By Krystian Seebert
I. Introduction
Imagine that a client schedules a consultation with his lawyer. After listening to the client’s story, the attorney advises the client, and the two conclude their meeting. This is a standard consultation, right? Wrong. Thanks to the power of modern technology, the client and his lawyer do not have to meet face-to-face. In fact, the lawyer’s permanent Virtual Legal Office (“VLO”) could be halfway across the country from the client.[1]
If such a meeting really happened, ABA Model Rule 5.5 (the “Rule”) requires that the lawyer be admitted to the bar in the state of his or her office.[2] Furthermore, other restrictions may require that the lawyer also operate a physical office in the state of his or her virtual practice.[3]
This article reviews how the current rules on the remote practice of law developed, examines the current state of the law governing virtual legal practice, and finally argues that overly-restrictive regulation of VLOs has negative policy implications for the modern world.