Almost a decade later, companies that want to enter into this kind of hybrid relationship with lawyers, have to follow the same rule structure, as the ABA Model Rules of Professional Responsibility as the rules have not changed in any significant way. changed.  It will be interesting to see whether the ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission, which was set up just last year, will address these issues at all.

Perhaps there should be a “safe harbor” that enables organization’s like LegalZoom to experiment with new patterns of legal service delivery that could operate for a limited period of time in a specific state, like California, The experience would be evaluated carefully as a basis for rule and policy change. The evaluation would be aimed to see if client's interests are compromised in any way, and whether the delivered legal service is less expensive, without compromising the quality of legal service.

Instead of creating legal profession regulatory policies that are based on the legal profession's idea about what is good for the consumer, policy could be based on real experience and facts. Experimentation is good. It leads to change, and in other industries improvement of methods and approaches over a period of time.

Of course, I don’t believe that this will ever happen in the US, at least not in my professional lifetime.

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Unless you've been asleep for the last five years, you have probably heard of LegalZoom, the California-based, non-lawyer legal document preparation company that claims it has delivered over 1,000,000 wills to consumers, and that it is the largest incorporation company in the country.

LegalZoom is only one of hundreds of Internet-based legal form web sites that have emerged during the last 10 years and which are eating away at the market share of solos and small law firms. LegalZoom has been challenged by some state bars with the unauthorized practice of law, but hasn’t lost a case yet. They are serving thousands of customers who ordinarily would be served by solos and small law firms. They must be doing something that is in demand because they continue to grow at the expense of solos and small law firms.

LegalZoom, and non-lawyer legal form web sites like it, have a business model that consists of the following elements:

• A legal service delivered purely over the Internet;
• No physical offices, and thus no extensive rental costs to pass on to customers;
• Limited services offered at a fixed price that can be easily compared with other providers including law firms;
• The use of web-enabled document automation technology to reduce costs and increase productivity;
• A secure customer portal where clients can execute legal tasks in their own personalized web space;
• Access on their web site to thousands of pages of free legal information on hundreds of subjects;
• Money-back guarantees to comfort consumers; and
• Reliance on informed consumers to do part of the work, often called co-production, such as filing their own documents or executing their documents on their own based on provided instructions to keep costs down.

Consumers don’t seem to care that they are not dealing with a law firm. As lawyers, we know the service they are selling is risky for consumers, but for consumers it delivers a “good enough” result. LegalZoom would not be growing at this fast a rate if they weren’t offering something that consumers want and value.

How to Compete Against Legal Zoom and Other Non-Lawyer Providers

In the new, competitive environment that solos and small law firms face in the current economy, the keys to law firm survival are to expand the strategic options available by opening new client markets, reducing the cost of services, and delivering legal services in a way that distinguishes your firm from other firms in the pack. These strategic options should be mixed with more traditional approaches to differentiation such as specialization within a niche practice area.

It is time for solos and small law firms that offer personal legal services to the broad middle class to rethink their law firm business models. There are many opportunities for incorporating some of the elements of the LegalZoom business model into a more traditional law practice.

To name a few:

• Consider offering "unbundled" limited legal services at a fixed price, both on-line and off-line;
• Leverage a reputation in your local community and a physical office into an on-line brand that is both local to your community and extends throughout your state;
• Add virtual law office functionality to your web site so that your clients can have the option of interacting with you on-line;
• Figure out ways of using Internet-based technologies, such as web-enabled document automation to strip out costs from your overhead structure increasing profitability;
• Figure out how to segment the market offering lower priced services for more routine matters in order to build trust so that when a client has amore complex problems they will turn to you for assistance;
• Emphasize all of the advantages of using an attorney over a non-lawyer forms provider in your marketing materials and your elevator speech. Click here to see one such comparison.
• Use web-based technologies to respond to both prospects and clients within hours rather than days.
• Reduce the perceived risk that consumers have in retaining a lawyer by increasing transparency and structuring forms of performance guarantees.
• Adopt project management technologies to better estimate costs and fees on more complex projects, translating that data into communications that clients understand.

