Over at Philly Law Blog, Jordan Rushie, affectionately known as R2D2 at Simple Justice World Headquarters, has gone on a bit of a tear on poor Rachel Rodgers, who is trying desperately to start a viable law practice as a virtual lawyer.  While my first impulse is to cry, leave Rachel alone, it would be a shame to pass up an opportunity to offer some context.

Jordan writes:

Today I was bored and decided to see what Rachel Rodgers is up to. Something she said caught my eye :

As a lawyer with an online-based law practice, your virtual law office website is your storefront and reception area.  The first impression you leave with website visitors can often determine what they think of you and whether or not they will become clients. Its important that your virtual law office website be an interactive, trusted resource for your clients that reflects your personality and gives them a sense of what its like to work with you.

Ah, the future of law! Technology is going to change everything about lawyering! In the very near future no lawyer will have an office and everyone will work from either Starbucks or their living room.

Sometimes, the message isn’t in the lines, but between them, and I suspect that’s the case for Rachel.   Carolyn Elefant’s  comment to Jordan’s post is instructive:

But – and here is my caveat – not all law practices are the same and not all lawyers want or need office space. Firms that provide outsourced general counsel services often work on site for clients. Some lawyers (often women) only want a virtual or part time practice. Many firms here in DC provide service on a national basis and rarely see clients at all. Appellate practice does not necessarily require space.

That doesn’t mean that lawyers in these categories shouldn’t have an office ( I have physical space for an intern and staff), only that an office may not be critical. It may be that full service Westlaw (for an appellate lawyer) or costly CLE and conferences or even a slick website my be more important an expense than an office. If making it your own means anything, it means that lawyers have to do what works for their practice.

It’s important that Carolyn wrote this, “[s]ome lawyers (often women) only want a virtual or part time practice,” because if Jordan had done so, or me, we would have been branded dismissive at best, sexist at worst.  Sadly, it matters whose hand it comes from, and few virtual office aficionados will challenge Carolyn, whereas they are only too happy to condemn a curmudgeon or male for the same thoughts.

What Jordan fails to appreciate is that Rachel has no choice in the matter if she wants to play lawyer on the internet.  She’s physically far away from any jurisdiction where she would be allowed to practice law, and so has to either forsake her education and ability to work as a lawyer, or she has to embrace a third rate alternative and hope that someone, somewhere, won’t notice that she only plays a lawyer on the internet. 

But I suspect that Carolyn similarly doesn’t appreciate that Jordan not only takes issue with the whole “virtual lawyer” gig, with its vast ethical and substantive implications that few either talk about or care about, but the fact that Rachel Rodgers tries to proselytize others to join her in the ether.

It’s not so much that Rachel has chosen the dark path for herself, but that she holds herself out as a guru for others. Indeed, if one is to believe her hype, she’s having greater success as a “lawyer coach” for the misbegotten than she is as a lawyer for, well, anyone.  That, I suspect, is what burns Jordan’s synapses.

But there is a pathology here that I think R2D2 is missing. Jordan needs to imagine how sad and lonely it must be in the Rodgers’ house, a young lawyer barely scraping to get by and trying to boldly rationalize her situation by arguing its virtues to the handful of other, similarly sad, young faceless lawyers.  Sure, she presents a chipper demeanor, but can’t you see the tears, the loneliness, the sadness of isolation?

Make no mistake, there is a huge difference between the lawyer who has spent years gaining competence and experience, gaining a reputation among one’s peers and making close friends with others to share and grow, and the lawyer who has invented a persona on the internet that doesn’t exist anywhere else.  Carolyn speaks of various practices that, to some extent, function well without the need for a physical reception area.  But then, these lawyers reached that point in their careers after first becoming the lawyers they promise the world they are.

So don’t beat up on Rachel for crafting the pretense of a world that doesn’t exist. No one is persuaded to let her guide their legal careers before she has managed to create one of her own.  She’s just using the internet to talk out loud, to convince herself that she can somehow survive the solitude of her lonely room and silent phone.  Instead of seeing her perky face, think of the tears she cries when she’s all alone.  Show some compassion, Jordan. Leave Rachel alone.



FYI: The thing hanging down from the microphone in Smokey’s hand is called a “cord.” There was once a time when things needed “cords” to connect to other things and make them work. Cool, right?