May 13, 2010

Common Services Offered by Pre Paid Legal Plan

Considering a pre paid legal plan? He’s a run-down of the services you’re most likely to get and also some legal documents you need to sign before you enroll.
Telephone and Office Consultation: You have unlimited telephone access to a panel of attorneys regarding any pre paid legal matter of interest to you. You can also make brief consultation visits to your lawyer for up to 30 minutes per day at no cost to you. The only condition placed on these two benefits is that you enquire about a different pre paid legal matter. This aspect of coverage provided by pre paid legal plan is one of the most beneficial because it promotes preventive law. Preventive law is very much like preventive medicine – it helps in anticipating potential problems and taking the appropriate pre paid legal steps so that unnecessary pre paid legal problems or risks are avoided. With a simple phone call to your lawyer you can avoid getting embroiled in a hellish pre paid legal situation, and you can even identify pre paid legal rights you don’t even know you had.
Follow up Service: The panel of lawyers will write letters and make phone calls on your behalf to adverse third parties. Such follow-up service may be all it takes to solve many of your pre paid legal problems.
Legal document review: Simple personal pre paid legal documents, such as your insurance policies, sales contracts and leases will be reviewed. Any questions of pre paid legal nature that you have about the documents will also get answered by your attorney.
Drafting of wills: A will is a written document that regulates how you want your property distributed after your death. Your attorney will draft your will according to your state’s laws so that it’s valid when you die. He will also advise you on any provisions you might want to consider, such as appointing a guardian and establishing a trust.
Discount on regular fees: Any additional services not covered in the written fee agreement will be at regular fees either hourly or flat with a discount between 20 to 30%. These services generally include family matters, such as divorce and the custody of children, and court representation, such as traffic tickets and lawsuits.
Some of the pre paid legal paperwork you need to read carefully agrees on and sign include the following:
Written fee agreement: This is an agreement that outlines what services are provided in the pre paid legal plan, how much it costs and the methods of payment.
Grievance procedure: This document details the procedures that will be taken by them provide to resolve any complaints about attorneys or disputes regarding service fees.

May 10, 2010

Benefits of Pre Paid Legal Plan

Pre paid legal services can be a very attractive alternative to hiring a lawyer for many people. You should consider the importance and relative priority of these benefits in light of your own pre paid legal needs. So what are the benefits going pre paid legal compared to conventional hire of lawyers?
Benefit Number 1: Cost-Effective
Pre paid legal plan can take the sting out of hiring a lawyer. Lawyer’s fees are prohibitive for most people: you can run bills of thousands of dollars and this is simply out of reach of most working and middle-class families. With pre paid plans, what you get charged is more in line with what you pay for your health or home insurance. Pre paid legal plan start as low as $9 per month and typically don’t exceed the $30 mark.
Benefit Number 2: Simplicity
There is a number of very complicated set of fees lawyers charge: contingency fees, flat fees, statutory fees and hourly rates. In the case of contingency and statutory fees, you have to get into the intricate details of how these fees are computed – say for a contingency fee how much is the lawyer’s commission? And their regulatory nature who regulates the statutory fee and how do I know if these fees are in line with regulatory guidelines? The other two types of fees can be equally as complex. Increasingly, attorneys choose to incorporate any overheads they incur, like secretarial expenses, parking charges and travel fees into their flat and hourly fees. They can also set a minimum number of billing units, like three tenths of an hour (18 minutes), irrespective of how long it takes them to deal with your problem.
This is just a sample rundown of what might influence the various fees charged by lawyers, other factors and arrangements can apply too. Contrast this with the simplicity in which pre paid legal services is priced and furnished. The process is simple and straightforward: you sign an agreement to pay a fixed monthly fee and that’s about it. If what you’re looking for is not covered, your pre paid legal plan provider will give you a prior notice of a different billing so that you know exactly how much you will be charged.
Benefit Number 3: Pre-emptive Law
Pre paid legal plan offer unlimited phone consultation and advice. This aspect of the service can save you a lot of trouble, money and time in the future. Most legal problems you are likely to face in your day-to-day life can be solved if you take the necessary steps in line with the law. With his right advice and consultation with your lawyer, you can detect pre paid legal blunders before they occur and hence minimize the risk of litigation and protection.

