Two weeks ago, I posted an article about virtual law offices (VLOs) as a result of my concern that lawyers buying these services and the service providers fail to fully discuss and/or understand the marketing challenges involved. I got some great feedback and some criticism. I’m glad to have stimulated some discussion (here, here, here and here).

Just so we’re clear, I love the idea of a virtual practice. We’ve had a client portal for more than a decade, and I’m experimenting with some other VLO concepts on my North Carolina Divorce website. We’re iterating on a weekly basis. It’s a struggle, but I believe it will work—eventually.

In pondering the issues involved, I came up with a modest proposal that I think would help the lawyers thinking about buying a virtual law office as well as the sellers.

Vendors, how about sharing anonymous post-audited financials from some of your customers? Show us that customers are making money using your product. Prove it to us.

Help us understand where virtual practices are working and where they aren’t. Give us data so we can make objective decisions before buying your product. Lot of vendors, of other services, provide case studies. Will you do that for us and provide the data?

That’s a win-win. We, as customers, get proof that we’re making a good investment. You, as vendors, build trust. Plus, if some of you are helping your customers generate greater profits than others, you’ll win even more of the available business.

I’d love to see some financials for the purely virtual practices as well as numbers from more diversified firms showing us the results for the virtual portion of the practice. Assuming that the numbers are good, this can only accelerate the adoption of these technologies.

While we’re at it, wouldn’t it be great if we got financials for the clients of consultants trying to sell us management and marketing consulting services? I’d love it, and I’d be far less skeptical of some of the claims I’ve heard.

What I’m asking for is kind of like what the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires of franchisers. The FTC mandates all sorts of disclosures plus a list of 10 recent purchasers in close proximity to the customer. Let’s bring some transparency to the industry so we can all know what we can expect.

Vendors, what do you say? Are you in? Can we bring some tangible reality to the virtual marketplace?