Family Law Unbundling Toolkit

Chief Justice Robert J. Bauman has urged BC lawyers to read the resources on this page, and to consider offering unbundled services.

Unbundling refers to a situation where lawyers perform discrete tasks for clients and clients handle other matters that, in a full service retainer, would form part of the services lawyers would provide.

This toolkit was developed to assist and guide BC family lawyers and paralegals to provide unbundled family legal services in a safe and effective way. The core documents referred to in the toolkit have been prepared with the assistance of the Law Society of British Columbia.

Empowering Clients 2.11 MB (Nov 21, 2018 - added in V.1.2)

List of Resources, 450.58 KB

What is Unbundling?, 372.11 KB

What is Legal Coaching?, 292.04 KB

Do's and Don'ts of Unbundled Legal Services, 86.62 KB

Best Practices for Unbundling, 196.00 KB

Unbundling FAQs for lawyers, 368.11 KB

Law Society of BC President's Letter of Support 2.12 MB (Dec 15 2016)

Law Society of BC Code of Conduct Rules, 122.68 KB

How to use the retainer letter templates, 105.74 KB

Retainer letter one-time consultation, 19.44 KB

Retainer letter ongoing consultation, 25.45 KB

SCHEDULE A full list, 18.92 KB

SCHEDULE A example of drafting documents, 20.75 KB

SCHEDULE A example of coaching for mediation, 18.25 KB

Flowchart for Lawyers, 103.63 KB

Flowchart for Clients, 100.83 KB

Client Intake for Unbundling, 90.74 KB

Watch one of these following excellent webinars:

• Law Society on unbundling 2014 [CLE-TV]
• April 19, 2016 “A Bit of Counsel” [CLE-TV]

Consider how unbundling will fit within your business model.  Do you plan to change your business model?  If so, how? The more that you can embed this approach into your practice the more helpful it will be for you.

If you have difficulty interpreting the rules in the Code of Conduct relating to limited scope retainers, please refer to the Practice Advice department of the Law Society of British Columbia.