More and more sites are popping up to offer you virtual lawyers’ services. The law firm Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney in Philadelphia has set up a virtual office. They are the firm that handled the infamous “sex bed” case. Kevin Alderman created a virtual bed that allowed avatars to engage in certain behaviors. As the bed caught on, another user made a copy of the code and started selling it for profit. Alderman and Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney managed to secure a consent judgment which ordered the bed-copier to quit.
Animation of the Davis LLP Virtual Office
http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/Cover-Story-New-Frontiers.html
Davis LLP is the first Canadian firm to open an office on Second Life. They use it as a publicity tool. A way to get their name out there, even if they don’t fully understand just how to “Use” all this Web 2.0 technology, they want to make sure they are seen as being at the cutting edge.
There are many blogs available discussing the ever changing landscape of law. While blogs may not be considered an authoritative source, they are helpful in this case since the Laws of the Land change much slower than culture demands. Blogs allow us to see the current views of those in the legal realm. One such blog is Virtually Blind, a blog about the Legal issues that impact virtual worlds. http://virtuallyblind.com/
Benjamin Duranske is the editor of Virtually Blind and author of Virtual Law. He ceased work on the blog in 08 to focus on his career. But it still serves as an online resource. His book Virtual Law is used in many Information ethics classes as required reading. Duranske also joined the firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman of Silicon Valley and helped them create an office in the virtual realm. Even though law is a relatively slow process, jumping into a new field like virtual law allows lawyers to rapidly expand their horizons.
http://www.lawyersinagamersworld.com/
http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/Cover-Story-New-Frontiers.html
{ 2 } Comments
Umm, Interesting..Actually this is cool. So far I only think online meeting and conference using video chatting tool are only way to use virtual environment. But this is very cool. I am trying to think how this topic can be related to Info law or issues. It might be related to privacy issue when they display real case in the legal realm. And also, it could be related to copyright issue for real layer who do not want to reveal of their own cases that no matter what they won or lost.
On the other though, if virtual law are allowed to use as like as real law, who is gonna control that or supervising that?
We already talked about transparency issue of ACTA. An agent or government whatever who will take a role of that could judge and distinguish whether who is innocent or not?
I am just thinking and listing like brainstorming.
Thank you for your interesting topic.
This is a really interesting and cool topic. With the advance of the internet and IT technology, I believe this would be a trend of the future world. But as Joe said, who’s going to mange and take care of the service? How to judge a person is innocent or not? These would be issues and have a lot of space to discuss.