Episode 6 – Making Law Easy Show: Where there’s a Will there’s a Way
Episode 6 – Making Law Easy Show: Where there’s a Will there’s a Way
Hi, this is Karl Schieneman, a Partner with 1-2-3 Law Group, and you’re listening to the Making Law Easy Show. Today we’re going to delve into estate planning and some critical documents that encompass estate planning. I have an estate planning attorney who works with 1-2-3 Law Group and Cheryl thanks for coming on the program and why don’t we dive right in. Cheryl what’s an estate plan.
An estate plan is not exactly what you might think it is. A lot of times you think of an estate plan as something that involves their current financial situation. That is the type of estate plan that you would prepare with your financial planner or accountant. A financial planner is concerned with the administration of your estate while you are able and living. The estate plan that we are here to discuss prepares your estate for the contingencies of illness and death. The necessary elements for this type of estate plan are a living will, a power of attorney and of course your last will and testament.
And this is actually very interesting stuff. We had Marty Madigan on a recent show talking about what happens in the administration of these documents. So why don’t we dive into some of these documents. What is a Will and what does it contain?
Well, a will is essentially a financial document which is actually a mistake that people make. They think that they can put a lot of other things in the will. But it’s good to know exactly what the will does do and what it should contain. So being that it is essentially a financial document a will essentially decrees how you want your monetary assets and worldly possessions to be divided up and distributed. It is also used to provide for the special needs of certain beneficiaries such as minor children, or persons who have spendthrift tendencies or physical or mental disabilities that make them incapable of handling their own financial estate. This is most commonly done through a tool called a testamentary trust. These protect and control your assets, or the assets that are inherited by a beneficiary with the special needs that I just discussed. A testamentary trust will instruct your executor how to set up a financial trust according to your specifications and to hold the inheritances of these special needs beneficiaries for that beneficiary’s use as controlled by that appointed trustee and according to your direction and until such time as you specify. Read more
Episode 27 – Making Law Easy Show – Picking the Right Guardian
Episode 27 – Making Law Easy Show – Picking the Right Guardian
Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of the Making Law Easy Show where we try to answer questions about legal topics to make life easier for everyone. And we’re going to talk about estate planning today from the contexts of picking a guardian. Picking guardians for your kids or for people who are disabled when you pass away. So why don’t we start right in. I’ve got an estate planning attorney who works with 1-2-3 Law Group. Cheryl glad to have you on the show again. You’ve done a couple of these shows with us and why don’t we start right in. What are the sort of things you should think about from an estate planning perspective when you are picking a guardian for your kids or disabled loved ones that you are taking care of?
Well the first thing you need to do is figure out, or of course you already know who you want to have a guardian for. And who you choose may be different according to what purpose that guardian needs to play. For example, if you’re going to be looking for a guardian for your children, it might be different than if you are looking for a guardian for an adult that you are taking care of. But I think that to make this easier, we’ll start with what we are going to be looking for in a guardian for a child. First of all there are two types of guardian. Now the first type of guardian is the type that’s going to take care of that person on a day to day basis. And you have another type of guardian who is the one who is going to be taking care of that person’s financial situation. Any kind of inheritance they might receive; any type of earnings they might have. If this person is a minor, or if this person is disabled Read Entire Manuscript
Episode 27 – Making Law Easy Show – Picking the Right Guardian
Episode 27 – Making Law Easy Show – Picking the Right Guardian
Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of the Making Law Easy Show where we try to answer questions about legal topics to make life easier for everyone. And we’re going to talk about estate planning today from the contexts of picking a guardian. Picking guardians for your kids or for people who are disabled when you pass away. So why don’t we start right in. I’ve got an estate planning attorney who works with 1-2-3 Law Group. Cheryl glad to have you on the show again. You’ve done a couple of these shows with us and why don’t we start right in. What are the sort of things you should think about from an estate planning perspective when you are picking a guardian for your kids or disabled loved ones that you are taking care of?
