From myLawyer Network
Technology has become a part of everyone’s life and inevitably has penetrated the life of those in the legal profession. The reasons are many and well-known. Especially now, when office life has changed to unrecognizable, technology has empowered us during these difficult times.
Lawyers could not be in their offices, could not be in meetings, could not be in court. They needed to be able to continue their work functions but not from their office. They needed to do it from a mobile office, wherever that might be. It could be in an office at home, if they were lucky to have one, the kitchen table, their car, it could be anywhere. Still, they would have to continue to operate professionally, adhering to practice standards and best practices, protecting the confidentiality of their clients and their reputation.
The basic functionality needed, is secure communication between lawyers and their clients as well as their peers. Many platforms did that job before the pandemic and new ones emerged and grew during the pandemic. Many are technologically advanced and offer all sorts of features catering to the needs of all people, who use the for leisure, entertainment, business, or a mixture of those. From the standpoint of the legal professional, this may be a handicap. We have seen examples where such platforms, because of their many features targeted to all kinds of use, ended up being harmful to the reputation of lawyers and legal professionals that used them. Information has been misdirected, features created for entertainment had been inadvertently used in a professional setting, and so on.
At myLawyer, we identified those issues even before the pandemic. We realized that there was a need to create a platform targeted specifically for use in the legal sector by lawyers and their clients. The idea was to focus on security and offer only the features that are needed to minimize the risk of misuse. The lawyers would always own their data and the platform would be free. So, we went on and created the myLawyer platform that is accessible on all devices, mobile and desktop. The platform allows legal professionals and clients to sign up for free. The clients looking for legal advice can contact the lawyers on the platform and then they can communicate by messaging or video conferencing on the platform. We also wanted to add more features that are of significant importance to lawyers, such as access to premium legal news. All lawyers need to continuously educate themselves on issues of the legal profession in general and their area of the law specifically. Especially young lawyers have a greater need for information and at the same time have limited resources. That is why we thought that we should offer premium legal news to all, again for free. We are doing just that in a special section of our app called the messageBoard. We have implemented a 24/7 live feed of premium legal news, powered by LexisNexis. News is distributed in 20 thematic categories, related to different areas of the law.
But apart from the professional part of their lives, lawyers, like everyone else, saw the personal part of their lives changes too. Lawyers avoid going out to crowded shopping areas and prefer buying online. So, we pondered how we could address this need too.
We came up with the solution of building a marketplace targeted at our audience. A curated marketplace offering various products and services that would be of interest to our lawyers. A marketplace that would not be invasive towards our lawyers, would adapt to their needs, offer them value, and at the same time compliment the myLawyer platform.
