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By the time this article appears, the Utah State Bar Commission expects to file a petition with the Utah Supreme Court to amend and adopt rules to allow lawyers to better serve a growing
demand for limited legal services Ð also known as unbundled or discrete task services. The petition will seek four key changes:
- Amend Rule 1.2 of the Utah Rules of Professional Conduct to clarify that an attorney and client may agree to limit the scope of the legal services to be provided.
- Amend the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure to allow an attorney to enter an appearance limited to a particular hearing or proceeding.
- Amend the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure to allow an attorney to draft legal pleadings for a client who is otherwise unrepresented in court.
- Amend Rules 4.2 and 4.3 of the Utah Rules of Professional Conduct to allow an attorney to directly communicate with a party who is represented under limited scope agreement, unless
the attorney is notified in writing to work through counsel.
- Adopt Rule 6.5 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, to allow an attorney to provided limited legal services as part of a non-profit or court-annexed program without
checking for unknown conflicts.
As a practical matter, Utah attorneys are already providing limited scope services and engaging in some of the above practices. The purpose of the proposed rule amendments is to encourage
more unbundling by resolving questions that arise under ethical and procedural rules that were drafted with only the traditional full service representation model in mind. The petition
follows a September 2002 recommendation of the Utah Supreme Court Study Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services that the Court "consider, and when appropriate, adopt rules that
allow greater flexibility in the delivery of legal services," with such consideration to include "authorization for lawyers to 'unbundle' legal services, that is, to break
traditional legal services into smaller, less complex and expensive, constituent parts." The petition also implements a July 2003 recommendation of the Bar Commission's Task Force on
Delivery of Legal Services.
Unbundling is widely considered a "win-win" for attorneys and a large potential market of middle-income clients who forego their legal rights
because they are unable or unwilling to pay for full-service representation. At least ten states, including our neighboring states of Colorado, Nevada, and Wyoming, have preceded Utah in
adopting unbundling rules. Proposals to adopt unbundling rules are also pending in several additional states.1
Numerous resources exist for attorneys interested in
expanding their client base by unbundling. The keys to successful unbundling are a thorough initial client consultation and a clearly written limited services agreement. Guidance on these
and other unbundling issues is available from the ABA Delivery of Legal Services Committee, which maintains a website accessible to non-members. In addition, California lawyer Forrest
"Woody" Mosten has published Unbundled Legal Services, a how-to manual replete with helpful forms and other tools, which is available through either the ABA or Mosten's
website. One of the pioneers of limited representation who coined the term "unbundling," Mosten was well-received when he spoke to Utah bar members about unbundling at the
Mid-Year Meeting in March 2003 and the Fall Forum in September 2003.
Unbundling has been aptly described as a way for attorneys to "rediscover" the middle class. Of
course, many Utah lawyers never lost sight of the middle-income market for their services to begin with. But with easy public access to legal information and competition from non-lawyers
increasing rapidly, lawyers who serve middle-income Utahns must focus with a vengeance on the value added by their services. Unbundling effectively isolates, and highlights, that value
and provides a way for ordinary Utahns to "rediscover" Utah lawyers.
Footnotes
1.
In addition to the three neighboring states, states that have adopted unbundling rules include California (for family law cases only), Delaware, Florida, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Washington. Proposed rules are pending in Virginia, New York, Maryland, and Indiana.
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