The current depressed economy and its affect on the broad middle class is not going to change tomorrow. It is likely that solos and small law firms, will have to adjust to new pricing and market realities in the future as competition from non-lawyer providers of legal solutions continues to increase. Large law firms serving large corporations may be immune from these developments, at least for a few years any way, but the fact that Big Law is changing relatively slowly should not mask the rapid changes happening to solos and small law firm practitioners that serve consumers and small business.

I heard a report the other day that the volume of wills and estates practice in one state declined by 50% during the past year. I predict that this trend will continue and not reverse itself, despite any improvements in the economy.

Some commentators think that the monopoly will hold. History and the experience of other countries in deregulating the legal profession suggests otherwise.

Welcome to the "new normal."
 

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Washington State's Attorney General has entered into a settlement agreement with LegalZoom , requiring that LegalZoom cease comparing its fees to attorneys' fees unless the company clearly discloses that its service isn't a substitute for a law firm. The agreement also prohibits LegalZoom from engaging in the unauthorized practice of law, selling personal information obtained from Washington customers or misrepresenting the benefits of any estate distribution agreement. LegalZoom is also the subject of a class action suit in Missouri for the unauthorized practice of law.

This action has been a long time coming, but much of the damage to solos and small law firms has already been done, as LegalZoom, with its substantial venture capital backing, has already imprinted itself on the minds of America's middle class consumers that it offers a better alternative that seeking the advice of an attorney.

Even Polaris Investors - the VC firm that backs LegalZoom - claims on its web site that:

"Legalzoom is the nation’s largest online legal service center.  The company helps its consumer and small business customers quickly and affordably create estate planning documents, form businesses, and protect valuable intellectual property such as trademarks and provisional patents through their easy-to-use website thus avoiding costly attorney fees." (Our emphasis).

There is a value in having non-lawyer, trained paralegals assist consumers in completing legal forms, but LegalZoom's consumer practices have set this reform movement back.  If an attorney claimed that his practice, "put the law on your side," as Robert Shapiro of OJ fame has done on every Cable-TV channel, that lawyer would probably be subject to disciplinary action for an advertising claim that is a material misrepresentation.

It is time to level the playing field by requiring LegalZoom to disclose clearly the limitations of the services it provides.

Other State Attorney General's with responsibility for enforcing consumer protection legislation should take notice.

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There is a thoughtful discussion going on about the value of adding the capability of offering legal services online to a law firm's business model that was started by Lee Rosen's blog post titled, "What the Virtual Office Advocates Aren't Telling You."  Responses, so far,  include a post by Carolyn Elefant, an astute observer of solo practice, a post from Susan Carter Liebel, the  Founder of Solo Practice University, and a comment by Stephanie Kimbro, the founder of Virtual Law Office Technology, now owned by TotalAttorneys and the author of the recently published book, Delivering Legal Services Online. Lee Rosen is the winner of the ABA/LPM James Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering in 2010, and Stephanie Kimbro won the same Award in 2009 for her work in creating her virtual law firm at KimbroLaw. Donna Seyle, a member of the ABA/LPM eLawyering Task Force and a consultant to solo law firms on law practice strategy, also commented on Lee Rosen's blog arguing that there is a great demand for "unbundled" legal services by the middle class.

Lee's argues that in his opinion there isn't much demand by clients for virtual services and that many clients if they want a virtual service are perfectly happy with LegalZoom. He says he has seen, "a survey indicating that many clients prefer a paralegal-provided service to an attorney-provided service, even when both are offered at the same price." Moreover it will be very hard to turn around consumer preferences now that LegalZoom has established a nationwide legal brand.
He also argues that it is very difficult, or not impossible, for a lawyer to generate a stream of income from a purely virtual practice and that a low-end practice doesn't generate the kind of clients that a law firm needs to be successful. Carolyn Elefant makes a similar argument that it is very difficult to generate significant profits from a low end practice unless you have volume which is difficult for the average solo practitioner to create without some capital and the skills to market their legal services on the Internet. I would agree with these points, but whether a solo or small law firm should consider adding a virtual law firm presence to their web site and modifying their business model is really a more complex discussion than can be easily done within the context of a blog post. There is much wisdom in Lee's observations, but the story is more complicated than he makes out.

