Skip to main content

Ethics and Virtual Law Offices

Thank you

Thank you for joining us today.

Description

Technology allows lawyers far more flexibility to practice law virtually – from home or in shared settings – than ever before.

No longer must they maintain freestanding offices, support staff, and libraries. Lawyers can set-up offices in their homes, communicate with clients, adversaries and the courts electronically, outsource overflow work to co-counsel or vendors, and establish websites that can reach potential clients. These "virtual" practices are increasingly commonplace, but the relative ease with which they are established obscures many significant ethical issues.

This program provides a practical guide to significant issues when lawyers and law firms establish "virtual" law practices.

  • Disclosure to clients of the virtual character of a law practice
  • Electronic communications, confidentiality, and ethical risks in virtual practices
  • Ethical issues when lawyers share office space or other resources but practice separately
  • How websites and a "virtual" presence implicate multijurisdictional practice issues
  • Outsourcing work to vendors or co-counsel, and ensuring its competently performed
  • Requirements and risks when offering legal advice across state lines
  • Duty to understand law office technology as a duty of competence

Contributors

  • H. Michael Drumm

    H. Michael Drumm is the founder and member of Drumm Law, LLC in Denver, Colorado, where he has an extensive franchise, trademark and business transactional practice. He works with franchisors across industries nationwide helping them draft, file and renew their franchise Disclosure Documents and franchise agreements. He has a specialty representing craft breweries to help them trademark their brands and protect their intellectual property. He has been repeatedly honored by Franchise Times magazine as a "Legal Eagle" and has been designated by the International Franchise Association as a "Certified Franchise Executive."

    Mr. Drumm received his BSBA from the University of Missouri-Columbia and his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.

    Click here for more information about Mike.

  • Thomas E. Spahn

    Thomas E. Spahn is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, LLP, where he has a broad complex commercial, business and securities litigation practice. He also has a substantial practice advising businesses on properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections. For more than 20 years he has lectured extensively on legal ethics and professionalism and has written "The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner's Guide," a 750 page treatise published by the Virginia Law Foundation. Mr. Spahn has served as member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a member of the Virginia State Bar's Legal Ethics Committee. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School

    Click here for more information about Thomas.

December 15, 2020
Tue 1:00 PM EST

Duration 1H 0M

This live web event has ended.

For Technical Support
(888) 705-6002
+1 (858) 201-4136*
*for callers residing outside of the United States