Using Technology to Unbundle in the Legal Services Community

Abstract

Unbundling legal services, also termed limited-scope services, a la carte legal services, discrete task representation, or disaggregated legal services, is a form of delivering legal services in which the lawyer breaks down the tasks associated with a legal matter and provides representation to the client only pertaining to a clearly defined portion of the client’s legal needs. The client accepts the responsibility for doing the footwork for the remainder of the legal matter until reaching the desired resolution. Providing unbundled legal services may be considered as one solution to the access to justice problem in our country.

The number of unmet legal needs continues to increase in the United States as does the number of self-help individuals. The factors leading to this large unmet need in legal assistance could stem from any number of economic and political circumstances. While the scope of this article cannot address the causes for this lack of access to justice, the article will focus on potential methods of unbundling with technology to provide greater access to legal services for the public regardless of income level or societal status.

Keywords: unbundling, legal services, limited scope representation, disaggregated legal services, legal technology, access to justice