Have you ever come across a challenge, dreamed up a solution, and then watched it succeed in action? Linda L. Long Q.C. of the Long Family Law Group did just that. In a series of posts, we will share with you Linda’s success story of creating a Virtual Law Office (VLO), a creation that not only provided a solution to her challenges, but offered solutions for many others along the way. Follow along as we share with you the inspiration, requirements for execution, challenges, and professional opportunities surrounding the VLO.
What was the inspiration behind the Virtual Law Office (VLO)?
Love. Pure love. I was born in Lethbridge; my husband in Edmonton. We married 33 years ago, had three children, have five grandchildren – and two busy professional careers. Our hearts have always been in the prairies, but our work has taken us across Canada through military service, and back to Edmonton where we raised our sons. I became a lawyer; Peter a Health Services Administrator. And we remain best friends.
Retirement planning, exit strategies, cruising addictions, timeshare longings have grown amidst the fierce fiscal imperatives of funding our present and future plans. How to knit it all together?
Important work came to Peter, the Edmontonian, in Lethbridge. The law kept calling Linda, the Lethbridgian, to work in Edmonton. A commute began – and the challenge arose. How would we live and work in two cities half a province apart? It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. We needed a revolution….in our thinking. Fortunately, it was not 1789. There were new kinds of clouds – and after setting up my little law firm virtually, I can truly say I have looked at clouds from both sides now….
But I digress….
Faced with the desire to go south often (my really great husband now living there in my principal residence), I needed to be able to work off-site. Expanding my practice into southern Alberta seemed to be a logical next step. And then, of course, since I was driving to and fro so often, was there any reason not to see rural clients along the way? There was a shortage of family law practitioners in the south, apparently….So, Linda Quixote, at the ready! Pick me, pick me!!
And that is how I came to develop a virtual law practice using a six-inch notebook, remote firm access, and a smart phone. To answer the challenge of maintaining quality legal services while sustaining a long term marriage, I had to rethink my exclusively “bricks and mortar” service delivery and get truly creative – which meant going to the clients, sometimes in person, more often in virtual reality.
I entreated the universe to send me what I needed – an IT Consultant from heaven. My existing IT service provider could not respond to what I wanted – someone who could hold my hand during my growing pains and tell me what to buy, when to buy it, how to use it, and then provide aftercare and firm management support.
But, in response to my call, Casey MacDonald of SrvTools Inc. emerged out of the fabric of the universe. Casey had it all, and I was happy to hire him on a year round flat rate monthly plan to be my “alpha and omega” techie and IT guru. After all, I am old, and this is a young person’s game. So where better to start than by surrounding myself with those who are, or think, young. I brought in Bruce, 21, Denise, 19, Danijela, 26, Desiree (age: don’t ask, don’t tell) Cheryl (age: not important – hi-tech thinker)… I trained them all in supporting substantive legal service delivery using the remote model, and they trained me in how to “think tech” – as far as my gray cells permitted at my age and stage.
I was launched. Casey and I, along with my trusty office manager, Desiree Birch, began to develop and implement plans for a virtual law office. Since Casey will be joining this blog a little later, I won’t try to reconstruct our technical history. He’s the “go-to-guy” for that. But I was helped along significantly by a CBA webinar “Top Ten Technologies for the Small Law Office” and by reading everything and anything I could get by Stephanie Kimbro, the original virtual lawyer in the U.S. Her work has now been absorbed by a company called Total Attorneys, which expands the product daily. Although I don’t use them, I keep up with their developments and, in micro, try to advance my own boutique firm’s needs.
Along the way I inherited a single parent associate lawyer who needed time flexibility. The VLO operation suited her scheduling needs to a tee. She worked late daily by remote from home, came in for client interviews and support needs, and lived a flexible lifestyle while continuing to bill at a rate that kept her and her daughter in a comfortable standard of living.
Stayed tuned for Part 2: Execution, Benefits, and Areas of Opportunity
