Subscription and prepaid legal plans have become more and more popular in the last handful of years. Legal plans package certain build-in legal services into an affordable monthly or annual rate. These plans have expanded access to legal services to people who would otherwise not have been able to afford to pay for a lawyer.
But what about from the lawyers’ point of view? When legal plans first began to emerge on the market, many attorneys worried that the plans would undermine the value of their work and transform the way they’d been doing business for years. Others didn’t see the latter as a bad thing, and got involved at the ground floor.
Regardless, legal plans have stood the test of time. It’s safe to say they’re not going to cause large and boutique law firms to go extinct, and also don’t appear to be going anywhere themselves.
With the recent launch of Levelset’s own Legal Guard, a legal plan designed specifically for the construction industry, we decided to take a look at the side of legal plans that doesn’t get talked about: the attorney experience.
Attorneys are the lifeblood of prepaid legal plans
Legal plans could not exist without lawyers. Though many have placed lawyers and legal plans against each other in competition, lawyers are effectively one of the primary products of a legal plan. Another misconception is that lawyers who participate in legal plans are providing services for free.
On the contrary, the most effective legal plans should cultivate a symbiotic relationship with lawyers. Lawyers should be incentivized to participate in a legal plan. The most successful and built-to-last legal plans are those that work to keep both the customers and provider attorneys happy.
Benefits of being a legal plan provider attorney
So what does a mutually beneficial relationship between attorneys and a legal plan look like in practice? Of course different plans incentivize their attorneys in different ways. However, there are a number of especially potent incentives that lawyers should consider.
- Access to vetted leads. There are lots of services that claim they can offer qualified client leads to clients and lots of ways they propose to do that. If you’re a lawyer considering joining a legal plan, you should look for one that has authoritative access to the types of clients you want to represent.
- Payment incentives. In its most basic form, legal plans may pay lawyers a small portion of the subscription fee of any subscribers they assign to that lawyer. Depending on how much work one is doing for the plan then can determine how much these fees are worth. However, this model often looks better on paper than it pans out in practice, in terms of a work to pay ratio. More modern legal plans are getting more creative with their pay structures. For example, offering built-in incentives to their subscribers to hire the provider lawyers for more substantial legal services.
- Advertising and digital authority. Marketing is another thing lawyers often put lots of energy–and money–into. The right legal plan will help bifurcate these costs and save you time. A good legal plan should promote and advertise for you, featuring you in content and building your digital authority.
Legal plans represent the shifting landscape of the legal industry
At this point, it’s safe to say that legal plans are here to stay. Though they may not be right for all lawyers, many legal plans, rather than being in direct competition, have a lot to offer attorneys.
Rather than spending thousands on marketing and lead supply services like Martindale Hubbel or Lawyers.com, legal plans can be a way to achieve the same goals while bifurcating costs. Perhaps the greatest misconception of all about legal plans is that they only cut costs and save time for their subscribers. In fact, the best legal plans should save time and money for their provider lawyers as well!
Legal Guard is the first legal plan designed specifically for the construction industry
Now is an exciting time for construction lawyers to get involved on the ground floor with the first legal plan geared specifically to the construction industry. Levelset’s reputation helping contractors all across the country and massive construction customer base provides a powerful framework for building the plan.
As we expand to more and more states, we are looking for construction attorneys across the country to pair with folks in the construction industry who need legal help now.
Interested in learning more about what being a Legal Guard provider attorney entails and how to get connected to clients in your area? We’d love to talk to you!
