Practice Management

Technology eReport Features ELawyering

By slkimbro

The September issue of the Technology eReport from the ABA GP, Solo and Small Firm Division has a feature article on elawyering written by virtual lawyering pioneer, Richard Granat.  The article is entitled “Doing Law on the Web: eLawyering for Competitive Advantage” and provides an introduction to elawyering or virtual lawyering, but also goes into a great description of web-enabled document automation and how this can be used to deliver legal services to clients online.

Also cited in the article is the evidence of growing demand by the public for online legal services.  Granat writes,

A recent survey of more than 2,000 online users revealed that a majority of consumers expect good law firms to offer their services online in the next couple of years. The online poll revealed that nearly half (47%) of consumers would be more likely to choose a law firm that offered the convenience of online access to legal services and documents over one that had no online service capability. Some 56 percent said they expected good law firms to give customers the ability to use their services online in the next couple of years. Over two-fifths (43%) agreed that they would change law firms if an alternative firm offered a reduced fee in return for the consumer providing initial details about their matter online.

This is good news for those of us with a virtual law office who have seen the demand from our online clients, but have not seen any report published to confirm this.

Full post as published by Virtual Law Practice on September 17, 2010 (boomark / email).