Settle disputes or complaints

Legal advice for small businesses does not have to be expensive. With pre-paid legal plans, a wide array of legal services designed specifically to cater for the needs of small businesses is available for a set yearly fee ranging from $125 to $300. Although coverage differs across the board, most pre-paid plans offer unlimited telephone consultation with a lawyer, a valuable service that is enough to solve many small-business matters.

This encourages the process whereby you identify legal problems that affect your business, contact your lawyer, and get advice on taking steps to minimize them. Basic plans provide coverage for simple contracts and the drafting of simple legal documents, like a power of attorney or a bill of sale. More comprehensive plans will deal with more elaborate matters like equipment lease and accounts-receivable collection work.

If you are a member of a local chamber of commerce, trade, or professional group then you can get a plan at a reduced group rate. Otherwise, buy directly from a commercial vendor. Pre-paid legal plans come in a variety of types depending on the scope of legal coverage they provide.

The most basic pre-paid plan is designed to make the simple legal services readily available to the public at low cost. These plans typically cost between $10 and $30 per month, billed in advance. You get unrestricted toll-free number telephone access to a lawyer for legal advice and consultation.

You can also make brief office consultations to talk to your lawyer about any legal problems you may be encountering. Your lawyer can also write to letters or make phone calls on your behalf. This can help resolve many problems before they escalate further.

Other services provided are not overly time-consuming such as the drafting of your will to distribute your property after your death, review of your trust, and any other simple legal document. If you require any other service beyond the scope of a basic plan, then you can either pay discounts on regular lawyer fees or pay a premium to upgrade to a more comprehensive plan. Over 100 million Americans are signed up for pre-paid legal services.

Also called legal insurance, these plans are like those provided by Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and cover the legal needs of the member, spouse, and any dependent children. In a prepaid legal service plan, the customer pays a fixed monthly subscription fee of up to $25 for the services of pre-selected lawyers. The most basic plans provide advice and consultation by telephone.

Plan members receive a few hours of free office consultation with their assigned attorney. They may also include review and advice on simple legal documents, preparation, drafting, or an update of a simple will. Phone calls and letters can be written on behalf of members, a service helpful for credit problems and consumer protection.

More comprehensive plans cover clients’ personal legal needs ranging from services that require more time and effort on the part of your attorney, such as contracts, wills, and deeds, to legal representation in negotiations and courts cases related to family matters, bankruptcy, and real estate issues. When you subscribe to a pre-paid legal service, you are likely to deal with an attorney and several other individuals and organizations who are involved in one way or another with the service. It is important to understand the role of each participating party in a legal service plan, particularly when you are unhappy with the service or when fee disputes or any other litigation with your provider arises.

You get to choose your attorney from a pool of attorneys in the network.

Preventive law

Just as preventive medicine helps prevent disease by detecting their symptoms, preventive law helps prevent serious legal consequences by detecting early problems. In an increasingly litigious society, there is real concern that assets you have worked long and hard to accumulate may be attacked by creditors and litigants, through no fault of your own. By the time a potential claim or liability is identified, it is too late to act.

A competent attorney’s advice is your best option to minimize your exposure to potential risks and protect yourself from legal problems getting out of hand. Pre-paid legal plans offer a range of legal services on-call for a fixed monthly charge of up to $25 per month. With such a low monthly payment, most people are only too happy to get a legal coverage they would not have otherwise dreamt of in the stultifying, money-grabbing world of lawyers.

In a bid to cut on administration costs, employers, labor unions, and universities are now providing legal services at discounted or no cost altogether to their members. Employers are increasingly sponsoring legal plans to their employees as a fringe benefit, as part of their Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Labor unions fund plans offered as member benefit, or under a collective bargaining scheme, in which case new members are eligible to huge discounts.

Universities are equally as involved with legal plans offered to students and staff. If you are operating your own business, you cannot afford to go it alone when it comes to legal matters. The ever-increasing complexities of law, spiraling costs of lawsuits, and the proliferation of government red tape can land you in a lot of trouble.

The flip of the coin is hardly attractive either. Hiring a lawyer can constitute a substantial financial investment many cash-strapped small businesses and entrepreneurs cannot sustain. Lawyers charge a minimum of $200 per hour when it comes to business law.

It can get very costly if you are involved in lengthy legal procedures, complicated contracts, or business transactions. There may just be a glitter of hope in pre-paid legal plans. For a set monthly price, some legal providers are now bundling a whole suite of legal services especially tailored to the needs of small businesses. Whether you need phone consultation on the legal complexities of a lease contract, or require legal representation during tax audits, a pre-paid plan can help you manage legal costs.

An array of services is included as standard coverage at no cost to you in the plan, and any legal matters not covered can be provided with a discount on fees. Before you take the leap, you need to keep some caveats in mind. You need to know more about the quality of service you are likely to get.

While lower fees do not necessarily infer lower quality of work, it is always necessary to bear in mind that legal specialization plays a crucial part and lawyers are not interchangeable. Ask for references from previous clients or ask entrepreneurs who have used the services of the provider about the quality of work they have received from them. Use your state bar association, service organizations in your locale, and your local Better Business Bureau to research law firms and the background of the attorneys in the network before selecting them.

Things to look for are the number of years they have been operating, complaints from previous customers, the education background of attorneys, professional track record, and so forth. With the increasing amount of small businesses involved in litigation and fee disputes with their legal providers, it is important to give some thought to alternative courses of actions when dealing with disputes.