California Lawyer
"Cappuccino and Consortium With unbundled legal services, clients buy only the tasks they need."
By Susan E. Davis California Lawyer July 2001
Jeffrey Hughes set up his first cafe cum lawyer's office in 1996 after graduating from law school in 1992 and working three years for a traditional law firm. "I didn't think that I could please too many people practicing law in the traditional manner," he says. "Besides, I get bored pretty easily." So Hughes set up LegalGrind® Coffee and Counsel in Santa Monica, a cafe that serves legal advice-for an astonishing $25 a pop--along with its cafes au lait and lattes. "For whatever reason, I feel more connected with the masses than the elite," he says. "for as long as lawyers have existed, they have primarily served those with money. But to have a true democracy, the population must have access to their legal system."
At Hughes' cafe, the motto of which is Justice Served Daily, began serving more than just legal advice. It also started offering specific legal services at affordable prices. The idea was that plenty of working- and middle-class folks needed to get some services, i.e. document preparation or a court appearance, instead of paying for the entire menu of a lawyer's services.
In 1996 Hughes opened up LegalGrind® Annex, another cafe-legal services outpost, in Tarzana. Then in late 1996 he moved part of his business onto the Web at www.legalgrind.com. There, clients can find links to self-help books and online legal resources, locate an attorney, or receive advice from an attorney with expertise in family law, entertainment law, criminal law, tenant-landlord law, workers compensation, and just about every other area of the law. In June 1998, Hughes added a certified lawyer referral service to the mix, which can point clients in the direction of lawyer with expertise in their potential case.
Today, Hughes estimates that he and his network of attorneys have helped more than 15,000 people in the past six years. His service won the American Bar Association's (ABA) Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access in 2001.
What Hughes has set up is commonly called "unbundled" legal services or "discrete task representation." In this system, rather than buying the whole menu of a lawyer's expertise, from intake to final paperwork, clients simply buy help with certain aspects of a legal task, such as deciding whether or not to file for bankruptcy, getting help with legal documents or procedures, or receiving expert representation in court. The advantage for the client is affordable access to legal services; the advantage for the attorney is that he or she gets paid while helping people who wouldn't otherwise have access to legal services.
The idea of unbundled legal services isn't novel. One could argue that, in fact, services such as ghostwriting a letter or giving advice informally over the phone have always counted as unbundling. And the ABA has been looking at the possibility of such services for almost two decades now. But it's only been in the past few years, with the explosion of the Internet and growing disenchantment with high legal fees, the idea has really started to come into its own--at least as far as the public is concerned. And it's only just now those prospective clients have really begun to demand it.
Why Unbundle
Though the traditional notion of lawyering is to offer full representation, advocates of unbundling say the economic realities of the legal profession are beginning to make that seems less than viable. "Even in the early 1980s, our research showed that the number of pro se litigants was rising," says William Hornsby, a staff attorney with the ABA and staff counsel to the ABA's Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services. "Our research also showed that those pro se litigants were still using some resources provided by the courts and lawyers. In other words, these people weren't without lawyers, they just didn't want the soup-to-nuts representation traditionally provided by lawyers."
There are numerous other purveyors of unbundled services around, especially within family law circles. "Family law particularly lends itself to unbundling because some people may not need the whole package," says Richard Rabbin, who specializes in family law in Ventura. "You may have a client who has no property issues but needs help with spousal support or child custody. Or you may have a client who just wants advice on working out custody but doesn't need representation in court. They can save money by just paying a straight hourly fee and no retainer."
That same complexity of tasks, however, can sometimes make unbundling unrealistic in family law, Rabbin hastens to add. "You may find that when you seek to modify support, you get back an order to modify custody," he says, and the clients end up paying for more legal help than they expected. In other words, unbundling works best for simple situations in which the parties have agreed to everything and need an attorney only to help them formalize it.
How can attorneys make a living if they provide such piecemeal service at low rates? "Most of the attorneys who work for me don't do unbundled services 100 percent of the time," Hughes says. "Most have successful, traditional practices on the side. But by doing this they get to feel they're contributing to the community while still getting paid for their time.
"I'd rather be loved by millions that have millions of dollars," he adds, "although I expect to accomplish both. People come by the LegalGrind® every day and rave about how brilliant the concept is. Even lawyers. The important thing is that lawyer are becoming more accessible to people."
Although some advocates of unbundling have set up shop only in cyberspace, Hughes is adamant about keeping one foot in the bricks-and-mortar camp, just because he doubts that a Web practice alone can succeed. Hughes opened LegalGrind® in the same space that his grandfather ran an awning tore for 35 years, right on Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica, which is also Route 1. "I think people need to see a building and a person when they use legal services," he says. "I know a lot of techies think that computers can do everything a human can do, but I think most people still need to see a face when they hire an attorney."
Ethical Considerations
The unbundling movement is not without its detractors. Some say, for instance, that by taking on only one aspect of a case, attorneys break the ethical obligation to fully represent clients and even open themselves up to malpractice suits if something goes wrong with another aspect. (Rule 1.2(c) of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct actually says it's OK to do limited legal services, as long as the client agrees.) Others say that serious problems arise if an online attorney starts giving advice to "clients" outside the attorney's jurisdiction. "I suspect more lawyers are guilty of unauthorized practice than nonlawyers," the ABA's Hornsby says, "just because lawyers get into these murky jurisdictional areas." But Hughes claims that technology fixes for such issues are just around the corner. "We're planning to get software that can identify where an email is coming from, so that we can avoid just these kinds of problems," he says.
Hughes also notes that some attorneys are afraid high-volume, low-priced legal service establishments could take business away from more traditional lawyers' businesses. "But we don't see it as taking away business," he says, "because these clients wouldn't hire a traditional lawyer. We see what we're doing as opening new markets."