Well the first thing you need to do is figure out, or of course you already know who you want to have a guardian for. And who you choose may be different according to what purpose that guardian needs to play. For example, if you’re going to be looking for a guardian for your children, it might be different than if you are looking for a guardian for an adult that you are taking care of. But I think that to make this easier, we’ll start with what we are going to be looking for in a guardian for a child. First of all there are two types of guardian. Now the first type of guardian is the type that’s going to take care of that person on a day to day basis. And you have another type of guardian who is the one who is going to be taking care of that person’s financial situation. Any kind of inheritance they might receive; any type of earnings they might have. If this person is a minor, or if this person is disabled, you know, severely mentally disabled that they can’t take care of that on their own, then you’re going to need to make sure someone is available to take care of their finances as well as their day to day needs as far as food and clothing and shelter. Now a lot of times people choose the same person, and sometimes they don’t. And there’s some thought processes that go into deciding whether or not you want the same person and deciding if you want separate people for these two positions, these two jobs.
Is this the sort of thing that’s usually a family member that you’d pick to be a guardian, or can it be a close friend.
It can be anyone you want. It doesn’t have to be a family member. It’s whoever you feel is best for the job. They don’t have to be related in any way. The things that you are looking for, you want to find someone that you trust. If we’re talking about minor children especially that you trust to raise your children with love, with respect, in the same way that they would raise children of their own. And someone who may know your desire for your children. We talk about religious issues or just certain moralistic ideas that you want to pass on to your children. These are people who maybe share the same ideas or who at least will respect your ideas, and try to raise your children in that way. Or to make sure they get the right kind of education. Or push them toward a certain profession. Something that you would do if you were not there.
Now obviously when you’re children are really young, as a parent you make those decisions for them. But what about for, you know, if you have teenagers. Is this something you want to talk to your teenagers about as you’re doing your estate planning, and get their input.
I think that would have to be an individual issue whether or not you talk to your teenagers. I think even teenagers, and I have a 14 year old. I would not talk to her about these sort of ideas, or these sort of things. You can talk t them about religious issues, moral issues, what you want them to do with their life, but you don’t want to talk to them so much about what’s going to happen once you pass away, because I think it freaks them out just a little bit. And, but that’s a personal decision. How well you know your child, whether or not they can handle it.
OK, and obviously when someone’s taking care of your children they’re taking over the financial responsibility. Is that something you can plan for in your will.
Well like I said, you can choose two separate guardians. One to take care of their day to day needs, and one to take care of their finances. Most people, and I think it’s a good thing to do, make this person the same person. There’s two types of guardian. The guardian of the person, and the guardian of the inheritance. The guardian of the person is the one who takes care of their day to day needs, you know, make sure they get to school, make sure they get dressed, make sure they are fed. And the guardian of the inheritances is the guardian of that child’s financial income. Any type of income they might receive from an inheritance or in any other respect until they are age, well of age, we’ll put it that way. I was going to say age 18. Age 18 is the legal fallback. But when you set up a guardianship in a will, you choose the age at which that trust or that guardianship ends. But the thing, when you choose separate people, the one reason to choose separate people is if say the guardian of the person is an elderly parent, and you’re concerned that maybe that elderly parent, although they may be the best person to take care of your children and to bring them into their home and give them the love that you want them to give, they may not be the best person to handle all of their finances. Maybe somebody, a brother or sister who lives further away may be a better person to know how to deal with those finances. And that might be some reason to consider doing it with separate people. On the other hand, another reason to keep that the same person is because if you have two separate people as the guardian of the person and one as the guardian of the inheritance, then the guardian of the person is always going to be petitioning the guardian of the inheritance for money to take care of these children. Because of course day to day needs take expenses. And any money that is taken from the children’s inheritance, which is allowable, to take money from their inheritance to take care of their day to day needs, their education, their food, their clothes. Children are expensive. And that money is there to take care of their needs. So the guardian of the person will have to petition the guardian of the inheritance to give them that money. And some people like that. Some people like to have that check and balance right there so that there isn’t one person who can abuse that power. At the same time it’s kind of a headache for the person who’s taking care of your children to have to do that all the time. So it’s a personal decision depending on who you are choosing for each position, whether or not you want to have that checks and balances, and whether or not you want to have the guardian of the person, the guardian of the children to have to do that or not. If you want them to have that headache. It’s just something that one way might be better for one person, and one way might be better for another person. But it’s very individualistic.
