For those who must litigate and who cannot afford to hire an attorney to represent them or who want to be in control of their own case, unbundled services can be a great solution.
Unbundled legal services, also known as limited-scope services, are legal services that are broken down and offered as individualized legal services, instead of “bundled” legal services–which generally means full legal representation. An attorney offering unbundled legal services makes it possible (and financially feasible) for someone to receive vital legal assistance without incurring great financial detriment.
In limited scope or unbundled representation, an attorney and client agree to limit the scope of the attorney’s involvement in a lawsuit or other legal action to specific items, leaving responsibility for other aspects of the case to the client in order to save the client money.
There are pros and cons to this approach. The pros for the client are saving money on attorney’s fees and possibly getting the case/issue resolved at a faster pace. The cons are that there are oflten pitfalls for those untrained in the law, so if a matter is complicated or if you feel it is too complicated for you, then perhaps full representation is warranted.
TYPES OF UNBUNDLED LEGAL SERVICES
• Consultations
• Legal and Court Coaching
• Document Review
• Preparation of Documents
For example, if you are getting a divorce and you only want an attorney to help prepare the documents that you will need to file, the document preparation is an unbundled service.
Quite often, folks do their own divorce but find that the paperwork, particularly at the end of the process, is more burdensome than they had anticipated and find unbundled services to complete the process to be very helpful.
In another situation, one may derive great benefit from having an attorney draft a declaration as part of a Request for an Order or a Response to a Request for an Order. It is very important that these declarations be as clear and concise and as well written as possible while also conveying the relevant information that is important for the judge’s decision. Relevance is key, the only information a judge wants to see is information that is relevant to the issue to be decided and it is common for non-lawyers to add information that may be very important to them, but is not relevant in terms of the legal issue to be decided. Judge’s have volumes of material to read before hearing a matter and don’t like to have to read material that is not relevant and/or not well written. It is to a litigant’s benefit to provide written material that will not irritate the judge.
The Law & Mediation Office of Lorna Jaynes offers unbundled services to suit your needs and will help you evaluate whether using an unbundled service will work for you. Our compassionate services will provide you with the information you need to move on with your life, so contact us to learn more about these services.