Self-Help Law, Limited Legal Services : MyLawyer.com : Law That You Can Afford

I recently ran across the web site of Legal Club of America which has an interesting model for providing legal access to consumers. For $12.00 a month a consumer  can select their own attorney from Legal Club's nationwide panel of attorneys and then the subscriber and his or her family members are eligible for the following benefits: 1)  unlimited phone consultations, during business hours, for each new legal matter; 2)  unlimited face to face consultations, during business hours, for each new legal matter; 3) attorney review of legal documents (6 page max.) per new matter; 4) plan attorneys will make phone calls on your behalf; 5) plan attorneys will write letters on your behalf; 6) you get simple wills for you and each member of your family at no additional cost; 7) if you have a claim in small claims court, you get free legal advice on how to handle it; 8)  for certain common legal transactions such as a no-fault divorce ($210.00) you pay a fixed fee; and most importantly,  9) your legal fees are capped at $75.00 which is way below the going rate.

This seems like a pretty good deal to me for $12.00 a month. This is not a pre-paid legal insurance plan. The company calls the program a "nationwide discounted legal referral service."  Apparently the company is able to induce lawyers to provide these discounted services because it is functioning as their marketing agent by sending clients to lawyers in their referral network.  From the law firm's point of view the provision of these discounted services is considered the cost of client acquisition, so this program looks like a win-win situation for both the lawyer and the consumer. The free wills for family members would be sufficient to justify the cost to the consumer over a year which is only $144.00. The company claims to have 22,000 attorneys enrolled in their legal panel nationwide and has been in business since 1993, so they must be doing something right. For a complete description of  all  of their plans, including comparable plans for small business, see: Family Plans - Legal Club of America

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