Stephanie Kimbro presented on virtual law practice and gamification of legal services delivery. She discussed how virtual law firms operate online, case studies of online legal services, and the potential to use gamification techniques to increase online engagement between lawyers and the public. Gamification could motivate clients through challenges, achievements and rewards. Developing legal education games could help the public access preventative legal tools and resources before needing assistance. Future innovations may allow more direct online interactions between lawyers and clients.

1. Virtual Law Practice &
Gamification of Delivery Methods
StephanieKimbro,M.A.,J.D.
Fellow,StanfordLaw
CenterfortheLegalProfession
PresentationfortheABACommissiononthe
FutureofLegalServices
January30,2015

2. About the Presenter
Stephanie Kimbro, MA, JD, is a Fellow at Stanford Law School
Center for the Legal Profession in Palo Alto, California. She is the
author of several books including Virtual Law Practice: How to
Deliver Legal Services Online (2010, 2nd ed. forthcoming 2015),
Limited Scope Legal Services: Unbundling and the Self-Help Client
(2012), Consumer Law Revolution: The Lawyers’ Guide to the
Online Legal Marketplace (2013), and Online Legal Services for the
Client-Centric Law Firm (2013). Her current research at Stanford
involves the use of gamification to increase productivity in law
firms and to improve online engagement between lawyers and
the public. She is a member of the ABA Standing Committee on
the Delivery of Legal Services and a member in the BlueSky
Thinking Group in the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal
Services.
• Stephanie Kimbro, M.A., J.D.

3. Overview
• Basics of virtual law practice
• Case studies of law firms delivering legal services
online and the technology used (with a side note
on unbundling)
• What is effective online engagement between
lawyers and the public and why does it matter?
• Gamification techniques to increase online
engagement
• Future of online legal service delivery
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

4. Secure
Client Portal
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

5. Most Popular Virtual Law Firm Business Models
• Completely Web-based - “pure-play”
• Unbundled or limited legal services
• Integrated into a traditional law office
• Unbundled and full-service
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

6. Unbundling
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

7. Sample Unbundled Services
• Drafting pleadings, briefs, declarations or orders
• Document review
• Conducting legal research
• Negotiating
• Making limited appearances
• Advising on court procedures and courtroom behavior
• Coaching on strategy or role playing
• Preparing exhibits
• Organizing discovery materials
• Drafting contracts and agreements
• Providing legal guidance or opinions
• Online dispute resolution
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

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9. Multijurisdictional Virtual Law Firm
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10. Virtual Law Office - Home Office
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

11. Multijurisdictional Virtual Law Firm
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

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19. Online Legal Conversations
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro
Where are the law firms?
Consumers
LegalZoom
Rocket Lawyer
Avvo
Other Branded Networks
Press
Bloggers

20. Engagement Comes First
• How?
• Educational, self-help resources
available online
• Web advisors, web calculators
• Expert systems, checklists
• Document Automation and Assembly
• Free legal forms with instructions
• Video tutorials
• Online tri-age methods to identify the existence of a legal need
• Matching legal need of consumer with appropriate service –
whether that’s the law firm, unbundled, self-help, legal aid, etc.
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

21. • Positive experience
– Removing the intimidation of working with lawyers
– Identifying legal need in the first place
See “Accessing Justice in the Contemporary USA: Findings from the Community
Needs and Services Study” by Rebecca Sandefur, American Bar Foundation; University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Department of Sociology; University of Illinois
College of Law, August 8, 2014 at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2478040
– Encouraging people to learn the law and their legal rights BEFORE
something happens
– Creating better prepared, educated clients
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

22. What We Know
• Easier with a personal or law firm brand in place and
an online presence
• Human contact is still necessary
• Middle-person, virtual assistant or receptionist
• Minimal handholding before transfer and/or conversion from lead to
paying client
• Consumers still prefer to find lawyers by referral
from friends and family
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

