Editor's blog | Unbundling liability

As a term, unbundling has been lurking in lawyers lexicon for years but it's now making its way to the legal services market

The last and, until recently, only time that unbundling crept into my consciousness was about 15 years ago when the telecoms market was being liberalised in the late 1990s. State-owned utility companies around Europe, most with a monopoly over their sectors, were compelled to open up their networks to private operators. The talk was about unbundling the local loop - two terms that a telecoms lawyer friend eventually explained, and it began to make sense. In the UK the process was overseen by the Office of Telecommunications, Oftel, whose director general at the time was a certain David Edmonds. Competitors to BT didn't rush to take advantage of the new business opportunities, and Edmonds got some flack for the lack of initial enthusiasm and not being tougher on BT.

Unbundling is now making its way into the legal services market. Officially, that is, because unbundling of legal services has been around for a while. What is new is that the combined effect of the Legal Services Act and LASPO - which is coming into force next week - is bringing unbundling from the background to the forefront.

As with the local loop, unbundling legal services involves breaking down the supply chain into its individual components. Each can then be provided and sold separately, even by different providers. An early-day pioneer is The Law Shop, in Bristol. Solicitor Peter Browne set it up as an add-on to his existing practice to help people handle simple legal matters themselves. For a small additional fee, people could ask a solicitor to help them with forms or present their case to court. Browne's practice closed down in September last year but the 'shop' has been taken over by a local general practice, Barcan Woodward.

As a term, unbundling has been lurking in lawyers' lexicon for years. Morecrofts' then head of family law Godfrey Freeman slipped it in the conversation in 2009 when discussing how lawyers could offer clients more flexible options that would help keep costs down.

The approach has spread. Saga Legal Services or Rocket Lawyer, for instance, are based on this premise, with a range of online forms, supplemented with access to a lawyer if necessary. Unbundling is also regularly associated with fixed-price services such as Riverview. Even CABx are considering the model as they start charging for some of their services.

Unbundling the local loop involves a straightforward series of yes/no questions: is it technologically possible, are any companies interested in exploiting the services, and will consumers buy from the new entrants. Legal services can, to an extent, be looked at in the same way.

As a professional, regulated service, law raises a very different question: to whom does a client complain if things go wrong and to what extent would a solicitor be liable? Earlier this month Rocket Lawyer's UK managing director, Mark Edwards, revealed it had asked LeO to handle complaints about his company.

This would not be inconsistent with the Legal Services Act ethos, although not all lawyers will feel the same way. One person whose view will be important will be Elizabeth France, current chair of the Office for Legal Complaints, who also happened to be telecoms ombudsman while Edmonds was Oftel's chair.