This award is named for James I. Keane, the founding Chair of the Law Practice Management Section eLawyering Task Force. The Task Force was created in 2000, when ABA President William G. Paul, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, took the unusual and creative step of asking a Section to assume responsibility for an initiative to examine ways that lawyers could use the internet and other electronic resources to deliver legal services to people of moderate means, more efficiently and effectively.
eLawyering is doing legal work—not just marketing—over the web. Pioneering practitioners have found dramatic new ways to communicate and collaborate with clients and other lawyers, produce documents, settle disputes, interact with courts, and manage legal knowledge. eLawyering encompasses all the ways in which lawyers can do their work using the web and associated technologies. For most lawyering “verbs”—interview, investigate, counsel, draft, advocate, analyze, negotiate, manage, etc.—there are corresponding internet-based tools and technologies.
eLawyering and its lawyer-less analogs present fundamental challenges for our profession. There are great dangers, but also great opportunities for attorneys. To be successful in the coming era, lawyers will need to know how to practice over the web, manage client relationships in cyberspace, and ethically offer “unbundled” services.
The purpose of this award is to give recognition to law offices that have developed legal service innovations that are delivered over the internet. The focus of the award is on the innovative delivery of personal legal services, with special attention given to firms and entities that serve both moderate-income individuals and the broad middle class.
Please provide information about your nomination for the James I. Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering here.
Nominations Deadline: December 14th, 2020
