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FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA
3 Innovation
With SRLs the increasing reality for the Court, the project team developed a
vision for the delivery of Court services which reflected this reality into the
future. The present adversarial system is fraught with difficulties for selfrepresenting
litigants. One of the questions for the team to address was, "how
will the Family Court evolve to meet the changing needs of the community, while
at the same time preserving essential elements, which ensure balance, fairness
and stability of decision making within our society, and the Rule of Law?" The
Visioning Project was thus developed, under the umbrella of the SRL project.
3.1 Unbundling Legal Services
Because it has the capacity to extend access to legal advice from both legal aid
and private practitioners the team actively considered the concept of ‘unbundling’
legal services. ‘Unbundling’ enables the provision of legal assistance and support
at various stages throughout proceedings. Limited legal assistance can then be
applied most effectively and strategically. SRLs could be assisted by targeted legal
advice and assistance as they progress through the Court. Availability of
‘unbundled’ services would increase access to advice and possibly targeted
representation. Some legal aid bodies and the legal profession are resistant to this
idea due to concerns about the impact of professional liability.
Professor Dewar wrote a short paper 9 on the issues involved and a proposal for
addressing the main concerns. In the paper he identifies civil liability risks and
ethical issues as the two most cited obstacles to providing unbundled legal
services. He suggests that the solutions to these problems in Australia lie with
state and territory legislatures and with state and territory professional bodies.
Possible solutions include:
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statutory immunity for work not covered by retainer
amendment of ethical rules
Given that the issues raised have an impact beyond the jurisdiction of the Family
Court, the Chief Justice wrote to the Attorney-General, providing the paper and
inviting his further consideration. The Attorney-General’s Department has
advised it is actively considering this matter.
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9 Professor John Dewar, Unbundling (or ‘discrete task representation’): Ethical and liability issues, A brief
discussion paper, 2002.