Solo and small firm practitioners operating a VLO require that their online clients accept a clickwrap agreement before registering for a homepage. This agreement contains the terms and conditions of the attorney’s representation to the client, explains the nature of unbundled legal services, defines the scope of representation and may contain other provisions tailored to the attorney’s virtual law practice.

While retainer fees, payment arrangements and further definition of the scope of legal representation are communicated with the client through the client’s secure homepage on a case by case basis, the standard clickwrap agreement for the VLO serves as the legal contract between the attorney and his or her online client. Some attorneys may chose to require that their clients download and sign a separate written agreement following registration similar to a traditional retainer agreement. The business method depends on the individual virtual law practice. However, an online agreement during client registration with the terms and conditions for use of the VLO is standard.

The ABA Committee on Cyberspace Law during a panel discussion at the ABA’s Annual Meeting last year provided a practical reminder of the steps to follow when creating an online agreement. Blogger, Jason Haislmaier, in his blog ThinkingOpen, provides an interesting blog post regarding the drafting of enforceable online agreements and the Cyberspace Law Committee’s recommendations. Haislmaier writes,

“In particular, the panel indicated that the working group had identified four “bottom line” steps for forming legally binding online agreements:

1. The user must have adequate notice that the proposed terms exist;

2. The user must have a meaningful opportunity to review the terms;

3. The user must have adequate notice that taking a specified, optional action manifests assent to the terms; and

4. The user must, in fact, take that action.

Among these four steps, adequate notice of the existence of the proposed terms is among the most important.”

VLOTech attorneys draft their own terms and conditions for use with their virtual law offices and VLOTech works with clients to incorporate those agreements into the VLOTech application. The ABA Cyberspace Law website has a searchable archive for members which contains many good resources to assist VLOTech attorneys in researching this topic and drafting their VLO online agreements.