Virtual Law Practice & Gamification of Legal Services

Virtual Law Practice & Gamification of Delivery Methods

Stephanie Kimbro, M.A., J. D.

Fellow, Stanford Law

Center for the Legal Profession

Presentation for the ABA Commission on the

Future of Legal Services

January 30, 2015

About the Presenter

Stephanie Kimbro, MA, JD, is a Fellow at Stanford Law School

Center for the Legal Profession in Palo Alto, California. She is the

author of several books including Virtual Law Practice: How to

Deliver Legal Services Online (2010, 2nd ed. forthcoming 2015),

Limited Scope Legal Services: Unbundling and the Self-Help Client

(2012), Consumer Law Revolution: The Lawyers’ Guide to the

Online Legal Marketplace (2013), and Online Legal Services for the

Client-Centric Law Firm (2013). Her current research at Stanford

involves the use of gamification to increase productivity in law

firms and to improve online engagement between lawyers and

the public. She is a member of the ABA Standing Committee on

the Delivery of Legal Services and a member in the BlueSky

Thinking Group in the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal

Services.

• Stephanie Kimbro, M.A., J.D.

http://www.abanet.org/abastore/index.cfm?section=main&fm=Product.AddToCart&pid=5110707

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http://www.managingpartner.com/bookshop/online-legal-services-client-centric-law-firm

Overview

• Basics of virtual law practice

• Case studies of law firms delivering legal services online and the technology used (with a side note on unbundling)

• What is effective online engagement between lawyers and the public and why does it matter?

• Gamification techniques to increase online engagement

• Future of online legal service delivery

Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

Secure Client Portal


Most Popular Virtual Law Firm Business Models

• Completely Web-based - “pure-play”• Unbundled or limited legal services

• Integrated into a traditional law office• Unbundled and full-service


Unbundling


Sample Unbundled Services

• Drafting pleadings, briefs, declarations or orders

• Document review

• Conducting legal research

• Negotiating

• Making limited appearances

• Advising on court procedures and courtroom behavior

• Coaching on strategy or role playing

• Preparing exhibits

• Organizing discovery materials

• Drafting contracts and agreements

• Providing legal guidance or opinions

• Online dispute resolution


Multijurisdictional Virtual Law Firm


Virtual Law Office - Home Office


Multijurisdictional Virtual Law Firm


Online Legal Conversations


Where are the law firms?

Consumers

LegalZoom

Rocket Lawyer

Avvo

Other Branded Networks

Press

Bloggers

Engagement Comes First

• How?• Educational, self-help resources

available online• Web advisors, web calculators

• Expert systems, checklists

• Document Automation and Assembly

• Free legal forms with instructions

• Video tutorials

• Online tri-age methods to identify the existence of a legal need

• Matching legal need of consumer with appropriate service –whether that’s the law firm, unbundled, self-help, legal aid, etc.


• Positive experience

– Removing the intimidation of working with lawyers

– Identifying legal need in the first placeSee “Accessing Justice in the Contemporary USA: Findings from the Community Needs and Services Study” by Rebecca Sandefur, American Bar Foundation; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Department of Sociology; University of Illinois College of Law, August 8, 2014 at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2478040

– Encouraging people to learn the law and their legal rights BEFORE something happens

– Creating better prepared, educated clients


What We Know

• Easier with a personal or law firm brand in place and an online presence

• Human contact is still necessary• Middle-person, virtual assistant or receptionist

• Minimal handholding before transfer and/or conversion from lead to paying client

• Consumers still prefer to find lawyers by referral from friends and family


Gamification Increases Engagement

By this year, more than 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify them.

• A report by Gartner Inc., an international IT research and advisory company, showed 70% of Global 2000 organizations would have at least one application that was gamified and predicted that by this year 25% of workplace processes that have been redesigned with have some form of gamification designed into them.

• See Gartner, Inc., April 2011 at http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1629214


What is Gamification?

