About My Virtual Law Practice
I refer to my practice as a virtual law practice primarily because I do not have the traditional office, conference room, paper law library, receptionist, secretary...etc...that one might typically expect from a law firm. I practice from a home office, armed with a laptop, a second monitor, a backup file server and an iPhone. There is very little paper involved in my practice - and when I do receive paper - I typically scan it, save the scan as a PDF, and shred the paper.
Leveraging Technology
The cornerstone of my virtual law practice is technology:
My practice management system is web based. - My document management system is web based.
- My word processing system is mostly web based (although I still use MS Word quite often).
- My office number is provided by Google Voice.
- My marketing consists mostly of blogging, social media, search engine optimization and other forms of internet marketing.
- I use document automation to help create both simple and complex legal documents.
- I invoice electronically - and accept payments online.
Why should a potential client care about all this? Because this all keeps my overhead very low - which provides me with the flexibility to provide low hourly rates and affordable fixed rates.
Better Client Service
Technology allows me to be nimble and very responsive to my clients. I communicate with clients via phone, email, SMS, Skype, Google Talk. My online client management system gives clients dedicated and secure access via the internet to every document I have ever prepared for them, and every invoice I have ever sent to them. When my local clients need me - I go to them instead of making them come to me.
Some of my clients I have never met face to face, but I am just as accessible to them as my clients that are located right down the street.