What I was getting at was maybe the answer was if you’re asking someone to undertake the responsibility. You know a lot of people do it for love, but you know sometimes you might want them to pay them a modest salary if you have the means to. And that’s not money going to the children’s care, that’s actually going to them, to the guardian.
I don’t think that that’s something that usually happens. I mean I think it’s possible to do that. You could set it up, cause you’re setting this up, when you set up a guardianship, you’re setting up a trust, a financial trust. And I’m sure that you could work into the trust a way to pay the trustee or the guardian. And in these terms is a guardian, but essentially it’s a trustee. I’m sure you could do that. Although usually, most people don’t. Usually it’s just done for love.
Someone that knows your kids, and they’re stepping in your shoes.
I mean if you are taking somebody’s children and raising somebody’s children, usually you’re not doing it for a salary.
Yes, how do you put a price on that.
Exactly.
OK, that’s useful information. I appreciate your advice on this Cheryl. If anyone has any more questions about any area or law or wants to listen to our dozens of podcasts on different areas of law, you can go to www.makinglaweasy.com where we have a whole list of shows. Or give us a call here in Western Pennsylvania at 1.877.7.123.LAW. Thanks a lot and we’ll forward to doing more shows with you Cheryl in the future.
Thank you.
Episode 25 – Making Law Easy Show – Key Tips When Preparing for a Divorce
Episode 25 – Making Law Easy Show – Key Tips When Preparing for a Divorce Hello everyone. Welcome again to another edition to the Making Law Easy Show. Today we’re talking about key tips when preparing or encountering a divorce. And I’m pleased to have with us an attorney who has handled quite a few divorce cases over the last 5 or 10 years. Steve thanks for joining us. Steve helps us with divorce cases at 1-2-3 Law Group. Glad to have you on the show Steve. Nice to be here Karl. Thanks for getting in contact with me. OK. Why don’t we start right off. How do you get started with a divorce process. Well of course the first step is the clients, and that they have to decide that that is the thing that they want to do next is get a divorce and I recognize of course that that is a very difficult decision for them to make. That’s a personal decision. But of course the next step would be contacting an attorney and sitting down with that attorney and reviewing the situation. Reviewing the different aspects that may be particular to that case, that individual client’s case, and reviewing what that client might expect as far as a result. Then on the other end, I mean that’s when you’re starting off planning. I mean there’s always two sides to a story. And on the flip side, what do you do if you are served with divorce papers. Well if you’re served with divorce papers, you really do need to contact a divorce attorney immediately. There are time limits that you have to respond to a divorce. The divorce will proceed on whether you choose to participate or not, and of course the court can make decisions that are very very important to that person. And they’ll make them whether you choose to participate or not. So you really do need to contact an attorney that can review the case. See what the other side is claiming. What they’re trying to achieve. What the divorce attorney can achieve for this particular client. What issues do a divorce case typically include. Well in its simplest form a divorce can be just a dissolution of a marriage. Two people that don’t want to be married anymore. The court will issue basically a piece of paper, of course it’s a court order that dissolves the marriage and declares that they are not married anymore. That’s the most simply form of a divorce. But of course what goes along with a divorce can be several other issues. It could include equitable distribution, support, child support, spousal support, alimony, and custody and various other issues that can arise during this difficult process. Two phrases you hear quite a bit are fault divorce and no fault divorce. What’s the difference between them. Well most divorces that are granted are granted as no fault divorces. The difference between a no fault divorce and a fault divorce is simply that whether one party is at fault or not. In a full divorce filing the plaintiff would claim that the other party is to blame for the dissolution of the marriage. For instance the other party may have committed adultery or may have been abusive or something along those lines. Most divorces however are granted as no fault divorces. The significance of filing for a fault divorce is that if the court wants to have a hearing on whether one party was at fault or not and to find that that other party was at fault, it could benefit our client in that the division of the property would be more in their favor since they of course are not at fault. In terms of filing, does it matter who files for divorce first. Or is it really starting the clock. That is a common question. And a lot of people think well my spouse is threatening to file. I better file first. You know that makes me look like I’m the innocent person, and my husband’s at fault. And the courts don’t really look at it that way. It does not really matter who files first. The court will evaluate any claims from either party and rules