We are considering pre paid legal..pls help!?
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at
5:21 am
My fiance and I are considering going through prepaid legal in Colorado for a matter that is in Michigan. Do they really work with out of state attorneys? He is trying to do get a DNA test or possibly do a voluntary termination of his rights..Does pre-paid provide services for that? Anyone have any good advice or any success stories? We meet up with a guy Saturday and i want to know what to do before we sign up!
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Make sure you read the contract very carefully first. I’m not saying it’s worthless, but it is normally very restrictive. I think there is a deductible, and a lot of attorney services are not covered, so you have to pay for those. DNA test is NOT a service offered by attys, so it probably is not covered, but it may be partially covered by health insurance, if at all.
My inclination would be to say NO. If you sign up with an atty in CO, he will still have to hire one in MI (and pass the costs along) because he isn’t licensed in MI to practice law.
Better for your fiance to hire a MI atty directly, send him a retainer, and go from there.
** Note: This is a general discussion of the subject matter of your question and not legal advice. Local laws or your particular situation may change the general rules. For a specific answer to your question you should consult legal counsel with whom you can discuss all the facts of your case. Answering this question does not indicate an attorney-client relationship. **
It is totally up to you of course. I worked for a gentleman about a year ago who got into the pre-paid legal and it wasn’t good for him. The service did little to nothing to help him but charged him out the wazoo! I would thoroughly check them out top to bottom before considering any contract with them. Good luck.
I think that’s not one of the covered areas, so what you would get is a recommendation to an attorney that practices that kind of law, who would provide the service at a discount from their normal hourly rate.
It beats finding one from the phone book, as PPL does try to screen attorneys to make sure they recommend someone competent, and if you aren’t reasonably satisfied with the representation, PPL may not send that attorney more work, so that may be an incentive to make sure you understand what they’re doing for you and why the result you got was as good as could be had.
OK just to give you one side; I signed up for PPL and the guy I went to was a total dork, he was barely old enough to shave, was very distracted, did not or could not focus, was confused about everything, seemed to have no idea what to do or even how to answer any questions; after all that and taking time off work to meet with him he offered a similar answer to one I already had and was trying to avoid so I stopped PPL right then and there and IMO they should screen their attorneys better before subjecting people to those who are not qualified.
Huge rip-off! Don’t do it! You will pay them a lot more than you would to hire an attorney outright. Also, the local attorneys who might participate will not treat your case as high-priority because basically they aren’t making much.
The private pre-paids are generally not worth the $$. None of them are evry much good at contested family law cases.
They will deal with that case,but more than likely on a 50% discount basis. I have had the service for 5 years and had to use it a few times. Yes they do require a retainer, but its 50% off of their normal rate, which in ohio is about 150-300 an hour. I’ve used them for family law and got a very good lawyer. Its pretty much all up to you, I have found it worth it and will keep it till the day I die. Of course there are some people that do not find any benefit in it. Its all up to you. Also Before I sign anything I send it to the law firm and have them read over it for me.