Ethics Committee
Topic: Is it Ethical not to Meet Face-to-face with your Client if You Communicate by E-mail or Telephone Instead?
A lawyer (in bankruptcy practice) has “asked the committee to opine as to whether electronic communication, without in-person meetings, can be sufficient to fulfill an attorney’s duties of communication and competence.”
The Committee answered that there is “no per se requirement in the rules that information be provided to a client in person…The attorney may ethically use electronic forms of communication in working with clients so long as all necessary information is transmitted between the attorney and the client.
This committee opines that the attorney in the hypothetical is not precluded by the ethics rules from providing legal services to his clients via electronic communication so long as the content and caliber of those services otherwise comport with the duties of competence and communication.”
Rules: Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct 1.1 (duty of competence) and Rule 1.4 (duty of communication). As for Rule 1.1, the Committee finds that “[n]either the rule, nor the comments, prescribes precise means for the provision of legal services.” As for Rule 1.4, the Committee finds that Rule 1.4 “outlines content areas of communication, rather than the method of communication.”
The full text is available at http://www.vacle.org…