accordingly. In this process are you going to have to go to court and have a trial. Is there sort of getting sworn in and appear in court situation or can you do this more amicably. Well that again is often a concern that many clients have. They’re nervous about having to go to court. Of course other clients want to go to court. Cases can go either way on this. I’ve handled many divorce cases where the client never sees the inside of the courtroom. Typically in those types of cases what happens is one of the other parties files the divorce. The parties through their attorneys will exchange information. The attorneys are either side will evaluate the case, negotiate a settlement. And if a settlement is reached you never have to go into the courtroom. You never have to deal with a judge. You never have to offer any testimony and the court will simply grant the divorce and incorporate the settlement agreement and that will conclude your case. In cases where for whatever reason the parties could not agree or if one party will not participate, often you do have to go to court to a series of hearings. And the court will have to rules on those issues. Those are more common in support. Support cases do often generally go to court although they’re usually short hearings. As far as protracted trials on divorce, those are usually rare and we can usually avoid them, and they create legal costs for them, by entering into an agreement that both parties can live with. There are a lot of components in divorce. Often times if there are children, you have custody issues. One spouse works and the other doesn’t. They make different amounts of money. You have support, alimony. How do those pieces all fit together. Well, that depends on the client. And every case is different. And we handle every case differently. Some people may, some couples may have really no assets, no children, and have been married for a very short time. And those cases usually can be handled very inexpensively and rather quickly, especially if both parties agree to the divorce. And we would simply file a complaint for divorce just asking for the divorce. Now in other cases where perhaps there are children, custody can become an issue and often we file a count for custody that’s included in the divorce complaint. There’s support that could be added to a divorce complaint. There’s request for alimony, either alimony during the litigation or alimony to be paid for some period of time after the conclusion of the case. Then there’s also other situations where we would file counts to protect a person’s property. For instance things dealing with health insurance. Or if one spouse is not paying their bills and if it’s our client we certainly would file a count. It can be included in the divorce complaint asking the court to resolve those issues. You talked about something that sounded pretty simply if both sides are contesting. How long does a simple divorce take, and compare that to one with kids and alimony and support. If I have a client who comes to me and they discussed this with their spouse and their spouse is in general agreement. There’s not much to fight over if anything. We file the divorce complaint. 90 days from when the other person is served the divorce complaint the court allows us to request that the divorce decree be granted. So it can be granted in a matter of 90 days or so. Of course that’s divorce in its most simple form, when both parties agree and there’s very little fighting. When we have cases involving custody, custody can continue even after the divorce is completed. When we have divorce where there are a number of assets, perhaps complicated assets such as retirement funds, pension plans, stock portfolios. Those do take some time to analyze, and to evaluate those types of cases can take a year or longer. In a case where the other party does not wish to get a divorce, they can in some cases delay the final granting of the divorce for approximately two years. However even in those cases there is legal work that needs to be accomplished during that time so that when the two year period ends we are ready and we can proceed with the divorce case. There’s a term that people mention sometimes, a common law marriage. Does that apply in Pennsylvania at all. A common law marriage is a very common question I get from many people. People feel that they’ve been together with their girlfriend or boyfriend for quite a long time and somehow that automatically turns into a marriage and what I get from people often well I’ve been together with my paramour for several years does the law automatically consider us husband and wife now. And it does not. The way to get married is to get a marriage certificate quite simply. Now prior to 2005, the law did recognize common law marriages. So in some cases, they can still exist, if you entered into a common law marriage prior to 2005. However, simply living with your boyfriend or girlfriend does not turn your relationship into a marriage. Very often the court will look in those situations as how you held yourself out to other people. Did you refer to the other person as your husband or wife. Did you file joint income taxes together. Did you perhaps have some sort of ceremony, although not a legal ceremony, some sort of ceremony declaring to the world that you were husband and wife. So that is some things that the court does look at. Well that will make lots of boyfriends