May 06, 2010

How to Choose a Pre Paid Legal Attorney?

Throughout the course of your pre paid legal problems, you will have to make some tough decisions – If you were involved in an accident then you have to choose between bringing criminal damages or press with a plaintiff case, if you have a small business and you were involved in a deal, then you have to decide whether to sign it or let it pass. There is no clear-cut answer in many of these dilemmas, and getting the right lawyer is crucial to you. We examine the perks of choosing a lawyer in a pre paid legal plan as opposed to hiring your own lawyer, and some simple steps you can take to choose a good attorney.
The number one criterion has to do with a lawyer’s pre paid legal ability: someone who lays the law down for you, present you with options, explain the ramifications of each decision you make and give you recommendations on the best course of action. In this day and age of complicated pre paid legal matters, many lawyers are increasingly specialized and you stand to get better information from someone with a practice focus in a particular area of the law than a generalist who deals with a broad spectrum of pre paid legal issues. Building rapport is also very important: your relationship with your lawyer can make or break your case. You need a lawyer who gives you candid advice and council you can trust, someone with enough perspective to step back from an issue and look at it from all perspectives.
Client-lawyer relationships are very limited within a pre paid legal plan. Because of “preventive” nature of most plans, your contact with your lawyer will be limited on many occasions. You seldom get to talk to your lawyer face-to-face – as most of the consultation is done over the phone – and even when you get to talk to them, it’s difficult to build rapport when your office consultations are limited to a dozen hours a year.
The good news, however, are you still having some options left? When you sign up for a pre paid legal plan, you get to choose your lawyer and there are a number of steps you can take to increase the likelihood of getting a good lawyer. First, you need to ask for referrals from previous clients. Ask around about good attorneys in the network. Once you get a few names, check their educational background, their qualifications and their professional track record with your state’s bar association. After you receive your referrals, don’t shy away from setting up interviews with attorneys in the network. Most don’t mind receiving enquiries about what they do and how able there are. Ask tough questions: How long have they been in practice? How satisfied are their previous clients? How many pre paid legal problems of interest to you have they taken recently?

May 03, 2010

Why You Need Pre Paid Legal Help

We are likely to need pre paid legal help at least once a year, yet most of us do not actively seek pre paid legal help.
This is borne out of data from a survey conducted by Leo J. Shapiro & Associates, on behalf of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation, which shows that close to three quarters of American adults experience some event during a twelve-month period that may require the services of a lawyer. Over half of those who needed an attorney chose not to hire one, and close to 80% of those yet to experience pre paid legal problems gave strong indications they might go down the same route.
Why all the doom and gloom? Price is the most sticking point for most consumers. When it comes to hiring a lawyer, hourly fees of $100 up to $1000 are out of reach of most people’s budget. And then the trepidation of searching for a good attorney and the right service: there is a lot of uncertainty and confusion as what a lawyer will do, and how to tell the good from the bad.
A pre paid legal plan may solve these problems and change the way you think of pre paid legal services. Thanks to this arrangement, you can now talk to a lawyer whenever you have a problem, without fear this will leave you out of pocket. In fact, you don’t even need to be embroiled in a pre paid legal problem to get pre paid legal advice: just pick up the phone, call your attorney and get the necessary pre paid legal advice susceptible of resolving any potential problems with professional pre paid legal advice and follow-up, you can prevent ninety percent of your pre paid legal questions becoming pre paid legal problems. Basic services such as the drafting of your will, review of sample health contracts and writing letters on your behalf are handled at no cost to you. If you want further coverage to include family problems, such as a divorce or custody of children, and any legal representation in court, then you simply pay a premium and get more inclusive coverage.
Even if your plan doesn’t cover complex pre paid legal matters, it can still save you money on those sky-high attorney fees. Discounts of up to 20% are offered on hourly and flat rates. Ultimately, it’s not all down to how much you can save. Having an attorney readily available at all times gives you peace of mind, in the knowledge that there is someone you can use on retainer for advice and help on anything of pre paid legal nature.