The Law Society of BC was the first law society in Canada to create policies that promote the unbundling of legal services with the goal of improving access to affordable legal services.
Unbundling legal services, where a lawyer provides legal services for part of a client’s legal matter, allows clients to access more affordable legal services. It has the potential to remove barriers to access to justice for people who cannot afford a lawyer’s retainer, but need some legal help. Unbundling allows clients and lawyers to decide which tasks are performed by the client and which are performed by the lawyer.
Unbundled legal services are especially helpful to self-represented litigants, who often are not self-represented by choice, but are unable to afford to retain legal counsel. It remains very difficult for self-represented litigants to find a lawyer who offers unbundled services.
Resources for the public
- Contact the BC Legal Referral Service and request a referral to a legal professional who offers unbundled legal services
- Go to Self-representation and unbundled services
Resources for lawyers
The Law Society encourages lawyers to learn about unbundled legal services and consider offering these services. See the following resources:
- The Law Society worked with Mediate BC on its Family Unbundled Legal Services Project to develop a family law tool kit that includes sample retainer agreements, among other tools. The tool kit is available on the Courthouse Libraries website.
- If you are a legal professional willing to provide unbundled legal services, apply to join the BC Legal Referral Service and include unbundled legal services in your offering. If you are already on the Legal Referral Service list, use that same link to add unbundled legal services to your offering
- Overcoming resistance to limited representation – Read the story of self-represented litigant Jennifer Muller and her difficult custody battle, featured in the Summer 2016 Benchers' Bulletin.
- CLE-TV: Limited Scope Retainers Webinar – This 2014 course explores the opportunities that unbundled legal services present to expand lawyers’ client base and improve the public's access to legal services. Presenters discuss practice and ethical issues, risk management and current research.
- See the practice resource on Preventing claims – Limited retainers/unbundling.
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