I would make the following additional points:

1. A virtual law firm as we define it, is one that has a “client portal” where clients can interact with their attorneys online, view copies of their documents, pay their bills online, communicate with their lawyer in a secure space where their attorneys responses are archived and available, assemble documents through an online questionnaire, and access other digital applications. In my opinion, the benefit of using a virtual law firm platform is to increase law firm productivity, law firm transparency, client retention, and client acquisition. These are all positive values that studies of consumers indicate that they want.  It is not the case, as Lee argues, that there is little demand for by consumers for online legal services.  The 1,000,000 wills that LegalZoom claims it has created during the past five years or so, and the dozens (hundreds ?)  of other non-lawyer legal form sites is ample evidence that the legal profession has abandoned the online legal services market to non-lawyer providers.

2. A “client portal” concept is just another tool that enables a law firm to have an interactive presence on the Web which has certain productivity and client communication benefits. It is not a substitute for a law firm developing its own unique business model and market positioning approach which identifies a group of prospects and converts them into clients. Each law firm has to figure out how to integrate these tools into their own business model. For some law firms, this concept is not relevant to their type of practice. For others, it can be another basis for differentiation,  for choosing one law firm over another.  For many law firms, a virtual capability becomes an important adjunct to the regular office based practice, creating efficiencies that only can be created by using the web as a platform for delivery.

Here are a few examples of law firms that are experimenting with online marketing of legal services, offering "unbundled" legal services in a niche area for a fixed price:

• Practical Plans- an On-Line Estate Planning Practice
• Hedeker & Perrilli - SmarterWill - an Online Wills Service of a high end estate planning firm.
• Estate Planning for Single Parents - an Online Wills Service in Tampa, Florida serving a distinct population.
• GranatDivorceOnline.com - an online no-fault divorce service service pro se litigants in Maryland. (one of my web sites).

For other examples, see the Law Firm Directory at MyLawyer.com.

3. If a law firm wants to market to web-based consumers, including members of what we now call the “connected generation” a law firm needs to have a virtual law firm platform in place, as one option for relating and working with clients.  The cost of adding this functionality is now trivial, so there is little excuse for not trying it. We know from our own experience that there are benefits to this approach, as a complement to a traditional office-based practice.

4. LegalZoom and other non-lawyer legal form sites can’t provide legal advice. I can give you many examples from my own virtual law practice where legal advice makes a major difference in legal outcome. Providing just legal forms alone, can sometimes solve a legal problem, but often they do not. The challenge for us lawyers,  is to figure out a way to provide an offering that is price competitive with LegalZoom, but which offers more value.

Moreover, as a profession we should not walk away from the legal problems of moderate income clients. We have skills that will result in better legal outcomes for moderate and middle income clients. As a profession we have an obligation to provide services at a lower price to individuals who can’t afford higher fees and we should figure highly productive methods of serving them. Are we only to serve the wealthy? If so perhaps the legal profession should be deregulated, as it is being done in the United Kingdom, and legal services regulated just like any another service business. This would provide opportunities for many different kinds of providers to provide legal advice and other services which the legal profession now monopolizes. This is the direction that we are heading.

5. Providing a low end, lower priced legal service can be a marketing strategy for providing higher end, higher fee services. A client of http://www.directlaw.com, that is a personal injury firm, is using a low end service to build relationships with prospects so that the prospects turn to the law firm when they have a high value PI case. Some of the DirectLaw law firms give away free legal forms as an inducement to enter into a relationship that results in the purchase of a broader array of legal services.

6. Some lawyers are able to attract a clientele that will be willing to pay $400.00 an hour for a divorce lawyer, but there are not enough of these clients to go around to satisfy all of the divorce lawyers in a state. The broad middle class is seeking less costly alternatives as this level of pricing, and pricing by the hour,  is more than they can afford. There is real demand for "unbundled legal services" at a fixed price. We can see this directly from the weekly increase in traffic at MyLawyer.com , since a Spring, 2010 launch, where virtual law firms offer their services at a fixed price. The success of RocketLawyer , operating in the same market space, is another example that there is real demand for this type of legal service.

7. For many law firms, a virtual offering becomes an important adjunct to the regular office based practice, creating efficiencies that only can be created by using the web as a platform for delivery. It is a component of an office-based practice that can be used to enhance the experience of existing clients with their lawyers.

