Marc J. Krasney attended South Texas College of Law, graduating in 1999, and spent 8 years as a litigator with two different firms. And as much as he enjoyed litigation and arguing in the courtroom, his true passion, however, was counseling businesses. He realized he needed to offer businesses a change from the traditional billing concept and think of a revolutionary way to connect businesses with his expertise without the huge surprise legal bills. So, together with Phonoscope, he founded the Houston Virtual In-House Counsel Program and opened his own law firm—The Krasney Law Firm. Now, businesses can be connected via Phonoscope’s state of the art technology to Marc’s office.

At The Krasney Law Firm, the term "virtual" means something totally different than at other law firms; this “law firm of the future” comes complete with office, but you don’t have to go there, and you don’t get stuck with “online advice.” What the firm does offer is flat fee billing, beginning at only $300 a month, which includes real time video visits between lawyer and client via Phonoscope’s video unit . The goal is to help people with small businesses to budget for legal costs and to become part of the company's management team to assist in that company's growth.

Many small businesses have taken on the $200 an hour fee most lawyers charge, but often end up outraged by the final bill that was calculated hourly on a "point" system based on fractions of an hour, and then find out their work was assigned to a beginning associate with very little practical knowledge of the issues involved that necessitated costly supervision by a senior attorney.

So, if you compare the Virtual Lawyer fees to the normal hourly fees determined by points of an hour for an associate's time, plus drive time, then it's easy to see how the client saves time and money with the Houston Virtual Lawyer’s flat fee service.