At a time when law firms are replacing conventional printers with scanners to facilitate a move to a paperless practice and the cloud, three-dimensional printers might seem like a step backwards.  To the contrary, though, they’re rapidly becoming mainstream as the costs of 3D printing are declining faster  than anyone could have predicted with home-based models starting at around $1200.  These days, 3D printers have gone beyond their anticipated niche use for manufacturers and medical companies looking for an easy way to expedite creation of prototypes, and are even finding their way into retail establishments, such as this UK-based 3-D print shop where customers can transform a concept into a concrete object.

For law firms, 3D printers offer one of the most promising tools to serve clients and make a practice stand out since the ipad’s arrival several years back. The possibilities are endless.  For example, if you represent small business or IP clients, imagine the value add that you could provide by sending them home with a three-dimensional replica of their invention. In my industry, one of the members of my trade association used a three-D printer to create prototypes of an ocean-energy technology to display at a trade show.  The possibilities are expansive.  A law firm would even host a meet up for new businesses and produce prototypes for each participant. That’s certainly more original, not to mention interesting, than a free session on the law of contracts.

Last month, Docracy , a slick  form-sharing platform launched a  Terms of Service  (TOS) tracker that monitors the TOS at over 900 social media sites.  Docracy’s new tool (which you can subscribe via  RSS feed ) is indispensable whether you’re a lawyer reliant on sites like Facebook or Twitter to market your practice or who advises clients on the legalities of social media. But the TOS Tracker also got me wondering about another lawyer-related question:   should bar regulators employ technology to monitor or audit law firm websites?

Once upon a time, a law firm committed to a practice management system for life.  Whether TimeMatters, Amicus, Abacus, Needles or a paper-based numerical filing system set up by a law firm secretary, most firms opted for a single system, invested heavily in consultants to customize as needed and continued using the system for the…

For me, the above LegalForce  brand concept — a scales of justice anthropomorphized — encapsulates all that excites me about the launch of the exciting new LegalForce business model conceived by lawyer/entrepreneur Raj Abhyanker that I attended last night in Palo Alto, California.
For so long, images of the scales of justices have served as mindless shorthand on lawyer logos, signage, websites, business cards and stationary to convey the concept of legal services. So much so, that the scales of justice – and the lawyers’ power to deliver it – has been reduced to meaningless and frequently laughable cliche.  But with one sweeping yellow arc, the LegalForce logo reclaims the scales of justice, transforming it from a stale, hollow concept to one that’s welcoming and accessible.

Therein lies the force behind LegalForce: a multi-faceted concept to make not just the law – but also  lawyers — accessible to consumers.   Inspired in part by the AppleStore concept, LegalForce makes the law user friendly just as Apple has made technology user-friendly for the past decades.  The LegalForce store functions as the physical hub for a variety of law-related services for consumers and small businesses, offering law and business books, tablets loaded with law resources and access to computer-based forms.  After all, many times consumers may not need a lawyer at all.

But for me, what sets the LegalForce model apart from other 21st century  law startup schemes  is that rather than take lawyers out of the equation or view them as an after-thought; the value-add tail that wags the dog, LegalForce places lawyers as a central focus of its access model in a variety of ways.  First, LegalForce’s Chattorney feature (short consults with lawyers) allows consumers to chat with a lawyer in person (in a private area in the store) or online via video and provides a central spot where lawyers can offer educational programs to the community.  By enabling easy access to a lawyer, LegalForce can help consumers determine whether they need a lawyer at all or if a self-help form might suffice (that’s the biggest problem with many of the automated nonlawyer providers, as Eric Ridley discusses here; it’s not that these company’s forms are necessarily poor quality; rather, there’s no reliable system for determining whether a particular form or service is necessary to begin with. Even with a perfect form, inaccuracy in = poor outcome out).  In addition, rather than forcing lawyers to cut corners  or costs to serve the platform’s business model, LegalForce helps member firms to improve the quality of service they deliver. Among other things, the LegalForce branded lawyer network will provides backend support and practice management processes and serve as a legal brand for member firms. By assuming these functions, LegalForce helps these firms control costs and while freeing their time to focus on serving clients.  Admittedly, the LegalForce network may not be the right fit for all lawyers or all practices, but for others, it many lawyers, it promises to offer a sound and far preferable law firm model to the slim pickings available now (auction services, bargain basement fee caps, pay-per-click, pricey SEO, marketers-gone-wild, etc…)

OK, maybe this Engagement Agreement sample, extracted from a Start Up Law Firm Toolkit published by Lawyers Mutual North Carolina isn’t as outdated as the Pony Express.  Still, the engagement letter provision below, which seeks express client authorization for use of any modern day method of communication is so antiquated and short-sighted made me seriously doubt whether the legal profession will survive into the next decade:

We will also need to reach an agreement regarding the means of communication Personal meetings are obviously welcome and land-line telephone conversations are appropriate in the majority of situations. Due to inherent confidentiality risks involved with modern technologies including misdirected facsimiles or emails, unauthorized access to computer data or unsecured cell phone conversations, any medium other than face-to-face, landline or the US Postal service will be at your discretion (A separate will be provided where you authorize and accept the risks of various forms of communication).

Before I start in on what’s wrong with this kind of provision, let me say that I’m well aware that some jurisdictions do in fact require client consent for use of email. Further, I also realize that email may  not be as secure  as lawyers once believed when jurisdictions first authorized its use to communicate with clients.  Yet, even taking account of these considerations, I still think that onerous retainer provisions like this one are ridiculous and will cause far more harm than a wayward email. Here’s why:

1.  The engagement letter provision deprives lawyers of discretion and makes them look like fools

OK, so email carries risk.  What part of life doesn’t? Most of us don’t walk around in glass bubbles because of a chance that we might catch the flu. Nor do we bring parachutes on airplanes in case of an emergency.  In life, we balance risks and burdens and make reasoned decisions based on our assessment of the risk. In the glass bubble case, a bubble is onerous and getting the flu or strep, while inconvenient, isn’t life threatening. In the airplane case, a parachute isn’t terribly expensive and could guard against a fatality but truth is, the risk of anything going wrong is so small that we deem even the minor added cost unnecessary. 

