Prepaid legal? scam or not?

[scouser1]

I am just wondering if anyone has any experience or come across these guys in prepaid legal, to me they come across like snake oil salesmen, there is a dude in the coffee shop that I hang out in who works in this field, he starts a conversation with every single person that comes in his vicinity, pushing the sale of their services. Coming up with wacky stats that 1/3 of Ontarians have a legal issue, blah blah blah. The people have actually threatened to ban him if he didnt tone it down. I even came across one on Plenty of Fish!!! she wanted our first date to be dinner with her "team" because they are such "great people" My thought is most lawyers will talk to you for free,why would I pay to get access just to talk to a lawyer???


http://prepaidlegalcanada.ca/

 

[night ride]

I actually sorta, kinda scammed one of those prepaid legal plans by signing up, getting advice (it was good advice) and shortly thereafter cancelling.

 

[Lenny Weinrib]

I had a situation where my client’s co-accused got a lawyer that had a deal with some prepaid legal company.

Consider:
1. The prepaid company needs to make a profit.
2. The lawyer has to pay for the referrals.
3. The money has to come from somewhere.
4. Legal fees are not regulated. So the “somewhere” (See #3) is the client.
5. Some legal work is trivial (like writing a letter) and some (like running a trial) is complex. It’s just not possible to structure a prepaid plan that would cover a trial from beginning to end. At most, all the prepaid plan can offer is a “discount”. But any “discount” is offset by an increased base rate (See #4).

I found that the co-accused had paid way more for his lawyer that my client did. And his lawyer did not seem to be that familiar with criminal law.

So, if your legal matter happens to be one that can be solved with a letter, I’m sure the plan will cover it, although it still would be cheaper just to pay for the letter than to prepay every month. But you don’t really need insurance for that, right?

Insurance, from the client's perspective, is the ability to make small regular payments in order to get financial assistance upon the occurrence of improbable but catastrophic event. Prepaid legal is the opposite. If you have a routine matter, you have coverage, but if you have a big legal problem, you're SOL.

 

[Aardvark154]

I am just wondering if anyone has any experience or come across these guys in prepaid legal, to me they come across like snake oil salesmen, there is a dude in the coffee shop that I hang out in who works in this field, he starts a conversation with every single person that comes in his vicinity, pushing the sale of their services. Coming up with wacky stats that 1/3 of Ontarians have a legal issue, blah blah blah. The people have actually threatened to ban him if he didnt tone it down. I even came across one on Plenty of Fish!!! she wanted our first date to be dinner with her "team" because they are such "great people" My thought is most lawyers will talk to you for free,why would I pay to get access just to talk to a lawyer???

From the other side of the fence, unless the Bar rules are drastically different in Upper Canada, you are not dealing directly with a lawyer. Rather prepaid legal plans are generally run by groups much like insurance companies who retain lawyers to represent their members.

Lawyers can not move monies from trust accounts until services are rendered, few Law Firms or partnerships want to have tons of money sitting around in scads of trust accounts that all have to be looked after, with no concurrent legal action taking place.

Hence those you mention probably sound like “snake oil salesmen” because they are salesmen for a pre-paid legal plan rather than lawyers.