Pre Paid Legal Service

There are some law firms that say you don't have to pay any monthly fee's at all, just call them when you need them. Look in some of the trucking magazines for those law firms.

 

Well I'll weigh in here, if ya'll don't mind. I had a year where I got two tickets. Both minor point offenses, one for no prescription glasses and one for over length on my tandems in Tennessee. Dumb, I know. It was my first year driving. Still no excuse.

However, the fines were both about $400. Totaled over $800. It seems that it would have been a good idea to take up the prepaid service in hindsight. And yet upon reading through the thread I have realized that I probably should have had the where-with-all to call the court and get a local attorney.
I like the "Save a penny" program for a year and grant a personal safety bonus. And I must admit I am a little skeptical about trusting any law firm, especially those who advertise to desperate drivers in legal trouble living a hand to mouth existence on the road. Was that a little judging of me? I am just trying to paint them as sharks and us as the fish.

Does anyone have any additional suggestions?

The Varmit

 

I have some experience in this area. Regarding non-criminal infraction driving citations anyway, these "Ticket Fix-It Clinics" are nothing more than plea bargaining agents speaking on your behalf, without your having to appear in court personally. However, this type of practice is very limited and not offered to everyone, even though it appears otherwise.

Here's how it works. Out of all the tickets issued each year, only about 1 to 3 percent go to trial. Anymore than that and the entire system would collapse. Very simply put, there isn't enough judges and magistrates to go beyond that point. If just 5 percent of ticket offenders went to trial, the traffic citation industry would cease to exist, in its present form anyway. Thus, the traffic judicial system encourages lawyers to plea bargain as many citations as practical. In return, the traffic court's vastly reduce the fines for some offenders. However, in order to get a decent reduction in your fine, you must fit into certain limited categories.


For Example, "Ticket Fix-It Clinic Lawyers" place all of the citations they receive from their clients (drivers), who have no points on their licenses whatsoever in the past 3 years that is, into stack "A". Then those with 3 points in the past three years into stack "B", and so on, and so on. The lawyer then takes stack "A" for example, 100, 200, 300, or more citations at a time, and represents to the traffic court judge, that the offenders in stack "A" have no points at present on their licenses. The Court in turn "withholds adjudication" (does not assign the offenders any points... this time anyway) and fines the driver say, between $30 to $70. Since, the lawyer charges each of his clients $200 though, he still makes a hefty profit on what is a relatively small attorney's fee to the client. "Volume business". Now, stack "B" would do worse, but better than stack "C", and the attorney would make less also. There is a point though, based on your past driving record, where your ticket cannot be plea bargained and the attorney's will simply not take your case, on this level anyway.

So your right, "Ticket Fix-It Clinics" are just another scheme the sharks (lawyers) have created to give the appearance of propriety. Actually, there are current procedures in every traffic court in land set up for anyone who desires to enter into a plea agreement without personally appearing, even through the mail. However, you must qualify as an "infrequent" offender, just as with the "Ticket Fix-It Clinics". Therefore, why hire the law firm and pay $35 monthly, unless your looking for representation in other areas you deem necessary?

On the other hand, many legal services are worthwhile, at least in an advisory capacity. Regarding infrequent traffic offenders, however, once you learn the ropes yourself, (not that difficult) you can do much better financially without an attorney.

 

10/4

 

Not all pre paid legal programs are the same. I am a safety consultant and I was asked by one of my clients to help him with a ticket he received as part of an accident. He requested a trial but wanted an attorney to represent him or at least go with him to improve his chances.

I was able to get him a trial but only by fax and mail, this particular court did not have someone picking up the phone, just a voicemail message with their mailing address and fax number. He eventually decided to go on his own and there he found out that the other party had decided to file a civil lawsuit against him.

While he still needs to deal with the civil lawsuit, he got stuck paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 for being cited with careless driving and not having the trailer registration with him at the time of the accident.

I started thinking about the prepaid legal plan that I had while working at Ryder and how useful it was when I needed help with my divorce. I then did some research and realized that there are different pre paid legal companies offering this type of service and different types of programs for different industries and purposes.


