Unbundling Legal Services: A Win-Win-Win for Lawyers, Courts, and the Public

May 8, 2021

The CBF was one of the lead partners in the national Unbundled Legal Services in the New Normal conference last month, a virtual gathering that attracted hundreds of attendees and yielded some great resources for lawyers and other stakeholders.

The other lead partners in the conference were the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), the Self-Represented Litigation Network (SRLN) and the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services. The three-day virtual educational event focused on how and why legal stakeholders – legal aid, legal academics, judicial officers, court administers, practitioners and others – should support and deliver unbundled legal services both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In preparation for one of the conference sessions, the CBF created a Video Training Series – Unbundling 101: Incorporating Unbundled Legal Services into your Practice. This training series is designed to provide a foundational overview of how an attorney can ethically incorporate unbundled legal services into their practice. If you are a new practitioner or a practitioner new to unbundled services, this resource is a great starting point.

National authorities led discussions in the following general areas: the role of unbundling in the justice ecosystem, best practices of state and local entities that are encouraging unbundling, perspectives of practitioners, the role of legal technology in changing the delivery of legal services, guidance on what the future delivery of legal services may look like, and the model rules and ethics that apply to attorneys in providing unbundled legal services. Over 200 people from across the United States and beyond tuned in for at least one of the five sessions offered. Recordings of each session and materials from the conference can be found on the IAALS Conference home page.

Additional unbundling resources, including the CBF Limited Scope Representation Toolkit, can be found on the CBF’s Limited Scope Representation Practice Resources webpage.