Pre-paid legal services? (1 Viewer)

[JustinCleveland]

Just a question for folks in the know:

What is, or are, Pre-Paid Legal Services? What benefits does it contain? Are there time restrictions, or HMO-esque restrictions of where you can go? Is it like lawsuit insurance?

I only ask because my uncle has become involved in it, and I'm fairly convinced it's just a pyramid scheme but can't prove it.

 

[Brian Harnish]

It's not exactly a pyramid scheme, but it is a service promoted by Multi-Level Marketing, which is in no way illegal. It can take quite a bit more work than they advertise to recruit people to sell the service, though.

I haven't used Prepaid Legal myself, but from a friend of mine that uses it it seems to be pretty good. You pay around $20-40 a month (don't know the exact price) and you can have access to an attorney within a network of selected provider law firms. With your legal situation, you call the law firm, give them your prepaid legal member number, and can get legal information anytime you need it.

Of course, this only applies under the general basic membership. I believe they have a legal business membership that costs quite a bit more. They seem to be a pretty solid company, though.

 

[Tim Hoover]

LOL....I've known about this for years. It's called a retainer

 

[ClintS]

I have a Pre-paid legal plan through my employer costs $7 per month. Money well spent based on last years usage for selling property, assistance with moving violations, and prep of a will.

Guess it depends if you are going to actually get any benefit out of it. I was able to work with one of the better law firms in my area. I dont know anything about the pyramid scheme, like I mentioned this is a legit benefit throught my employer.

 

[tiffany]

Prepaid legal is rad. I've had it for awhile. You pay a small monthly fee and then you have it forever as long as you're subscribed. You get all the legal advice that you want, they send letters for you, and you get discounts on more intense legal services like if you were going to take something to trial. It's great if you want to know about the legal parameters of any situation.

A good example - I moved out of this apartment and the landlord took $75 out of my deposit. I contacted Prepaid legal and it turns out that technically the landlord did three things that weren't legal: he didn't schedule a walk-through that would inform me of what he was planning on deducting from the deposit (giving me a chance to fix things), some of the conditions he wanted me to pay for were "pre-existing" conditions, and the cleaning charges that he was assuming was way above what was reasonable to assume. This is great stuff to know! So my lawyer through PPL sent him this official letter with all the company lawyer names and it cited the proper code and basically scared the landlord into giving me the $75. Easy peasey!

There's also a 24 hour hotline - if you ever get pulled over by a cop then you can call your lawyer and have the cop talk to the lawyer instead of you! hah!

It is a pyramid scheme, but the services are great anyway and it doesn't cost much.