8. Finally, the cost of adding these technologies to even a solo practice is becoming trivial. We tested a free version of DirectLaw this summer and experienced great demand, so we decided to end it on September 1, 2010, and offer in the future, what we call DirectLaw Basic for a subscription fee of only $49.00 a month for a solo practitioner.

$49.00 a month is not a significant cost for a solo practitioner to acquire a virtual law firm capability. It is low enough for a solo practitioner to experiment and test out the benefits. 

There will come a time, when thousands of solos and small law firms will add a “client portal” to their web sites to power and extend their marketing programs and to enhance the client experience for those clients that are looking for a way to work with their lawyers online. Lee Rosen is correct,  that simply adding a “virtual law firm” capability does not make a marketing strategy, but there are online marketing strategies that can’t be executed without a virtual law firm platform in place.

The delivery of online legal services will continue to expand, I predict, but it is not going to happen tomorrow. As a new generation of clients mature to the point where they have legal problems of their own,  the need of delivering legal services online will intensify.

New innovations take time to reach a tipping point. I remember, very clearly,  when lawyers would not think of using a paralegal, and I remember how long it took for the innovation to mainstream and reach a tipping point. These times are not dissimilar, as the platform for the delivery of legal services is changing, as Jordon Furlong observes.   In all things innovative, patience is a virtue.

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Jason Goita, who operates a Florida state-wide virtual law firm, using our DirectLaw technology,  from his base in Tampa, Florida, has just spun off a second virtual law firm web site that is focused on Estate Planning for Single Parents. This is a good example of how to develop a niche focus within a general area of law. In a crowded market, like the legal profession,  the best way to get noticed is to develop a narrow area of expertise and to focus like a rifle shot on a particular group of clients. When you target a market segment precisely you have an opportunity to gain a client's trust and build a relationship, paving the way for selling other legal services. The site is also very well designed as it doesn't over load the visitor with too much information, guiding the user through a dialogue that leads to purchase of legal services.

A great discussion on the benefits of developing a niche practice as the corner stone of a law firm marketing strategy appears in David V. Lorenzo's Rainmaker Lawyer marketing blog at Law Firm Marketing and the Benefits of a Narrow Practice Niche.  Lorenzo states that there are at least four good reasons to develop a narrow practice niche: (1) perception of expertise; (2) client confidence; (3) experience; and (4) competitive advantage. Lorenzo says:

Focusing your law firm marketing in a narrow niche will help you attract more clients, gain their confidence and respect quicker and it gives you a competitive advantage.  Start thinking of a way you can narrow your marketing focus and you will notice the difference in the clients you attract.

 

In addition to  these four reasons, I would add that if you want to get noticed by Google and the other search engines, the best way to accomplish this objective is to have a narrow focus with targeted key words both on the pages of the website and in the meta-tags on each page of the site.
 

Increasing the firm's visibility in organic search can result in a significant reduction in the cost of pay-per-click advertising. Pay-per-click advertising (e.g. Google AdWords) is, in my opinion, still critical for getting visitors to your site, but a narrowly focused site goes along way towards getting noticed on the web. Moreover, a narrowly focused site is less confusing to visitors because of the singular focus. The mind can only absorb so much text before attention begins to fade. Focus helps keep the Internet-based client focused on the task at hand and streamlines the purchase process.

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RocketLawyer, a consumer portal linked to a network of law firms has announced that they have secured $6.55 million out of a $7.55 million funding round, according to a regulatory filing.  This is in addition to an initial $2.9 million investment by LexisNexis. It would be interesting to know RocketLawyer's valuation. If the $7.55 million bought 25% of the firm, then RocketLawyer, would be worth upwards of $30,000,000, post-money. If RocketLawyer is generating $6.000,000 in annual volume, then the valuation would be 5 x revenue. Sounds pretty rich. Typically valuations are confidential, but this information could shed some light on how hot the "Software as a Service" legal industry is. 

Dan Nye, former CEO of LinkedIn, has assumed the role of CEO, replacing Charley Moore, the founder of RocketLawyer., who remains as Chairman. (I guess the old adage that the first thing that a VC does when investing in a company is to replace the CEO is true!).

It will be interesting to see how RocketLawyer scales its operation with this funding, and how it develops a strategy to differentiate itself from AVVO and LegalZoom.  As AVVO adds functions to link consumers with lawyers, and as LegalZoom moves towards expanding its referrals to law firms for consumers that need the assistance of lawyers, one can see a certain amount of convergence in these sites. Of course, neither RocketLawyer nor LegalZoom, actually rate or evaluate lawyers, so in my opinion, gives AVVO an upper hand.

