By Susan Cartier Liebel
The Daily Record Newswire
Time waits for no lawyer to get his or her act together. And in this economy, today’s D-I-Y consumers will steamroll over anyone who doesn’t give them what they need at the price they can afford.
The Internet has forever changed the way we do business by providing quality research and choice at the tip of our keyboard-savvy fingers. And either you’re with them or against them. If you don’t give consumers what they want and need, you become a distant link in their browser history. It’s that abrupt and that cold.
In the world of everyday ‘average Joe’ practice areas, consumers are being forced financially to take more ownership of the resolution of their legal problems. Egged on further by the non-lawyer legal document providers and a judicial system supplying more and more information (by necessity) on how to handle matters pro se, potential clients are turning to lawyers with a powerful request: Give me what I want at a price I can afford. What I want is help on the matters I can’t figure out myself and I’ll pay you a reasonable rate for this.
What’s the solution to this situation? Unbundled legal services.
Forty-one states have adopted a model rule drafted by the American Bar Association, or similar provisions, which allow lawyers to unbundle their services and take only part of a case, a cost-saving practice known as “limited scope representation” that, with proper ethical safeguards, is responsive to new realities. And the remaining states, I have to imagine, are not too far behind.
While there are have been well-known champions of unbundling, with Richard Granat and Stephanie Kimbro among the most visible, now more and more lawyers are embracing the concept.
Susan Wakefield of Connecticut Legal Coaching utilizes the unbundled method by providing a la carte and pay-as-you-go consultations in divorce, custody and post divorce matters. This makes her 22 years of experience available to those who might otherwise be unable to afford the full representation of a lawyer. In addition, she is able to get connected with clients who might someday be able to hire her for a full service family matter.
Susan very smartly started pre-packaging information which is widely available for free on the Internet or through the courts and includes this in a packaged deal where she consults for 30 minutes via e-mail, SKYPE or in person and provides outlines and information on pro se representation. She is providing real value to potential clients and giving them what a pre-printed form or harried clerk cannot.
Billie Tarascio of Tarascio & Del Vecchio in Arizona offers another example. She provides unbundled legal services at a flat rate of $99 per hour. It is all a la carte and pay-as-you-go, based upon what the client needs.
While Tarascio’s firm has a slightly different business model and covers significantly more practice areas than Wakefield, both recognize the increasing number of pro se litigants and the viability of building a business model for this growing market.
Unbundling is unquestionably the future of the legal profession for a significant majority of private practitioners. The only question remaining is, how long will it take you to participate on some level?
An attorney who started her own practice right out of law school, Susan Cartier Liebel is the founder of Solo Practice University(TM), the #1 online educational and professional networking community for lawyers and law students who wish to go solo.
