The Law Society of Ontario (formerly the Law Society of Upper Canada) published an article related to professional obligations regarding unbundling legal services. You can read this article here (link).

Unbundling legal services are limited scope retainers whereby the client and their attorney agree to limit the scope of the attorney’s involvement in the legal matter. For example, under a limited scope retainer, a lawyer may agree to one or more of the following legal services: document review or prep; legal research; representation at a specific stage of a matter; etc.

However, clients should be aware that unbundling legal services can sometimes be expensive and time consuming to develop retainers. Further, there can be an added barrier on costs when the attorney does not have control over the initial steps of the matter and are forced to spend time “catching up” on a file at the expense of the client. Finally there is the problem of making counsel responsible for legal work that counsel did not perform.

We are offering paid consultations as our attempt to advise people on complex issues and self-representations. You can read more here (link).