Our own legal consumer portal at MyLawyer.com also offers to link consumers to law firms, but the MyLawyer.com Directory only contains virtual law firms that offer legal services online, a niche which we believe will continue to grow. MyLawyer.com's free legal forms and legal documents service is a disruptive move designed to undercut the RocketLawyer and LegalZoom, approach that a consumer should have to pay for a legal form. (Although, our own experience has demonstrated that consumers really like the idea of a person reviewing and creating a legal document even though the person is not a lawyer and can't function as much more than a "scrivener." )

Like "open source" code we believe that the cost of legal forms on the web will continue to decline until pricing approaches zero, and that the real value add while be an attorney's advice and review when it is needed. For an elaboration on this theory, see generally, Chris Anderson' work on , Free - the Future of a Radical Price.  Once a person's situation becomes a bit more complex that the simplest fact situation, it is arguable that some form of legal advice and guidance is required.

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AVVO, the controversial law firm Directory that provides ratings of  lawyers has received a new $10,000,000 round of venture financing led by DAG Ventures of Pal Alto, California. The AVVO Directory is reputed to be the largest and most trafficked legal directory and the largest free legal Q&A forum receiving tens of thousands of questions and answers each month from consumers. The Directory also provides ratings and profiles for 90% of licensed attorneys in the US.

This funding is an endorsement of AVVO's concept that what consumers want in evaluating law firms is transparency and clarity with respect to the lawyer's reputation, legal services offered and even the pricing of legal services. The AVVO ratings system continues to increase in credibility and I predict that AVVO will become a first stop for consumers in searching for an attorney.

The AVVO system is arguably superior to Internet-based lawyer matching services, where consumers are matched with an attorney on  the basis of a summary of a problem submitted over the web, as the consumer really doesn't have a clue about the competence of the law firm to which they are being matched.

To cite other examples of opaque law firm directory sites, there are web sites that aggregate consumers through a specialized legal information web site, and then redirect those prospects  to a network of law firms that have purchased the exclusive right to receive leads in a particular territory. The lawyers in these networks may be very competent, but there is little information about their pricing or even links to these law firm's web sites.Consumers seeking competent lawyers on the Internet will continue to gravitate towards more transparent sites law firm directories sites like AVVO.

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Wizilegal,  a relatively new company based in San Diego is offering a virtual law firm service to solos and small law firms. The company recently relaunched its web site with a focus on enabling law firms to compete against LegalZoom.  Like DirectLaw, Wizilegal offers web-enabled document automation that enables law firms to offer  legal documents and forms through a law  firm's web site. It is good to see new competition come into this market space  because it is healthy sign that the "virtual law firm" concept is receiving wider acceptance among solos and small law firms.

We have previously defined the "virtual law firm" as a law firm that has a secure "client portal" integrated with its web site that is accessible by a client only with the use of a secure user name and password. From this "client portal", the  law firm is able to offer various legal services online.

A number of companies have emerged during the past two years that offer a "client portal" that can be branded with the law firm's logo and integrated seamlessly with the law firm's web site. Typically, the client portal is provided as a SaaS on a subscription basis. These companies include DirectLaw, Total Attorney's Virtual Law Office Technology, Clio's Web-based Practice Management Software, and now Wizilegal. These companies are to be distinguished from web-based practice management software companies like RocketMatter , that offer just "back-office" practice management tools, but no "client portal." application.

Here is a quick summary of key features of the Wizilegal offering:

• A web-enabled document authoring solution that is claimed to be very easy to use. (But no pre-automated legal documents or forms are included in their package). The document automaton function incorporates intelligent rule-based document assembly and can be applied to both text documents and .PDF forms. Interactive questionnaires appear within the web browser. I have not worked with this system, so I can't tell how easy it is to build out complex documents and forms. We welcome comments from users of Wizilegal about ease of use of the authoring system.
   
• The capability of offering document downloads and reviews;
   
• Integrated payment processing through PayPal. (but not through MC, VISA, or American Express);
   
• The capacity to create a law-firm branded client portal;
   
• Law firms can set up their own system almost immediately using the the company's web tools.
   
