More white papers from Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice, in Harvard JOLT

Several white papers from the 2012 Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice have been published as Occasional Papers by Harvard Journal of Law & Technology:

• John M. Greacen and William L. Jones: Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice: Analytical Framework
• Stephanie Kimbro: Using Technology to Unbundle in the Legal Services Community
• Marc Lauritsen: A Decision Space for Legal Service Delivery
• Susan Ledray: Virtual Services Whitepaper
• Richard Zorza: Preliminary Thoughts on Blue Sky Technology Driven Access and Decision Systems

HT @LSCtweets

Legal Informatics and Legal Communication @ ILEC 5

Several legal informatics or legal communication papers or presentations have been given at ILEC 5: The 2012 International Legal Ethics Conference, held 12-14 July 2012 in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

The Twitter hashtags for the conference were:

• #ilec2012
• #ilec5
• #ilecv

Here are archived Twitter tweets from the conference, in .csv format:

• Archived Tweets with hashtag #ILEC2012
• Archived Tweets with hashtag #ilec5
• Archived Tweets with hashtag #ilecv

Click here for the conference program.

Topics include confidentiality of lawyer-client communications, legal educational technology, empirical methods for the study of legal ethics, the quantitative measurement of legal ethical behavior, virtual law practice and other forms of law practice technology, and quantitative legal prediction.

Kimbro on Regulatory Barriers to the Growth of Multijurisdictional Virtual Law Firms

Stephanie L. Kimbro, J.D., M.A., of Kimbro Legal Services and VLOTech has published Regulatory Barriers to the Growth of Multijurisdictional Virtual Law Firms and Potential First Steps to Their Removal, North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology, 13, 165-225 (2012).

Here is the abstract:

The spread of disruptive technologies to the legal profession is changing the dynamic of how law firms are structured as well as the value propositions associated with the delivery of legal services. The number of law firms with a national presence has grown due to the cost benefits and efficiency of using cloud computing. New models for expansion across jurisdictional boundaries are increasing. However, the regulatory barriers to create these new firm structures are numerous and costly. This paper reviews the evolution of technology in multijurisdictional firms and examines the primary regulatory barriers to their further development. A starting point for standardization of regulations is proposed as well as potential first-steps to removing barriers to the growth of multijurisdictional virtual law firms.

CALI’s Free Online Course on Digital Law Practice

CALI, the Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction, is offering a free, online course on digital law practice, from 10 February – 6 April 2012.

The Twitter hashtag for the course is #tdlp.

The course will address topics including management of a virtual law office, electronic document automation and standardization, court technology, unauthorized practice of law, unbundling of legal service, and lawyers’ use of social media.

The instructors include Stephanie Kimbro, Marc Lauritsen, Richard Granat, Ronald Staudt, Kingsley Martin, Sarah Glassmeyer, William Hornsby, and Ernest Svenson.

For registration or more information, please see the course Website.

Goodenough and Lauritsen, eds.: Educating the Digital Lawyer

Professor Oliver Goodenough of Vermont Law School and Harvard’s Berkman Center Law Lab, and Marc Lauritsen, Esq., of Capstone Practice Systems have edited a new book entitled Educating the Digital Lawyer (New Providence, NJ: Matthew Bender, 2012).

Click here to access an EPUB ebook version of the book free of charge. (If you need an EPUB reader, try the Firefox EPUB Reader extension.)

According to the introduction, the book chapters are based on papers presented at “a pair of conferences — one in October 2010 at Harvard Law School and one in April 2011 at Columbia Law School — that brought together several dozen academics and practitioners who are deeply interested in the technology of law and how law schools and other institutions should educate students and lawyers about it.”

Here is the table of contents:

• Brian Donnelly, What Does “Digital Lawyer” Mean?
• Marc Lauritsen, Lawyering in an Age of Intelligent Machines
• David M. Blaszkowsky and Matthew Reed, Meta-What? Lawyers, Legal Training, and the Rise of Meta-Data for Digital Securities and Other Financial Contracts
• Harry Lewis, Under the Hood of the Internet
• Jeanne Eicks, Educating Superior Legal Professionals: Successful Modern Curricula Join Law and Technology
• Brock Rutter, Survey of Existing Courses in Lawyer Use of Technology
• Fred Galves, Teaching Litigation Technology
• Ronald W. Staudt, Cyberclinics: Law Schools, Technology, and Justice
• Paul Maharg, Simulation: A Pedagogy Emerging from the Shadows
• Stephanie Kimbro, What Should Be in a Digital Curriculum: A Practitioner’s Must Have List
• Barbara L. Bernier and F. Dennis Green, Law School Reset — Pedagogy, Andragogy, and Second Life
• Michael G. Bennett, A Critical Embracing of the Digital Lawyer
• Gregg Gordon, The Digital Lawyer’s Evolving Education in Scholarly Research

HT @stephkimbro.

Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grants Conference

LSC TIG 2012: The Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grants Conference, is being held 11-13 January 2012 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.

The conference features presentations about innovative applications of technology to improve access to justice.

Click here for the complete conference program.

The Twitter hashtag for the conference is #lsctig.

Kimbro’s Round-up of Virtual Law Practice Developments

Stephanie L. Kimbro, Esq., of Kimbro Legal Services and VLOTech has posted her Semi-annual Round-up of Virtual Law Practice Developments, on her blog, Virtual Law Practice.

This is a very useful collection of legal ethics opinions, court decisions, legal news articles, and scholarly articles about recent events and trends respecting the practice of law online.

Lauritsen, Kimbro, and Granat on Virtual Law Practice: Basic Concepts

Marc Lauritsen, Esq., of Capstone Practice Systems; Stephanie L. Kimbro, Esq., of Kimbro Legal Services and VLOTech; and Richard S. Granat, Esq., of The Granat Group, have posted slides from their presentation: Virtual Law Practice: Basic Concepts, given 27 September 2011.

Click here for video of the presentation. (HT @stephkimbro).

The presentation was sponsored by the American Bar Association’s eLawyering Task Force, of which Mr. Lauritsen and Mr. Granat are co-chairs.

The presentation explains the basic concepts of virtual law practice and elawyering; describes the benefits of virtual law practice; furnishes examples of virtual law firms and their technology; discusses ethical issues arising from virtual law practice; and explores practical aspects of running a virtual law practice.

Many of the ideas introduced in the presentation are explained in more detail in Ms. Kimbro’s recent book, Virtual Law Practice: How to Deliver Legal Services Online.

[Updated 9 October 2011 to correct URL for video.]

Legal Technology Programs at ABA 2010

A number of legal technology programs will be presented at ABA 2010: The American Bar Association Annual Meeting, being held 5-10 August 2010 in San Francisco, California, USA.

Click here for the conference program.

Here is one of the technology programs being presented at ABA 2010:

Marc Lauritsen, William Hornsby, Richard Granat, Stephanie Kimbro: The Virtual Law Firm: How to Build Your Practice in An Online World, 6 August 2010 (2:00-3:30 PM). Abstract:

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 exist as a totally virtual law firm. The program will discuss the benefits of 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. This program is brought to you on behalf of the LPM eLawyering Task Force.

Ethics of Virtual Law Practice: A Debate Held on Twitter

A debate on the legal ethics of virtual law practices and virtual law offices, between Stephanie Kimbro, Esq. and Brian L. Tannebaum, Esq., was held on 7 May 2010, on Twitter. The debate was co-sponsored by 22 Tweets and ABA Journal.

Click here for the transcript.

The ethics of virtual law practices and virtual law offices is one of the topics on the agenda of the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20.