and girlfriends happy to hear that. I’m sure it will. What if you’re spouse won’t consent to the divorce. You may have touched on that earlier. Is that where is just takes two years. You can delay it for up to two years. Well very often the other side will say that they’re not going to consent to the divorce. However once the process starts we certainly can request information from the other side. There are hearings that occur. We can ask for alimony or other support payments while the divorce case is pending. Certainly custody matters, child support matters would continue whether they wish to participate or not. And what typically happens is as time goes by, in a very short time, the other party will take part in the litigation and hopefully we can reach some sort of settlement that both parties are agreeable to. If the other party just flat out refuses to agree to a divorce or agree to any kind of settlement on any of the issues, they can drag it out for a period of time. Of course the courts are not going to force anybody to stay married if they don’t want to. But basically, I guess you can call it a waiting period, that the other party if they refuse to grant the divorce to drag this out for a period of up to two years. That two year period case will proceed and the other party really is powerless to stop that. But as I said in most cases we are working these issues out and the case will proceed and wrap up well before that two year period. Well let’s get to the last area which is the property and assets. What does an equitable distribution mean. Equitable distribution is the means by which the court will look at the marital assets of a couple and divide them. In some states, for instance California, they’re called community property estates, and regardless of the situation that the couple may be in, they will, the courts in California for instances will split the marital assets equally, and that can be done in very short order. Pennsylvania does not do that. Pennsylvania will look at the marital assets and divide them on what is fair according to the court. Marital assets are any assets that were accumulated during the marriage. The day you got married until the day you separated. The court will, first the attorneys actually will inventory those assets and attempt to identify them and of course the attorneys and certainly I would attempt to resolve this without going to court with dividing the assets in a way that the parties can accept. If not the court will divide the assets in a way that the court feels is equitable. Not necessarily 50/50. Although many cases do work out that the assets are divided 50/50, not always. If one party is able to earn a lot more money than the party that makes less money may be awarded a greater percentage of the marital estate because the spouse earning more money will be able to earn that money back, and they’ll be on a more equal footing there. Certainly if one spouse has an education and for instance our client perhaps did not have an advanced degree or something, the court could award our client a greater share of the marital assets simply because they are not able to earn as much money or in order to rehabilitate our client, our client might make more money out of the equity distribution process so they would be enabled to get a degree or increase their earnings capacity. Well are you entitled to property that’s held in your spouse’s name alone. Yes. That’s often another point of confusion for many clients. Many clients will call me and say well I’ve been married for a number of years, and the house is in my husband’s name so I’m not entitled to that. That’s certainly not the case. Marital assets are divided by the court regardless of whose name they are titled in. And the same goes for debt. Debt is treated the same way as assets. And again marital assets or marital debt are any assets or debt that’s accumulated from the day you got married until the day you separated, regardless of whose name that they’re titled in. And that will also include a lot of people who don’t think about this, but if one spouse has a pension plan, that would include that pension plan. I was thinking Steve, we’d ultimately do another show on equitable distribution as well as maybe just solely on alimony just to break it down into segments. There’s a lot to cover on that area I’m sure. What if your spouse and the other spouse have already agreed to the divorce and they have an agreement as to how to split the property. How do you work with someone like that. Well certainly that very often makes the process go much more quickly, and frankly much more inexpensively for the client because if the two parties are not arguing in court all the time they’re going to save a lot of money. I encourage my clients if they are getting along to some extent with their spouse, or if they can communicate with their spouse to sit down and identify their assets together and identify a way that they think they feel is fair as far as splitting up those assets. Decide which person perhaps is going to remain in the house and which one is going to leave. Which person is going to get the car and so forth. But I do caution my clients not to agree to anything until they’ve consulted an attorney because an attorney will be able to identify the assets much more clearly and they certainly might be able to identify assets that the client may not be aware of. For instance pension