23. Gamification Increases Engagement
By this year, more than 50% of organizations that
manage innovation processes will gamify them.
• A report by Gartner Inc., an international IT research
and advisory company, showed 70% of Global 2000
organizations would have at least one application that
was gamified and predicted that by this year 25% of
workplace processes that have been redesigned with
have some form of gamification designed into them.
• See Gartner, Inc., April 2011 at http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1629214
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

24. What is Gamification?
• The use of game mechanics in non-game applications.
• Game mechanics
• Levels
• Rewards
• Exploration
• Progressions
• Feedback
• Storylines
• Quests
• Challenges
• Achievements
• Others
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro
Photo © The Strong, National Museum of Play

25. What could you gamify in law?
• For in-house
• Increasing law firm productivity
• Pro bono participation
• Associate retention
• Logging associate hours efficiently
• Turning in associate review
• Increasing collaboration & mentorship among lawyers of multiple generations
• Training and onboarding of associations and firm members
• Encouraging use of technology platforms and behaviors on those systems
• For clients
• Filing out an online client intake form or any legal form online
• Walking the client through the unbundled steps needed to handle a case as a pro se
litigant
• Preparing the client for a hearing or a trial
• Motivating them to read emails, status updates, pay bills, or respond to requests for
information or documents
• Educating the client about other processes involved in their legal need
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

26. Why Games for Access?
• Positive ENGAGEMENT
• 2014 LSC Report of the Summit on the
Use of Technology to Expand Access to
Justice mentions games and gamification
• Kimbro’s International Report for Ark
Publishing
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

27. Flow
“the satisfying, exhilarating feeling of
creative accomplishment and
heightened functioning”
•Csikszentmihalyi
His TED talk
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

28. Fiero
• Primal craving for challenge, to explore, and to
conquer and succeed
• A neuro chemical high
• Designing failure so that it rewards
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

29. Games for Social Good
Other fields and
professions, including
education and medicine, are
developing games to help
their clients.
There are civics education
games (iCivics) for teacher
use in the classroom and
other games that help law
students learn the law and
justice system (lawdojo).
But there aren’t that many
non-flash-based, actually
FUN legal games for the
general public.
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

30. Legal Game Development
We could be developing games that educate and motivate the general public:
– PREVENTIVE games that give them the tools they need before a legal need
arises.
- DIRECTIONAL games that provide DIY resources and point to the appropriate
legal assistance whether that’s a legal aid office, self-help center, law firm or
other.
- Well-designed games (not flash-based!), not necessarily card games or
simulations, great art, calculated game mechanics, connects to real-world legal
services, social sharing components for wider-spread, collaboration with
professional game designers, artists and developers, dedicated funding for these
projects, freedom for risk-taking in the design (ie, not all positive or cookie-
cutter storylines)
- See NuLawLab’s Simulation: http://www.nulawlab.org/view/online-simulation-
for-self-represented-parties
- See Lien Tran’s Make a Move (immigration law):
http://lienbtran.com/games/toma-el-paso/
- My experiments with legal games (estate planning, eviction law):
http://virtuallawpractice.org/3086/video-estate-quest-game/
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

31. Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro
Future innovations in the delivery of legal
services will include more applications to allow
the public to directly interact with a
lawyer online. Learning how to create
positive, online engagement through
gamification and other methods will be an
important component.

32. Other Resources
My Books:
• Virtual Law Practice: How to Deliver Legal Services Online, ABA/LPD
(2010, 2nd edition forthcoming spring 2015)
• Limited Scope Legal Services: Unbundling and the Self-Help Client,
ABA/LPD (2012)
• Consumer Law Revolution: Lawyer’s Guide to the Online Legal
Marketplace, ABA/LPD, (2013)
• Online Legal Services for the Client-Centric Law Firm, Managing
Partner, Ark Group Publishing, 2013
• ABA Unbundling Resource Center
http://www.abanet.org/legalservices/delivery/delunbund.html
• Games for Change
http://www.gamesforchange.org
Copyright 2015 (c) Stephanie Kimbro

33. Contact
• Stephanie Kimbro, M.A., J.D.
• virtuallawpractice.org
• @StephKimbro