Unbundled Legal Services

As this article from the New York Times points out, defending yourself in court without a lawyer can be very challenging.

Courthouse workers also say that people are representing themselves in more complicated cases, involving divisions of complex assets, home foreclosures, houses worth less than a mortgage balance and combinations of these and other problems. Such cases in the past were more likely to involve a lawyer.

These are tough times for many Americans, whether they are facing foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce, and many other adversarial legal issue. It's no surprise that due to the economy, many folks are deciding to go without legal representation.

I'm not going to rattle on about how and why going alone to court without a lawyer is a bad idea. In some cases, it's perfectly fine to fly solo, and people need to do what they need to in these difficult times.

One thing many attorneys have started to do is to offer what is known as unbundled legal services. This occurs where the client and the attorney work together to define the scope of the representation. Typically, the client pays a reduced rate and the attorney does a fraction of the usual representation for a certain legal issue.

For example, in a divorce case, the attorney may provide the client with the pre-filed forms and/or required documents which the client needs to go to court and represent herself or himself. The attorney will limit the scope of his or her representation to a set area, which may include advice, document review, or negotiation, in addition to document preparation.

Unbundled legal services are the future for certain law practice areas. It provides competent legal advice to clients who don't need (or want) full legal representation. It also reaches a group of people that are typically ignored by lawyers: regular middle class folks.

Let's face it: the typical lawyer wants to work with those whom he or she can charge the highest hourly rate.

With unbundled legal services, the client gets the assistance they need at a reasonable rate, and the lawyer does not partake in full representation, which can be very time-intensive.

Green Street is pleased to offer unbundled legal representation for those requesting it. We will also suggest it to clients who we think it may be an appropriate for. Go unbundled!