plans as I’ve just discussed. And get the client much more specific advice on how the courts would be likely to rule or what is a fair ultimate settlement for this matter. So it is important that perhaps if the clients can discuss the matter that they not formally agree to anything without consulting an attorney. OK last question. Can you handle your own divorce. You certainly are permitted to handle your own case in the courts. Many people call me up and ask me for advice about that. I suppose you’re also permitted to perform medical procedures on yourself and to represent yourself at IRS audits. None of those ideas are good ideas. The rules are rather complicated on divorce. If you have a simple divorce it will not likely be very expensive for the attorney’s fees. But an attorney is the one that is going to be aware of different rules and different laws as they related to divorce and can guide you through that process. Very often people think that they can go on the internet and just get the forms and fill them out and those rarely if ever work because Pennsylvania does have very specific forms at its most basic level that need to be completed. Those forms need to be submitted in certain time frames which the client is not going to be aware of. There are certain methods that for instance the divorce complaint has to be served. And if you do any of those steps wrong, the court will not grant your divorce. Also the court and the people who work in the court offices will not generally give you any advice on how to do this. They will just tell you that you’ve done it wrong and that you’re going to have to start from scratch. Also you really need to at least consult a divorce attorney. A divorce attorney can tell you what you might expect in the process and identify marital assets as we touched on before. And really can give you advice on what a fair resolution to this would be. Handling this on your own, once you’ve done it on your own, it’s over. I get calls all the time from people that have been to court where an aspect of their case has been completed or the whole case has been completed and then they’ll call me and ask me what I think. And I may have to tell them that I don’t think that that’s a fair decision or a fair outcome for you; however, there’s nothing that I can do about it because you’ve represented yourself on this and now the case is over. So some of those online options that sometimes pop up, no fault divorce, and you lose opportunities for assets. You certainly do. If you file a simple divorce complaint and you may get those forms from a variety of sources, and you file them, you may not realize that once the divorce is granted, you may not be entitled to any assets. You may not be entitled to alimony or support payments. These things need to be filed in a very specific time in a very specific way, in a very specific order, and the court will generally not grant you any exceptions if you do not follow the rules correctly. What the judges will tell you is if you want to represent yourself they will hold you to the same standard as they would hold a licensed and practicing attorney. Well Steve I appreciate your spending some time with us here. This has been very helpful to add another chapter. This 25th podcast that we’ve recorded on all areas of law that people encounter, across a very wide spectrum. So thank you for joining us. It’s been my pleasure Karl. If anyone wants to see the whole library, you can find it at www.makinglaweasy.com. We’ve got a section related to our podcasts on our website. If you have any specific questions or would like to contact Steve or 1-2-3 Law Group call us at 1.877.7.123.LAW. Thanks for joining another issue of the Making Law Easy Show and I look forward to talking to you on more shows in the future.
Lawyer Tennis Championship Denied
On Thursday, June 19th, Karl Schieneman the founder of 1-2-3 Law Group played in the ACBA Tennis Tournament. After winning the qualifying round, the tournament organizer Jeffrey Pollock was convinced by the two finalists to play in the singles competition. While initially Mr. Pollock refused saying it wouldn’t be fair, he decided after much prodding to join the tournament. With fresh legs and a lot of support from the wind, Mr. Pollock upset Karl Schieneman in the finals 6-3.
Seriously, the tennis tournament is always a highlight for me at the Bench Bar Conference. Jeff has done a fabulous job the last few years organizing the tennis tournament and it was an honor to lose to him. We will have a rematch at some point later this summer with less wind and a decidedly different strategy employed by me. It was also exciting to attend the Bench Bar Conference again and talk to so many of the lawyers in attendance about 1-2-3 Law Group and the concept we are working on called Making Law Easy as 1-2-3. The response was very favorable from my colleagues that this virtual legal model is worth continuing to develop locally and pursuing as a national strategy. I left Seven Springs Resort in Champion Pennsylvania feeling more validated on the business concept of Making Law Easy and excited to continue growing the business model outside of the Pittsburgh region. Look for more exciting news to follow in the coming year. A lot is happening right now that is premature to post at this time.
Best wishes for your summer and we look forward to working with you in the future if the opportunity presents itself.
