Maryland Lawyers reinvent careers with virtual law firms

By Lauren Kirkwood The Daily Record Newswire BALTIMORE, MD - Attorney Nakia Gray's website greets visitors with a simple message: "Welcome to my digital world." But unlike many lawyers, Gray's online presence is the home base of her firm rather than simply an extension of her physical office. Burned out from seven years of logging billable hours as a litigator in a mid-size suburban firm, Gray was contemplating leaving the practice of law when a solution hit her "like a ton of bricks" - create a virtual law firm that would combine her love of making online connections with her desire for a more flexible work environment. With the launch in February of Nakia Gray Legal P.C., her virtual firm focused on small business and intellectual property law, Gray has concentrated her practice on helping entrepreneurs who are running enterprises strikingly similar to her own but who don't have the legal knowledge needed to protect their brands. "For the most part, all of my client business is conducted through the Internet - we electronically share documents; we have video conferences over Skype or Google Hangout. Everything is pretty much systematic and electronic," she said. "It gives me the flexibility to be location-independent, and it gives me the ability to reach so many more people." Gray's client base includes "a lot of coaches," she said. Many of them are life coaches, relationship coaches or health coaches who've created digital courses or products. They're typically highly creative but often shy away from the legal aspects of running a business, she said. And that's where Gray comes in. "My clients are very heart-centered and passionate about their businesses," she said. "They've built very strong communities and followings and many of them have some kind of national or international brand recognition that they want to trademark." Balancing act For Stephanie Reid, who launched her virtual firm, Stephanie Reid Law, last summer, flexibility was also the main appeal of the online business model. Like Gray, she spent several years in private practice, but she began to wonder while expecting her second child whether the pace of law firm life would give her enough time for family. "I know that a lot of women, when they face this, they assume they have to exit the legal field completely for a number of years until their kids are in school," Reid said. "I felt compelled to keep my foot in the door." While Gray markets her practice as a full-service law firm, Reid offers "unbundled legal services" to customers in Maryland and Delaware. The term refers to limited-scope, flat fee representation, she said. Her practice is focused on family law and estate planning, as well as small business consultation. Although her work is also web-based, Reid said she's willing to travel to meet clients if necessary - sometimes in a public library or in their homes. Some clients, such as those who are older, are simply not as comfortable conducting business online, she said. Gray said she keeps offices in Prince George's County and Washington, D.C. for the same reason. The small portion of her practice that is devoted to estate planning work can require her to meet with clients in person, she said. Tech-savvy clients While both attorneys have some clients who prefer to meet in person, most of their clients are drawn to the virtual model for a reason, they said. Often they're younger, consider themselves digital natives and prefer the efficiency of online communication. "A lot of my clients are millennials," Gray said. "Millennials, they're very technologically savvy; they're very do-it-yourself kind of people. I have found there's a huge market of people who don't want to hire a lawyer to do a trademark for them - they'd rather take a course that'll teach them how to do it." Gray decided to meet that market by creating her own digital courses on copyrights and trademarks. She also offers a "virtual general counsel" package that allows clients to pay one monthly fee for her services. "It's a monthly bill like their Verizon bill - all of my systems are automated, so I don't have to chase people down for money," she said. "It takes the element of surprise away from them." Flat fee models are also very popular with family law clients, Reid said. "With the family law base, they want something quick and dirty. They don't want to take ten trips to the law firm or spend thousands of dollars - it's gone on long enough, and they just want to get it done," Reid said. "They seem to like the 'no muss, no fuss' kind of approach as opposed to the traditional law office model, where you have to take time off work to drive there and sit in the office." But while a virtual firm might be perfect for parents seeking to tweak a custody or child support order, Reid said she won't take on contested divorces or other complex matters that require full representation. Meeting challenges Running a virtual firm has given Reid the flexibility she needed, but launching her own business has brought challenges, as well. Finding the time to connect with fellow attorneys has been one of the biggest struggles, she said. "I'm not out there as much as I'd like to be," she said. "I'd like to have time to attend more things and to network a little more, but I am a one-woman show." Gray said she hired a virtual assistant - who's based in Maine - to help with the day-to-day operations of the firm. For her, shifting her legal mindset away from billable hours and toward marketing efforts to grow her fledgling firm has been the most difficult aspect. She's relied on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to connect with the legal community, and has dabbled in the video-streaming app Periscope to reach potential clients. "It's a great way to one build yourself as an asset; that's probably the best part, she said. "It also gives your clients a way to learn something different they may not have known they needed." Those platforms also help infuse Gray's business with personality and remind clients that she's an entrepreneur in addition to an attorney, she said. "The success I've had comes from people being able to relate to me," Gray said. "I think we as lawyers, we are so guarded. We have this idea that we're supposed to be distant, and we speak this language that's above people's heads, but people don't like that. The way people like to do business, they have to feel a connection and feel like they relate to you." Published: Thu, Jul 09, 2015