•  ABA’s 2009 James I. Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering Awarded to a VLOTech VLO
•  Announcing three new VLOs launched in North Carolina and Pennsylvania
•  New software product features and updates, including trust accounting and IOLTA compliance

2009 ABA James Keane Award for Excellence in eLawyering presented to  Kimbro Legal Services, LLC, a VLOTech VLO

Attorney and co-founder of VLOTech, Stephanie L. Kimbro, has been named the recipient of the 2009 American Bar Association’s James I. Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering.  Kimbro operates a VLOTech virtual law office (VLO) in North Carolina, Kimbro Legal Services, providing estate planning and small business assistance online to clients state-wide.

The James I. Keane Memorial Award will be presented during the annual ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago following the keynote presentation by Richard Susskind, author of the recent publication End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services.  A description of Kimbro’s virtual law practice will appear in the ABA’s Law Practice Magazine and other ABA Law Practice Management Publications.

VLOTech Announces the Opening of Three New VLOs

Innovative Pennsylvania Law Practice Uses VLO to Work With Legal Professionals Online

Spencer Fiduciary Services, LLC is an innovative new VLOTech virtual law practice that provides trust and estate services to solo practitioners, trust and estate practice groups and financial institutions who may require the experienced tax counsel provided by the practice.

Spencer Fiduciary Services, LLC is operated by Patti S. Spencer, Esq., a trusts and estates attorney who is a nationally recognized author and educator.   In addition to Spencer Fiduciary Services, LLC, Spencer operates Spencer Law Firm and authors the blog, Pennsylvania Trusts and Estates Blog.  You may read more about Spencer and Spencer Fiduciary Services, LLC on our blog.

Rice Law, PLLC Launches North Carolina Virtual Law Practice Providing Family and Education Law Services

Rice Law, PLLC has opened a virtual law office (VLO) to provide online North Carolina family and education law unbundled legal services in addition to its full-service law firm based in Wilmington, North Carolina. Rice Law, PLLC provides family and education law services and represents clients in North Carolina for family law and residential real estate and nationwide in education law. You may read more about Rice Law, PLLC on our blog.

The Law Office of Shawna Collins Launches North Carolina Family Law VLO

The Law Office of Shawna Collins, operated by Shawna D. Collins of Monroe, North Carolina, has opened a new virtual law practice.

In addition to providing clients with legal services through her physical law office location, Collins’ web-based VLO will provide online, limited legal services pertaining to North Carolina Law, including but not limited to family law issues, such as domestic violence, divorce, child custody, child support, alimony, equitable distribution, and adoptions. You may read more about Collins and the Law Office of Shawna Collins on our blog.

Product Updates and New Features

IOLTA and Trust Accounting Compliance

VLOTech has released improved payment options and processes for our software that assist attorneys delivering legal service online in following their state bar rules and regulations for law practice management.

This product update included changes to retainer, invoice and payment processing in order to allow tighter control and compliance with trust accounting and IOLTA.

Highlights of the update include the following:

•  Payment methods are filtered so that only the relevant accounts are provided as options for the attorney to select when directing online payments from the VLO to an attorney’s law firm bank account.

•  If an attorney’s third-party credit card processing company or other financial institution handling the online payment processing supports it, the attorney may now designate a trust account and operating account for each payment method.  The system will detect the presence of trust account requirements and select the correct account when processing a payment.

•  VLOTech can also accommodate trust and operating accounts set up with different banks.

Help Sections for Clients

New help sections have been added to assist online clients with getting started using and creating cases on a VLO. These new help sections are shown to clients on their homepage when they first log in and when creating a new request for legal services.

Accounting Exports

Accounting exports have been updated to better display information about operating and trust accounting.

Online HTML Forms

Additions were made to the online HTML forms feature.

• Forms now have additional data formats.

• There is a new unique field: the Accept box. This is a checkbox which can be checked once but cannot be unchecked. For example, it could be used to create a clickwrap agreement for the VLO with specific terms and conditions that must be accepted individually by the online client before the form is completed.  Attorneys may wish to use this feature to create a more detailed online engagement letter on a case by case basis. The accepted form could then be kept in the client’s file permanently as proof of his or her acceptance of a line-by-line clickwrap agreement.

• There is a new parsed numeric field which allows for more complex number formats.

•  The ability to create formulas was added.  Formulas allow for simple or complex calculations to be done either all in a single formula or by using other form fields as variables.

The development of the VLOTech software is driven by the requests and feedback from our attorney clients.  Updates and new features are added approximately every two weeks with no additional charge or disruption to the VLO workflow.

If you have questions about anything in this newsletter or would like more information about VLOTech, please contact us at launch@vlotech.com.

For more information on VLOTech product sales and pricing, including scheduling a walkthrough of the software features, please contact Lyza Sandgren at (770) 904-7099, Lyza@vlotech.com.

In addition to providing clients with legal services through her physical law office location, Collins’ web-based VLO will provide online, limited legal services pertaining to North Carolina Law, including but not limited to family law issues, such as domestic violence, divorce, child custody, child support, alimony, equitable distribution, and adoptions.

Shawna D. Collins is licensed to practice law in the states of North Carolina and South Carolina. She has been an attorney for over 12 years, and has litigated civil and criminal cases for the past 12 years. Collins is a member of the Estates and Trusts Section and the Family Law Section of the North Carolina Bar Association. She received her undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston and law degree from the University of Florida, after spending her last year of law school at Wake Forest University.   You may read more about Collins and the Law Office of Shawna Collins on the website.