Sincerely,
Karl Schieneman, Esq./MBA
Virtual Or Online Law Firm Version 2.0
1-2-3 Law Group has now been in operation for a little over a month after seperating from what we now describe as an experiment called Version 1.0 of a Virtual Law Firm or Online Lawyering. So what’s new with Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 2.0? To understand this, we sort of need to recap what was working in Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 1.0 for the first 10 months. Our use of online case management tools and a virtual network of lawyers to assist clients in cases which the lawyers had a substantial amount of experience in was very well received by both the lawyers and the clients. The problem was our law firm model was for lack of a better word, not very virtual. As a result, our expenses were higher than they needed to be and despite some success and strong client satisfaction, we were never even remotely profitable. As the majority investor and creator of Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 1.0, I analyzed our business process and concluded it was time build off of our successes and to work on Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 2.0.
Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 2.0, does build on the success of the first version. However, it is an immediate improvement because we have reduced our expenses by over 30% and now 1-2-3 Law Group is a truly “virtual law firm”. This enables us to continue to keep our billing rates down without losing sight of what worked very well in Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 1.0. We were also profitable for the first time in only our first month of operation!!! Our website continues to evolve and offer more tools such as online bill payment, better access to our podcasts, and easier navigation. We have also assembled a technology team to continue the development of our website so it can improve and grow and added an of counsel who has been AV rated by Martindale Hubbell, its highest rating for lawyers and was a partner in two large Pittsburgh law firms as well as a pioneer in the delivery of online legal forms. The next goal is to get to Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 3.0 which will require being able to change how law is practiced and accessed much like how Amazon.com and ebay have changed how we buy products, how Sabre, Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz have changed how we buy travel arrangements, and how blogs, podcasts and websites have changed the way we get news and information.
So does reaching Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 2.0 in the form of todays 1-2-3 Law Group mean that we have succeeded? That depends on how you define success. I believe both versions 1.0 and 2.0 have been successful in their own way but much work remains to improve client service and continue to reduce costs. The world of online lawyering continues to hold so much potential. Lawyers have written about this potential for over ten years but have only recently begun moving to execute on the potential. To attain objective success and a scalable model which will continue to lower costs to a level which most customers can afford while still delivering profits to the law firm and/or lawyers will require working with the following five factors:
- attracting and making an investment of additional capital to create or buy online tools to reduce the costs of practicing law,
- the continued development of online tools,
- identifying and locating skilled professionals who can provide these online tools to teach the legal community how to move forward,
- researching, identifying and solving the bottle necks in law firm practice which solo practitioners and small law firms everywhere face,
and - having an understanding, respect, appreciation of and sensitivity for the rules of professional conduct which govern how lawyers, nonlawyers and clients interact with each other.
Of these 5 factors, lawyers as a group tend to only excel in the 5th area of understanding the rules of professional conduct. The first three challenges of raising money and developing technology are not considered areas where law firms can excel for a variety of reasons. In the United States, law firms can only be owned by lawyers. This makes it challenging to raise capital for investment and hire talented nonlawyers who can develop new tools. Even if a law firm could achieve this objective, how would the talent required to develop new tools fare long term working for only lawyers? As an example of this challenge, and one of my areas of experience over the past 6 years is the emerging field of electronic discovery where lawyers manage the review of emails and other electronic records in anticipation of litigation. I have spent a good deal of time analyzing this field including building a board game to capture many of the issues confronting clients in these projects. My assessment is law firms in this field have struggled to attract internal talent to oversee the technology and project management needs of this field. As a result, most of the successful law firms in this field have had to partner with outside vendors as well as their clients to tackle electronic discovery. I know of many law firms who have tried to build internal teams to tackle electronic discovery and have hired technology managers only to see the technology manager leave within a year or two because of an inability to work for lawyers who have difficulty appreciating their technology skills. This is not just the lawyers in the electronic discovery group. In many instances, the pressure put on the technologist and under appreciation comes from lawyers who work in other practice areas and have an under appreciation of how technology works. Because of the difficulties in hiring skilled professionals who are not lawyers and paying them at levels which they can make in other organizations, law firms have a difficult time solving issues for their clients which reside outside of the narrow confines of legal analysis or being just an advisor to their clients. To put it bluntly, law firms are not very entrepreneurial. As a result of these obstacles illustrated by the field of electronic discovery, I believe to develop Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 3.0 which is a scalable online legal solution, will require a good dose of creativity to work within these five areas and it may not be a law firm which develops these solutions.