• Pricing is based on a $49.00 set up fee, plus $65.00 a month with no long term contract. In addition for every  document created by a client there is a $4.00 per document charge. There is no document charge for documents created internally, but for each administrative log-on there is a separate $55.00 administrative fee.
  

As competition increases in the virtual law firm provider space, it will be interesting to see how much market share Wizilegal will be able to capture with its approach. It will also be interesting to see whether a new cadre of web-enabled "virtual law firms" offering a true legal services  will be able to have an impact on LegalZoom's growth rate. With  LegalZoom's superior capital resources and national branding power, it may be hard for individual law firms operating online to capture mind share. Out of date ethical rules that govern the legal profession don't help the competitive position of law firms when they go up against new non-law firm players like LegalZoom. So the playing field is not level and the legal profession operates from a disadvantage.

It doesn't help when Robert Shapiro of OJ fame, is proclaiming every few hours on many cableTV channels that "The Law  is on Your SIde". What does that mean anyway?

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ABA President B. Lamm has created a new Commission on Ethics called Ethics 20/20 to review  ethics rules and regulation of the legal profession in the United States in the context of a global legal services marketplace. Hearings will be held at ABA Meetings to get input from various interests on how to reform or modify the ABA Code to enable US law firms to remain competitive in an age where Internet  technology is pervasive.

I have been invited by the Commission to testify and submit a statement at the ABA Mid-Year Meeting in Orlando, where the Commission is holding one of its first public hearings.

My statement will discuss the following topics:

• how the rules of professional responsibility function as a deterrent to innovation;
• issues relating to the unauthorized practice of law and the definition of "the practice of law;"
• legal referral concepts in the age of the Internet;
• state rules of professional responsibility that require a "physical" business office in order to practice law in that state;
• the potential for cloud computing;
• enabling the delivery of limited legal services online;
• law firm ownership structure as it relates to innovation in the delivery of legal services;
• and the eLawyering Task Force Recommended Guidelines for the Delivery of OnLine Legal Services.

I am looking for suggestions and ideas about other issues that relate to the delivery of online legal services and the rules of professional responsibility. Any ideas are welcome. Just comment on this blog.

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When we designed the DirectLaw web service we relied on theories developed by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne in their best selling book Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant .

Our concept is that a technology platform that enables law firms to offer limited legal services over the Internet could tap into the "latent markets" for legal services.

We also used this analytical approach to develop our online non-lawyer document preparation service approach and our approach to offering automated legal forms over the Internet which are also designed to serve the "latent market for legal services". LegalZoom is demonstrating that there is a huge latent market that is satisfied with a "good enough" solution.

Nicole Garton-Jones, a lawyer based in Vancouver, Canada, and a user of our DirectLaw platform has posted a detailed analysis of how her law firm development strategy is an example of Blue Ocean Strategy in action. See her blog post on this subject. Its worth reading.
 

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The eLawyering Task Force,  which is part of the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association has been developing a recommended set of minimum requirements for law firms delivering legal services online.  The draft that has been published is a working draft and we are soliciting comments as we move towards a final document. The draft document can be downloaded here.

The ABA does not have a comment facility on their web site, but comments can be contributed on this blog, well as a discussion group  that has been set up on LinkedIn called Virtual Lawyering.

Any comments that are submitted will be circulated among members of the Task Force.

Disclosure: I am Co-Chair of the eLawyering Task Force

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Total Attorneys has responded to Attorney Zenas Zelotes filing of ethics complaints in 47 different jurisdictions.

The Total Attorneys response can be found here.

Total Attorneys summarizes its response as follows:

"In a nutshell, Mr. Zelotes’s 303-page complaint (including exhibits) alleges that Total Bankruptcy (and various other Total Attorneys companies) is a for-profit referral service, that the business model of the Total Attorneys marketing sites amounts to impermissible fee splitting, that our advertising is impermissible solicitation and that our advertising is misleading. The complaint is a hodge-podge of hearsay, factually inaccurate statements, and carefully selected lines from a myriad of state advisory opinions taken wholly out of context, all crafted together to paint a picture of our program that could not be ignored by state regulatory counsel."

