Any opinion/experience with prepaid legal services?

[DownEastDeac]

I'm in charge of benefits at our company, and a very persistent (i.e. pushy) vendor is coming to make a presentation on prepaid legal in a few days. We're a fairly blue-collar company, and I've always tried to stay away from the ancillary insurance products b/c I think health, dental and 401K comes first, and some of our folks are easily swayed by stuff that is less expensive and the benefit is more tangible ("I'm in pretty good health and retirement is 30 years away, but man I sure could have used some help on that speedin' ticket last month!"). As you can tell my first impression of prepaid legal is not very positive, but I'd be interested in what some of you have to sday about it; thanks.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

I've had to clean up a lot of crap done by prepaid legal service lawyers. If it is anything document-related (Wills, LLC formations, etc) it is always half-assed and usually wrong. The only thing it is really good for is simple speeding tickets. I think if you get to the DUI level you are usually outside the scope of the prepaid portion and end up having to pay the guy anyway.

 

[cville deac]

What Leyritz said.

 

[Wakelaw2006]

What Leyritz said.

Ditto.

 

[ellisat2]

I've taken a few cases from UAW and I absolutely HATE dealing with them from a lawyer's end. Approve only a few hours, pay 1/2 of my hourly rate, and takes FOREVER to get them to approve more hours. Bureaucracy is terrible.

 

[Substar5710]

ARAG is what I've dealt with and they suck.... they deny half of the claims we submit on behalf of their insured for work we've actually done and the claims they do pay we are limited to roughly half of our normal fees... After the last time we had to go collect $$$ from the client because ARAG denied our claim we stopped accepting ARAG

 

[Deacon923]

I have a low opinion of prepaid legal.

 

[TheTwinAndreBen]

Ditto.

Double Ditto.

The insurance companies go find law firms that will do it for the cheapest price they can find so they can maximize their profit. So you either get shitty attys or attys that dont give a shit about the work because they arent getting paid full freight to do it. Either way its an awful result.

 

[Shitfly Green]

Prepaid Legal is great!!! Only greedy lawyers would be opposed to it, because eventually PPL is going to control the U.S. legal system and the lawyers who aren't on board will get left behind!