I started a family law practice in a small town last year (bill $150 per hour) and am up to about $90,000 in gross profits this year. Probably 95% of my clients come from the internet. I do some uncontested work but the majority of my income is contested cases. I would love to switch over to a VLO doing uncontested cases to lower the stress level, gain more mobility, lose the commute, and so on. I am willing to take a significant hit to my net profit but need to know that eventually I will make enough money to, at the least, survive modestly. For me that’s a VLO with a gross profit of $35-40k. I would be willing to move to a third world country and earn $25-30k, at least to start while building a client base. Does this seem feasible given the information provided? I keep hearing that it took X years for my VLO to be successful but no real definition of what successful is. Obviously the definition varies greatly from person to person.

It’s hard for me to think that slowly transitioning from a brick and mortar office to a VLO is a great idea. I would charge a lower rate running a VLO and it would significantly cut into my net profits to do so due to maintaining costly office expenses. I would rather save up $25-30k and go from a brick and mortar to an entirely virtual office, and give my full attention to building up web pages and internet marketing.

Anyways, any hard data or anecdotal data on the profitability of a family law VLO would be greatly appreciated.

I’m not sure who Lee Rosen considers to be “most attorneys” but I think the generalization is both wrong-headed and frankly mis-leading. I operate a full practice virtual law office, and yes I do market my services. When I purchased services from my VLOTECH vendor Steph Kimbro I was never told that operating a VLO would eliminate my need to market the practice. All practices both virtual and traditional have to be marketed. A virtual client portal allows me the flexibility to reach across the state to access my clients (winery owners). I would not be able to do this with a traditional brick and mortar firm. I provide high end services. So who are these attorney’s exactly that Lee Rosen referring to at this point?

Sounds like the beginning of silly season to me.

The real challenge, I think, you are talking about is a lawyer who goes strictly virtual right from the beginning of their practice AND goes low-end unbundled. They have the most challenging road because it is multiple concepts being introduced to the client at one time. Without targeting the right audience with the right message this can be extremely difficult and unprofitable because you would need volume.

There are too many separate issues being introduced into this debate, though – virtual law practice, unbundled legal services and business planning/marketing – and the fall-guy for poor business planning/marketing should not be virtual law practice technology. It is just a new platform to facilitate the practice of law and an extremely cost-effective one for solos and clients today.