This is a complicated issue that needs further analysis, as there are two sides to this story. Supporting documents in the Total Attorneys response which require further examination include:

Zelotes Complaint with Exhibits

Total Attorneys Response filed in Illinois

Zelotes Reply

South Carolina Ethics Opinion

Kentucky Ethics Opinion

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 TotalAttorneys, a so-called marketing association of attorneys that operates legal referral web sites,  such as TotalDivorce and TotalBankruptcy , is being sued in multiple jurisdictions by Attorney Zenas Zelotes, a consumer bankruptcy attorney, based in Hartford, Connecticut and Nevada, for violation of bar referral rules that exist in every state. The Connecticut Law Tribune just released a headline story about the pending Zelotes v. Chern et al .ethics investigations (wherein more than 500 bankruptcy practitioners face possible professional discipline for certain business transactions with Illinois Attorney Kevin W. Chern d/b/a Total Attorneys et al.).  The story in Monday's Connecticut Law Tribune summarizes recent findings of probable cause in Connecticut that certain attorneys doing (or having done) business with Chern committed professional misconduct.  The story (which is available on line now and which will be released in print edition on Monday) can be found by clicking on the following link: http://www.ctlawtribune.com/default.aspx .

One problem with web-based legal referral directories like the TotalAttorney directories is that the user doesn't see the qualifications of the law firm on the web site, Instead, the prospect submits information about their case which is then sent to a selected number of law firms who pay  high referral fees for the leads. The consumer is really unaware of the identity of the law firm to which they are being referred. Placement in the directory is based on the law firm's ability to pay the "marketing fee" .

Other law firm directories are more transparent and let the consumer view the attorneys profile on line which enables the prospect to make their own judgment about which law firm they want to explore a potential relationship or engagement. These more transparent directories include Findlaw, Lawyers.com, Nolo.com, and AVVO. The more transparent and information robust an attorney directory is, the more consumer friendly it is.  When a consumer provides information to an on line questionnaire when the identity of the law firm is masked by the web site, the consumer is assuming more risk that the attorney really meets their needs. Caveat Emptor !!

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A colleague of mine, Paula Black has just published a new book for lawyers on how to market themselves and their law firms.  This book should be on every lawyer's desk or night table. You don't get business, unless you ask for it, and Paula Black shows you how to do it. That’s why I am happy to share with you a special opportunity. For the next 48 hours only, Paula is offering a collection of FREE bonus gifts to anyone who purchases this little gem: “The Little Black Book: A Lawyer’s Guide To Creating A Marketing Habit in 21 Days.” Designed to help lawyers integrate marketing into their daily lives, this book is quick, easy and inspirational. By purchasing it within the next 48 hours you will receive special access to information and resources from more than 30 experts. A compilation of advice from some of the most sought-after marketing and management experts in the legal profession, “The Smart Lawyer’s Toolkit” gives you instant admittance to an incredible collection of tips and information. Click here for details…but do it fast!

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The eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA, had its monthly telephone call on Friday. One of the action items is a renewed interest and commitment to produce a set of best practice guidelines for law firms that want to deliver legal services online. These guidelines would complement the Best Practice Guidelines for Legal Information Web Site Providers that were produced by the eLawyering Task Force and approved by the ABA House of Delegates in 2003. The Legal Information Best Practices Guidelines apply to both law firms and non-law firms and don't deal specifically with issues that lawyers face when they want to deliver legal services online. In some cases it has been reported that malpractice insurance carriers have declined coverage when a law firm attempts to provide legal services directly through their web site. With more law firms embracing the concept of virtual legal practice, it becomes even more important to provide a framework for best practices.  The guidelines would cover such topics as ethical issues in delivering online legal services, security issues, and the attorney/client relationship.

In addition, a new group of software vendors that license "software as a service" {SaaS) have emerged to provide online software applications that support virtual law practice. Some of these vendors include: Virtual Law Office Technology, RocketMatter, Clio, and our own DirectLaw, Inc.,  As part of the guidelines development process, we plan to seek input from this emerging group of software as service vendors.

The goal is to have a draft ready for the discussion by the eLawyering Task Force at the ABA mid-year meeting and then a revised draft for further discussion as the quarterly meeting of the Law Practice Management Section in New Orleans in May, 13- 16, 2009.

Feedback and ideas about what issues should be covered are welcome from all.

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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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