The Solicitors Regulation Authority is contemplating a fresh drive to promote unbundling after it emerged that almost half of lawyers had not heard of it, let alone offered unbundled services. Four out of 10 firms responding to a new survey on unbundling answered this was the first they had ever heard of the concept. 

Legal services providers who did offer unbundled services were not prepared to advertise it to consumers, with the majority saying they did not understand the term.

A parallel survey of legal services users found similar lack of awareness, despite many saying they would be keen to carve up legal work between their lawyer and doing it themselves.

The SRA, which commissioned the polling, has revealed it will explore targeted advertising to help raise awareness of unbundling and its potential benefits. Existing efforts to increase knowledge of unbundling appear to have had little effect: an SRA webinar for providers about potential benefits had just 374 views in five months.

The regulator will also ask the Law Society and Legal Services Consumer Panel for suggestions to an alternative name for unbundling that is ‘more understandable’ to lawyers and their clients.

The SRA has banged the drum for unbundling services for a number of years, despite practitioners repeatedly saying they were concerned about insurance implications in particular. The latest research and polling followed a pilot in family law to see if more consumers could get access to the services they most need.

The regulator appears determined to push the splitting of services in the belief that it can widen access to justice and ensure parties have representation for at least some of their legal issue.

Paul Philip, chief executive of the SRA, said the survey findings suggest that unbundling has the potential to make some legal services more affordable for those on low incomes, while law firms could benefit too as it would increase their client base.

He added: ‘Unbundling won’t work for everyone, but raising awareness would help people to make good choices. We will also explore whether we can do more to address the concerns that may be stopping firms from offering this way of working.’

Three quarters of firms polled who had offered unbundling felt it provided benefits to their clients, mostly through lower charges and a more flexible service. But just 36% wanted to expand unbundling within their business. Firms that did want to scale up their unbundling offering said that a lack of funds and resources were stopping them from doing so.

Unbundling sceptics were concerned about PII and regulatory implications, problems caused by clients not finishing their activity on time or correctly and difficulty in apportioning the work.

Among consumers, around half of the sample had used unbundling, with the proportion seeking this out significantly higher for people earning less than £60,000. There was no difference in consumer satisfaction between those who unbundled and those that did not, and 68% of unbundling converts said they were likely to do it again.

The Law Society welcomed the research. President Lubna Shuja explained the Society is doing its own work in this area and its 21st Century Justice project is examining if unbundling could be one of a number of measures to close the justice gap.

She said: 'Some practitioners have already started to deliver forms of unbundled services. However, concerns remain around the risk of being found negligent for things the solicitor believed fell outside the retainer.

'This risk needs to be addressed as it is one of the biggest barriers to the prospects of unbundled services being used more widely.'