Video or office: which lawyer meetings work remotely?

Video works well for first views on a question, follow-up points on a file, clients who live far away and busy professionals between two meetings. The office remains better for meetings where you need to read original documents together, check identity, sign, or support a client through a difficult personal matter. Offer both as separate services with their own slots, say in each description what the format suits, and let clients choose, while keeping the option to switch format when the note shows the other would work better.

These are tendencies, not rules. Some clients are more at ease talking about a separation from their own home; others need the neutral space of your office. The booking note and a quick call when in doubt help you choose.

On Book, create a service for each format, for example "Consultation at the office" and "Consultation by video", each with its own description and an optional price. Open slots for each at the times that suit the format: video between two hearings or early in the evening, office consultations on the days you're at the office.

Slots of different services aren't linked. If you open a video slot and an office slot at the same time, a booking on one doesn't remove the other. The simplest rule is to separate them in time; otherwise, as soon as one is booked, book the other yourself from your calendar so it's no longer offered.

Your office guarantees privacy; the client's kitchen doesn't. A client in a divorce may be in the next room from their spouse, an employee may call from their workplace. Put a line in the video service description: "Please join from a quiet, private place where no one can overhear." If the client can't guarantee that, offer an office slot instead.

Video opens your practice to clients who live in another country: expatriates with a matter at home, foreign companies, families spread across borders. Your booking page shows times in your business's time zone and displays its name, so the client knows which zone they're reading. When you send the link, repeat the time in both zones. Watch the weeks around daylight saving changes, when the gap between two countries can shift by an hour.

Files don't need to choose once and for all. One pattern is to hold the first meeting at the office, where you meet the client, read the key documents and agree on the strategy, then continue by video for the updates: the other side's response, the next step in the procedure, a question before a deadline. The meeting before a hearing or a signature can come back to the office.

When you book these follow-ups yourself from your calendar, choose the service that matches the format, so both you and the client know where the meeting takes place.

A strike, an illness, a client stuck abroad: sometimes an office meeting has to become a video one, or the reverse. Agree with the client, then reschedule the booking or cancel it and book the other service yourself from your calendar. Tell the client yourself, since Book doesn't email them when a booking changes.

Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited bookings and services, no commission and no contract. It doesn't take payments; keep your usual invoicing.