Are Old Ethics Rules Stifling Innovations in Legal Services Delivery?
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The legal services delivery environment is changing with supersonic speed as technology brings new innovations. But these new methods of delivering and marketing legal services still must pass muster under ethics rules that have been in effect for years if not longer.
That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not entirely good, either, said speakers today at a program sponsored by the Law Practice Division in Boston, where the 2014 ABA Annual Meeting is being held. The program was titled “Beating—or Joining—the Disruptors: How to Prosper Ethically in the New Landscape of Legal Services Delivery.”
On the one hand, recent court decisions and state bar ethics opinions have interpreted some of these longstanding ethics rules to apply to many of the newest innovations in legal services delivery and marketing over the Internet and in the cloud. But at the same time, these rules could stifle even more creative innovations.
“We’re going through the most radical change in the legal profession,” said panelist Richard S. Granat, a co-chair of the E-Lawyering Task Force in the ABA Law Practice Division and a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, where he is co-director of the Center for Law Practice Technology. “It’s tremendous, and it will continue as systems for marketing and lead generation continue to evolve. And the ethics rules will feel the pressure to change from market forces.”
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