Background

BACKGROUND

Conference Overview
Sixty –seven presenters were joined by colleagues from 34 states, Canada, Russia and the District of Columbia to this exciting and challenging event. The 230 attendees represented law schools, non-profit legal services providers, the judiciary and court staff, mediators, private practitioners and the organized bar as well as entrepreneurs in the developing “legal space” on the Internet.

The excitement derived from explorations of new formulations of existing legal practice and of entirely new ways to open the system to the public. At the conference we examined a new wave of experimentation in the legal field, much of it driven by changes in information technology and consumer demands and preferences for problem solving. The challenge derived from the re-thinking required by the entire legal system and the potential for positive change.

Conference Statistics:

Attendees gave the conference unusually high ratings. On a 5-point scale, they gave it an extremely high 4.79 overall; evaluations for the 29 workshop sessions ranged from 4.16 to 5.0.
Over 70% of participants responding expressed interest in “continuing conversations begun at this conference.”

Co-sponsors
Defining "Unbundled Legal Services

Co-sponsors:

Defining “Unbundled” Legal Services
“Unbundled” legal services can also be described as “discrete task representation”. An attorney who provides a specific service to a client (who is otherwise handling an action pro se) is providing one service out of the possible range of “bundled” services, otherwise referred to as full representation. Some observers note that this type of service has always been part of the practice of law, although usually in the context of a relationship with an existing client.

“The Changing Face of Legal Practice” was convened by the Maryland Legal Assistance Network (MLAN), a project of the Maryland Legal Services Corporation.