So what does this mean for us here at 1-2-3 Law Group which is a law firm. Today there are at least a half dozen areas which we are targetting for continued improvement in 2008. I also believe, despite the weaknesses in the law firm model for entrepreneurship cited above, that 1-2-3 Law Group is aided in our pursuit of Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 3.0, because entrepreneurship is a strength of our business. For example, my background in the legal field has been focussed in entrepreneurship instead of purely the practice of law. I have been able to work with many other entrepreneurs both within and outside the legal field. Case in point is my involvement in creating and promoting entrepreneurship among technologists within Pittsburgh at Devhouse Pittsburgh. This project has nothing to do with law and everything to do with creating new technology. Through a series of national relationships with other thought leaders in the field of law firm practice, electronic record management, and automated form creation. All of the participants in 1-2-3 Law Group are entrepreneurs having started and owned their own businesses. I firmly believe 1-2-3 Law Group is well situated to continue to explore Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 3.0. What this solution will look like when we get there is a different story, but for the exploration of bridging the gap between Version 2.0 and Version 3.0, I am comfortable with 1-2-3 Law Group’s structure.
The good news for 1-2-3 Law Group’s customers and potential customers TODAY, is unlike a new piece of software, Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 2.0 does work well here in Western Pennsylvania and can provide a working laboratory to develop more of the tools and processes to take online legal services to the next level of Virtual or Online Law Firm Version 3.0. Together we can work on improving the online legal experience for the benefit all legal customers. That is our “holy grail” here at 1-2-3 Law Group and one which we will continue to pursue.
Feel free to post comments below if you have thoughts on this subject.
The Claimant’s Attorneys Role in Workers Compensation Mandatory Mediation Process
Act 147 adopted in October 2006, amended the Act to include provisions for case management and mandatory mediation. Since the settlement conferences had become a common occurrence here in Western Pennsylvania, with regard to mediation, many asked the questions “what for?” Is there really a difference between a settlement conference and a mediation? Alternative dispute tools have gained great popularity in the last few years, so where does this fit in to the workers’ compensation system.
Under section 401 of the new Act, mediation is defined as follows:
My Previous Law Firm Featured On the National Law Marketing Portal
We were pleased to notice that the Law Marketing Portal, one of the top online resources for legal marketing, reprinted the Pittsburgh Post Gazette article on January 18th, 2008. At this early stage in our history, it is an honor to be getting this type of attention. This outside attention from the top legal marketers in the legal profession has us even more convinced that our virtual model represents something of value for our clients. http://www.lawmarketing.com/pages/articles.asp?Action=Article&ArticleCategoryID=13&ArticleID=711
New Bankruptcy Guideline Figures
The United States Department of Justice has released new Median Income Figures. This is the sixth time since the adoption of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) that the figures have been adjusted.
2 Persons - $50,628
3 Persons - $63,491
4 Persons - $76,182
2 Persons - $49,226
3 Persons - $61,733
4 persons - $74,072
New Legal Podcast Layout (But The Price Is And Will Always Remain Free)
We are constantly challenging ourselves to improve how we communicate with our clients and the general public. After studying our website traffic patterns we decided to make our podcast library more visible and easier to access. One of our goals is to continue developing the largest library of legal podcasts anywhere.
- We enlisted the support of a national podcast expert and made accessing our podcasts easier. You can now listen to any podcast right from the podcast description without having to look up episodes or following instructions. Just click on the triangle next to the podcast description and the podcast starts. Look at our Legal Resources page for examples.
- We also visibly linked the podcasts we have recorded to the top of each of our practice area pages. Click here for an example.
- Finally, when we announce a new podcast show, we will include call in instructions on the announcement we send out. So if you are registered with 1-2-3 Law Group or have clicked on the RSS Feeds button, you can be updated on an upcoming show and decide if you want to listen in live or maybe ask questions. Registering is a great idea of you want to know of our shows so you don’t have to continue to visit our website to see if we have information on a legal topic.
These improvements should make it easier to get free legal tips across a wide range of areas of law. Please help us to spread the word and let us know what you think of our improvements or to suggest improvements maybe we have not thought of.