I eventually chose to add one of these programs to the services that my company provides and our clients are very happy with them.

DISCLAIMER I am not mentioning which one we sell and I do not want anyone to think that this is a sales pitch because it's not. If anyone searches the posts that I have placed in different parts of the message board can tell that I have never tried to sell anything here. I simply want to give my humble opinion based on my experience.


If my client above was a member of the program at the time of the accident all he had to do was call an 1-800 number and fax the paperwork from the accident and the citation. A local law firm in Ocala would have handled it and he would probably have saved a big chunk of the money he ended up paying.

He has since joined the program and while not being able to get the full coverage for the accident since it happened before he became a member, he now has an attorney assigned to defend the civil lawsuit at a much lower rate than if he went attorney shopping himself and without paying a retainer.

I agree that keeping your nose clean it's important, but what we are talking about is insurance in case something bad happens. Just like we all do when we pay automobile, cargo, life and home insurance.

BTW I absolutely LOVE the saving a penny per mile and giving yourself a nice safety bonus idea. This is why I love this board!

 

No question legal advise, especially timely offered, can be invaluable. However, I am speaking purely from a business stand point. I am an advocate for learning from my experiences, even legal ones. My previous business was founded on the premise that most all litigation is manageable at the lay level. Although my pro se teaching days are over for the most part, I still tend to exude that philosophy in my daily life. I have always taken umbrage at the legal profession’s stranglehold over the rest of society. Thus, I stand for the proposition that part of the total business experience includes, not only learning accounting for example, but pro se lawyering as well. I am well aware that many would rather continue to rely on helping hands, rather than take themselves to task legally speaking, but those who choose to learn from those experiences, having paid for them through their hard earned labor, are a step closer to complete independence.

 

I am wary of these pre-paid legal plans. However, when my boyfriend started at KLLM, he signed up for it. I make all the financial decisions in the house, so here when he made his first decision on his own, away from home, I didn't want to say anything negative to him. I just question the importance of it. His cost is $2.98 a week, much better than the $35 a month someone else mentioned. It is one of those things that I hope we never have to use, like all our insurance policies.

 

Guys
Just an additional don't be tempted.
Pre-paid legal services might get you a 10 to 15% discount on attorney's fees should you engage, but simply by doing some leg work in your area you can often find very competant help without having to engage someone who is more interested in making his next Mercedes lease payment.

Attornies are just like mechanics some are good (thankfully) and some are downright bad and just need money. It's your hard earned money.
Caveat Emptor
Atros
Golden CO

 

Well put, Actros!

 

Hey there. Great posts all around. Especially the legaladvise.

I am headed for orientation out at Crete on Monday. You know, I've gotta lean towards a good pre-paid having spent a considerable time reading and re-reading threads on all sorts of problems.

Let me put it plain and see if it don't make sense.

1. RISK

We all know the ante is up every year against the driver, company logs dept's, safety dept's, dot, local law, and some kid thinking he's junior in the #8 car.

2. LOSS

We have a job that pays when we move, not when we stop and go shopping for local legal counsel. O/O's who have some savings might be able to call the shots. Company drivers, um, not in my experience. Safety will clear you to drive after most offenses and tell you to hall but out of there and deliver 'safe and legal'.


3. GAIN

We can get at least a guy or gal who's passed a bar exam to give their time to an offense we have. We get it at a discount. We get representation even if we're stuck in Hawthorne Nevada staring at the Military Ammunition Park. (If you haven't seen it... wow. Its a piece of work.)

So my conclusion is: I am going to drop some change once a month for the coverage.

Question is, how do I sift through them all when there's no standard for judging their effectiveness? There's not a whole forum like this devoted purely to "Pre-paid legal for professional drivers" is there?

I've read all the threads and posts on our forums here. So can anyone point me in some good directions real quick. I gotta get in a rental car Saturday morning.

Thanks,
and no matter what the driver manager or dispatch says,
its not worth your license. Just politely get switched or give your two weeks.

Varmit