With the dawning of the Age of Big Data, increasingly, we’re seeing the rise of the data-driven match.  Yesterday, I came across a primitive example of this concept (primitive because it’s based on user-input rather than analytics); a new matchmaking site, Same Plate.com where users can select dates based on food preferences. Likewise, some colleges now permit incoming students to choose their own roommates based on a series of questions.

The next iteration of big data will be more complex of course, with matches based on past patterns gleaned from user experience – which carries implications and potential opportunities for lawyers.  One of my favorite futurists, Stephanie Kimbro recently described  how Law Pivot (just acquired by  Rocket Lawyer),  oxymoronically billed as “crowdsourcing legal advice,” created an algorithm to analyze user trends on its site to match the most qualified lawyer to respond to a user’s legal question. Similarly, I’m certain that many of the “lawyer match sites” have their eyes on the promise of big data in the future, and with each transaction are gathering data in the hopes of selling for a pretty penny more refined, closely tailored leads to lawyers.  And instead of coming up with ways to market to our potential ideal clients,  we could let the data do it for us.

Sounds like Nirvana, doesn’t it? Yet, I’m skeptical.  For starters, just how personal will we allow these data aggregators, er, lawyer matching sites, to get with client information?  Harvesting data about clients’ problems is a point that Stephanie presciently addresses in her new book, Consumer Law Revolution  (free chapter available here) and it’s a concern I’ve both written  and ranted about.

But potential confidentiality issues aside (as there may be ways to sufficiently protect information), are data driven matches all they’re cracked up to be? Many times, we expand our horizons by working with those who don’t immediately seem to be a perfect match on paper.  I remember back in the first year of law school, my writing professor randomly teamed us up with other classmates to brief and argue a case. I dreaded the assignment, having been paired with a guy who was in my large section who seemed haughty and aloof. Yet we worked well together (turned out our different personalities meshed well and  we shared the same healthy skepticism about the legal profession) and he became a lifelong friend.  

Call it the un-law firm.  As big law crumbles and some solos struggle to compete with national non-lawyer providers like Legal Zoom, new business models for law firms are cropping up to fill the void.  From Virtual Law Partners  and  Rimon Legal  to branded networks of solos and franchise offices, alternatives to the standard law firm business model abound, providing more options than ever to lawyers seeking to leave a firm but who don’t necessarily want to go it alone.

In theory, a branded network or affiliated group of lawyers who share costs but eat what they kill offers the best of both worlds.  Lawyers benefit from an established brand, potential steady work flow, reduced costs associate with economies of scale.  A network approach also allows lawyers  to assure potential client of back up and eliminates some of the isolation that can come with working alone.

Of course, like anything new in the legal profession, these models raise ethics and malpractice issues.  Without appropriate disclaimers, lawyers who hold themselves out as participating in a firm but who are actually independent may find themselves liable for other participants’ malpractice through rules of imputed partnership.  Likewise, lawyers can’t claim to be part of an affiliated group unless there are regular, ongoing communications between them. Finally, lawyers need to consider conflicts rules and ensure that any compensation arrangements don’t violate fee splitting rules.  Still, if properly structured with sensitivity to ethical parameters, these risks can be managed.  

Dear New Lawyer,

At 48 years old, I am old enough to be your mother.  And you should be ashamed of yourself.  Here you are, coming to me for a legal job when you don’t know the first thing about RSS feeds, blogging (reading them, let alone writing them), Twitter, Pinterest or YouTube.  And what’s more, you have no comprehension of the importance of these tools to my practice and seemingly no interest in learning how to use them.

Just out of law school, your skills are of minimal use to me.  Nothing you research or write will be worthy of filing without significant oversight and feedback. And that’s okay.  Starting out, I wasn’t very useful myself either. But each time my research memos and briefs came back blushing with redline (or back in my day, red ink), I learned just a little bit more about how to craft a solid piece of work product.  Within time – a matter of months, (and hours and hours of practice on my own time) – I could soon produce a file-ready document on my own.

These skills are what I’m willing to teach you. It’s part of my professional obligation as a lawyer to see to it that new generations learn the craft.  But what I can’t abide is having to teach you how to tweet about current events.  How to set up an RSS feed. How to track and stay on top of news from two or three industry blogs.  Supposedly, you grew up on this stuff.  So why do you need to take instructions from someone old enough to be your mother on how to use tools that should come as second nature? You should be coming to me with a week’s worth of proposed blog posts. You should be streaming out a dozen tweets on industry developments and setting up RSS feeds to share with me – not the other way around.  You should have as robust an online footprint as I do, or more – yet I’ve got thousands of blog posts to your…zero? You should be able to figure out, in a snap, how to use video editing tools if you don’t already and volunteering to create cool informational videos so I can market my firm and generate more business that will support more new hires.

Yet somehow, there’s a disconnect.  Are you living in a cave? For gosh sakes, Justin Bieber, the biggest rock star of your generation was discovered on YouTube? Don’t you understand how powerful this stuff is?  Even putting myself in your shoes, I just can’t comprehend why this stuff doesn’t matter to you. Maybe familiarity breeds contempt so social media doesn’t wow you the way it does me, but even so, you’re 25, not 85; too old to be so jaded.  You should be dragging me into the 21st century, not the other way around.