Is a limited amount of legal assistance better for clients than no assistance at all? Can lawyers make a living and be proud of their professional practice without engaging in contentious litigation? Are client-centered approaches to resolving family law disputes more likely to meet the parties’ interests than traditional lawyer-centered strategies? The answer to all three questions is a resounding “Yes!”

Limited scope legal representation (a/k/a unbundled legal services) is an underutilized tool for family law attorneys. This may be the result of old-fashioned bias that knockdown, drag out litigation is the hallmark of lawyering, but the underuse of limited scope engagements is certainly fueled by simple unawareness of the possibilities and advantages—for both clients and lawyers—of rethinking how lawyers deliver services. Transactional lawyers routinely practice this way: a client hires a lawyer to write his or her will, attend a real estate closing, formalize the creation of a new corporation and other discrete tasks specified at the start of the representation. But, for litigated matters in general and family law matters in particular, unbundling our legal services is underutilized.