How will the wave of e-commerce that is affecting almost everyone who works for a living, and how they work for a living, impact the ethical constraints within which lawyers make their living? How will doing business online be treated by the individual state authorities that regulate attorney conduct, for purposes of determining whether an attorney can use the Internet to practice law in any manner similar to the method by which a vendor of other services might use the Internet to engage in e-commerce?
At least one state seems to have addressed the issue based on a guarded presentation of facts. The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline for the Supreme Court of Ohio ("Ohio Board"), decided very recently in Opinion 99-9 that based on the situation before it, lawyers could practice law by using e-commerce, through interaction with clients exclusively on the Internet. Specifically, the Ohio Board found that a law firm could charge a fee for receiving and replying to
