The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/11430
The Reality of a Virtual Law Firm “A lot of partners we’ve attracted have a nice size book of business but simply don’t want to work 2,000 hours a year for one reason or another, or don’t want to feel pressured to do so.” One of our earliest decisions was not to maintain paper files. It’s in every engagement letter, every agreement with our partners, and in our firm policies. Normally when we do a deal, we simply exchange PDF signature pages, the client gets the original, and we call the deal closed. Every once in a while an opposing counsel from a big law firm asks for a paper closing set for their paper file, but normally our clients don’t ask for paper. This system works so well for us because of our robust technology platform. All our PDFs of the closing sets and documents are uploaded and backed up with little overhead cost. And we’re proud of our smaller carbon footprint with this model. Speaking of technology, do you find you need more technical support or less than in a traditional office? Well, we require each attorney to provide his or her own equipment — unlike in a large firm where they would just be handed a configured laptop — so every computer that comes in is different and requires a bit of effort from both the attorney and the support staff. We require minimum standards for OS, processor speed and memory, but beyond that, tech support has to install or configure VLP’s e-mail, document management and video conferencing systems. And of course there’s a bit of training around that. You don’t have to be a computer genius — everything we use is off the shelf — but for someone a bit less tech-savvy who, for example, has never had to set up VPN, a few days’ setup time and help is usually required. None of it is rocket science. I see from your Web site that VLP has attracted a lot of talent from different large law firms. Who is typically drawn to the virtual practice, and once they’re onboard, how do you sustain their interest and investment in the practice? From day one, we’ve gotten a ton of resumes, and we’ve given a lot of attention to who would be the best fit with us. Not just in practice expertise, but culturally in a virtual environment. For example, if they’re used to doing large M&A deals working on a large team, VLP would likely not be the right setup. It takes a special personality. You need to be a self-starter and have a good work environment where you’re comfortable working alone and not interacting physically with co-workers. The fact is, some personality types just might not be happy or successful with us. But like I said, we get a lot of resumes and have always had a wide selection of candidates from which to choose. I imagine your Virtual Cultural Committee is always on the lookout for ways to keep your people’s interest in the virtual environment alive so that over time they don’t burn out from the environment of working alone. Yes, absolutely. One of VLP’s core principles is that it should be a firm you’d never want to leave. To achieve that, we looked at the pain points for lawyers, like the minimum hours requirement and lack of control at the larger firms. We try to give a lot of that power and control back to the partners. A lot of partners we’ve attracted have a nice size book of business but simply don’t want to work 2,000 hours a year for one reason or another, or don’t want to feel pressured to do so. They want to feel like a partner and be able to work as much as they like without feeling under the gun to move up or out. Our model allows for that because of our lower cost than the traditional law firm model. Tell us, what’s a typical day like for a lawyer at VLP — how is it different from a traditional firm? In some ways, it’s much the same, with attorneys at their computers doing document processing, working on deals, e-mailing each other and their clients, engaging in conference calls. But of course the big difference is that our lawyers aren’t doing all that up the hallway from their co-workers; they’re working in their homes or in whatever personal space they’ve selected. We have one partner who lives in Wyoming with most Peer to Peer the quarterly magazine of ILTA 69