What follows is the client registration use case for the ABIEE™ (Alliance of Bankruptcy Information and Expert Exchange). If you were following the previous related post, you will see that the client registration use case specifically builds upon the global client use case. Before the client can access any major features of the application, he/she must register an account. Although it is possible to allow anonymous browsing and functionality, up front registration makes the most sense.

The Registration Process Overview

Basically, a client will complete a brief and painless registration form. When they click submit, pertinent data will be entered into a database table. Next, the client and the site administrator will receive notification of the event.

Developer's Perspective

The programming portion of the registration use case is fairly straight forward. Once the client enters information on the form and clicks submit, logic will be written to add that information to a database table. Additional code will be written to confirm the registration with the client. Finally, code will be written to notify the site administrator that a new user has in fact registered an account.

Designer's Perspective

The eventual graphic design of this input form will reflect the overall look and feel of the application (the graphic design will come much later in the process). The focus should be on modern design techniques with an emphasis on usability.

Marketing Perspective

At this point, it is important to realize that the client has an open mind and may be interested in additional services/offers. One thing that I will add here is an opportunity to opt-in to marketing  communications such as newsletters and special offers. One more marketing feature that I will add here is an opt-in for a printed information packet of some kind.

Conclusion

Once the client is registered we will have non personally-identifying identity parameters to use for future programming, design, and marketing implementations.

Client_Reg_UseCase.pdf (143.40 kb)

It would take a few thousand posts to accurately discuss every nuanced detail regarding website design. Not only would that be an impossible feat, it would also be very boring for me. Legal website design tends to have a reputation for being very dry, plain, and boring. I tend to disagree.

The Status Quo

I'm not attempting to reinvent the legal website design wheel, nor am I suggesting my approach and style be used over another approach and style. Over the years, I have focused strictly on legal website design and legal user-specific web interfaces. During this time, I have seen legal websites which were poorly designed brochures evolve into better looking, shinier brochures. Assembly-line design firms are cranking out static, html only legal website brochures at an alarming rate. A "great-looking" legal website today looks really flashy, but lacks excitement and interest.

Integration will not work

If you slap a new coat of paint over a rusted car, the new paint job will not last very long. The same goes for adding new e-lawyering capability to existing legal website designs. Most existing legal websites are not designed nor optimized to operate as capable web applications. As I said before, I am not trying to make an already complicated idea, even more complicated. However, I must honestly say that a custom e-lawyering solution must be built and designed from the ground up.

Technical design goals

The goal of a well-designed legal website/application is not to simply "look good". There are specific goals that must be met for every successful legal web application design. We need to focus on optimizing the landing page so that the most important user goals are well-exposed. The landing page of your site is the page that potential and existing clients initially land on when accessing your application. Assembly line legal website design firms have no concept (as far as I can tell) of these types of techniques. It is a mistake to fill your landing page with paragraphs of information about your firm. I know that there are some urban legends that claim that this will help search rankings. I doubt it.

There are many other goals to meet such as persona-targeting, color selection, layout, interface design techniques etc. I will touch on many of these in later posts.

Example of "My Style" and approach to legal website design

Below is a sample landing page of a ficticious legal website design. If you examine the design, you will see that every element is designed to drive a click action by the visitor. This click action may lead to a number of additional resources for the user to explore including: case review, newsletter sign-up, e-books, articles, podcasts, etc. Toward the bottom of the page there are persona-based navigation boxes designed to entice users fitting a certain persona to click through for more information. This content based approach is backed by common-sense marketing/web marketing principles. Rarely will you retain a client on the 1st visit to your site/application.

There are two emerging areas in the realm of e-lawyering. One seems to have received more attention than the other. Based on my observations, e-lawyering discussions typically focus on virtual law office software served in the cloud. The cloud is another name for the internet. This software is delivered as SaaS (Software as a service). This type of cloud computing allows law firms and sole practicioners to manage their practice and store files completely online, without the need to install any special software. Obviously this has many advantages. 

Legal Zoomish Service

The second area of e-lawyering is the online delivery of legal services. This type of e-lawyering no doubt involves more than an out-of-the-box solution, perhaps. For example, Legal Zoom® claims to offer a seamless experience to its users by allowing them to take care of legal matters from the comfort of their home. This is considered online legal service delivery. Sure, it involves great work to get started, however Legal Zoom® has served over 1 million people. This is a baffling number considering the amount of lawyers there are in the United States who would otherwise be perfectly capable of serving this market of consumers.

The fact is that this second type of e-lawyering is the most challenging and also the most promising. In my opinion, a virtual law office should work in conjunction with an online legal service firm. 

Online Legal Service Firm and SaaS

Have no doubt or fear that the future will bring SaaS services geared toward providing online legal service delivery rather than law practice management software. Some VLO software slowly moves into this market by allowing lawyers to communicate with clients and collaborate with documents via an online space. However, this is nothing new and could be achieved in many ways.

The next generation SaaS legal service delivery vehicles will be much more capable. Indeed they will vary greatly and must be jurisdiction specific. Jurisdiction specific SaaS legal service delivery software alleviates the problem of UPL and also ensures that the software is optimized for the laws of a particular jurisdiction.

Yes, I believe the future of e-lawyering and the legal service industry is extremely bright.

People want a personal touch

Based on my experience with legal service delivery and technology, I can tell you that people want more than automated software. In fact, the concept of e-lawyering lives along side of completely automated legal software. Any seasoned legal professional knows that every area of law has twists, turns, and unforseen circumstances which must be addressed. The challenge for e-lawyers and legal professionals today is to integrate the best of internet technology with the personal touch that only they can deliver.

Programmers with deep legal knowledge

The last thing I want to do is to complicate matters. However, I believe that it is crucial to have a developer/programmer who has knowledge about your area of practice. Otherwise, you will need to do a lot of hand-holding and your end result may not be what you expected. A developer/programmer with legal knowledge can tailor your web application to meet the real-world challenges involved in many areas of law.

Example of a real world challenge

The following example represents a portion of an online questionnaire/form which would ideally be part of a case review process. At this point, the legal professional does not know much about the case, but can nonetheless capitalize on relationship building opportunities with the potential client. This sample is based on some form of a child support action in Washington State. Consequently, it is based on a 20-day response deadline framework. Please expirement with the form below.

On what date were you physically served with the paperwork? If you were not physically served, on what date did you sign for the paperwork?

About the example 

The above example is a basic implementation of a real world solution to address a potential family law client who needs to respond to some form of child support paperwork. One of the most fundamental requirements of any legal practice is timing. This form captures the timing information and allows the legal professional to work with that data. The are many ethical ways to leverage and act upon this information.