Is virtual lawyering the future?

An inter­est­ing para­graph from an arti­cle deal­ing with the idea of “Good Enough” — services or prod­ucts that may not have all the “bells and whis­tles” of their more-​​expensive com­peti­tors, but do enough at the right price to be run­away successes:

It turns out to be a remark­ably effi­cient way of offer­ing what Granat calls legal trans­ac­tion ser­vices — tasks that are doc­u­ment inten­sive. For every­thing from wills to adop­tions to share­holder agree­ments, elawyer­ing has numer­ous advan­tages. Its cheaper, for exam­ple; a no-​​fault divorce, Granat says, might run a fifth of what see­ing an attor­ney would cost. It’s also faster — cus­tomers can access the tools any­time and never have to inter­rupt their day to meet with some­one in a dis­tant office. Simply put, elawyer­ing makes cer­tain legal ser­vices more accessible.There are trade-​​offs, of course. “The rela­tion­ship has less rich­ness than what youd get from sit­ting in a lawyers office,” Granat says. “And if you have an issue thats more com­plex, then you still need to see a lawyer face-​​to-​​face.” In other words, its a lower-​​fidelity experience.But for most sim­ple legal inter­ac­tions, elawyer­ing is, well, Good Enough. It gets the job done, even if it doesn’t let you ask every ques­tion or address every con­tin­gency. And not sur­pris­ingly, it’s on the rise. “Elawyering will be main­stream in three years,” Granat says. “I pre­dict that in five years, if you’re a small firm and don’t offer this kind of Web ser­vice, you’re not going to make it.”

via The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine .

I have yet to see an explo­sion of vir­tual legal prac­tices by attor­neys (although I have seen a few ads for out­sourced legal research, gen­er­ally to India), but I think para­le­gals are lead­ing the charge in this area. (See, for exam­ple, Paralegal Associates, based here in San Diego.)

The biggest worry I think many might have with this — a worry that might pre­vent this approach from being “good enough” — is one of trust, par­tic­u­larly in billing issues. With stan­dard hourly billing (at sky-​​high rates), work­ing vir­tu­ally with a remote attor­ney is, well, scary. (Of course, how much real inter­ac­tion do you really have on an hourly basis with a “reg­u­lar” attorney?)

In the attor­ney space, there is an increased focus on alter­na­tives to hourly billing, such as fixed-​​fee ser­vices for rou­tine legal mat­ters (wills, for exam­ple). This ties neatly in with vir­tual legal ser­vices, where in-​​person meet­ings are less nec­es­sary, and flat fees make good sense.

The other area that might make sense in this regard is vir­tual research: pro­vid­ing remote legal research to other attor­neys, who can save time and money. I think this could be a real growth area for vir­tual legal ser­vices, and it keeps clients insu­lated from poten­tial prob­lems with qual­ity, since a “reg­u­lar” attor­ney still buffers any advice and so on.

Combine legal research with para­le­gal ser­vices and per­haps tech sup­port, and you have a win­ner, I think.