The lawyer performs a limited number of specified services, but responsibility for the remainder of the matter continues to rest with the client. The potential benefits to clients from unbundled services are reasonably clear. Because the lawyer is providing limited services, the fee is correspondingly lower. Clients are therefore able to afford legal services in circumstances where otherwise they would have had none. Clients should, for example, do a better job representing themselves in court when they have prior advice about what factors the judge can and cannot take into account, or with suggestions about areas of questioning worth pursuing.
Lawyers can potentially benefit by tapping into the latent legal market.
Although some self- represented litigants might simply prefer not to have a lawyer , many would perceive that there is an advantage in obtaining at least some legal advice. A previously unavailable source of clientele would thus open up to the lawyer. Pursued actively, unbundling presents an opportunity for a form of specialization . Not everyone agrees that unbundling is unambiguously a benefit to clients. Some suggest, for example, that legal advice based on incomplete information can fail to be helpful .