• The use of game mechanics in non-game applications.

• Game mechanics• Levels• Rewards• Exploration• Progressions• Feedback• Storylines• Quests• Challenges• Achievements• Others


Photo © The Strong, National Museum of Play

What could you gamify in law?

• For in-house• Increasing law firm productivity• Pro bono participation• Associate retention• Logging associate hours efficiently• Turning in associate review• Increasing collaboration & mentorship among lawyers of multiple generations• Training and onboarding of associations and firm members• Encouraging use of technology platforms and behaviors on those systems

• For clients• Filing out an online client intake form or any legal form online• Walking the client through the unbundled steps needed to handle a case as a pro se

litigant• Preparing the client for a hearing or a trial• Motivating them to read emails, status updates, pay bills, or respond to requests for

information or documents• Educating the client about other processes involved in their legal need


Why Games for Access?

• Positive ENGAGEMENT

• 2014 LSC Report of the Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice mentions games and gamification

• Kimbro’s International Report for Ark Publishing


http://www.lsc.gov/sites/lsc.gov/files/LSC_Tech Summit Report_2013.pdf

Flow

“the satisfying, exhilarating feeling of creative accomplishment and

heightened functioning”

•CsikszentmihalyiHis TED talk


http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

Fiero• Primal craving for challenge, to explore, and to

conquer and succeed

• A neuro chemical high

• Designing failure so that it rewards


Games for Social Good

Other fields and professions, including education and medicine, are developing games to help their clients.

There are civics education games (iCivics) for teacher use in the classroom and other games that help law students learn the law and justice system (lawdojo).

But there aren’t that many non-flash-based, actually FUN legal games for the general public.


Legal Game Development

We could be developing games that educate and motivate the general public:

– PREVENTIVE games that give them the tools they need before a legal need arises.

- DIRECTIONAL games that provide DIY resources and point to the appropriate legal assistance whether that’s a legal aid office, self-help center, law firm or other.

- Well-designed games (not flash-based!), not necessarily card games or simulations, great art, calculated game mechanics, connects to real-world legal services, social sharing components for wider-spread, collaboration with professional game designers, artists and developers, dedicated funding for these projects, freedom for risk-taking in the design (ie, not all positive or cookie-cutter storylines)

- See NuLawLab’s Simulation: http://www.nulawlab.org/view/online-simulation-for-self-represented-parties

- See Lien Tran’s Make a Move (immigration law): http://lienbtran.com/games/toma-el-paso/

- My experiments with legal games (estate planning, eviction law): http://virtuallawpractice.org/3086/video-estate-quest-game/


http://www.nulawlab.org/view/online-simulation-for-self-represented-parties

http://lienbtran.com/games/toma-el-paso/

http://virtuallawpractice.org/3086/video-estate-quest-game/


Future innovations in the delivery of legal

services will include more applications to allow

the public to directly interact with a lawyer online. Learning how to create

positive, online engagement through

gamification and other methods will be an important component.

Other ResourcesMy Books:

• Virtual Law Practice: How to Deliver Legal Services Online, ABA/LPD (2010, 2nd edition forthcoming spring 2015)

• Limited Scope Legal Services: Unbundling and the Self-Help Client, ABA/LPD (2012)

• Consumer Law Revolution: Lawyer’s Guide to the Online Legal Marketplace, ABA/LPD, (2013)

• Online Legal Services for the Client-Centric Law Firm, Managing Partner, Ark Group Publishing, 2013

• ABA Unbundling Resource Center

http://www.abanet.org/legalservices/delivery/delunbund.html

• Games for Change

http://www.gamesforchange.org


http://www.abanet.org/legalservices/delivery/delunbund.html

http://www.gamesforchange.org/

Contact

• Stephanie Kimbro, M.A., J.D.

• virtuallawpractice.org

• @StephKimbro

Virtual Law Practice & Gamification of Legal Services

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