LegalShield`s approach to legal solutions helps individuals and businesses find quality legal support at affordable prices. To do this, we work with firms and lawyers in the United States who provide services to our members for a low monthly fee. LegalShield (formerly known as Pre-Paid Legal Services or simply Pre-Paid Legal) is an American company that sells legal services products directly to consumers through employer groups and through multi-level marketing[9] in the United States and Canada. It was available in the UK from 2019[10] to 2021. [11] LegalShield began in 1972 as Sportsman`s Motor Club. [8] [13] Harland Stonecipher (1938-2014) was the company`s founding President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). [14] [15] The life insurance salesman from Ada, Oklahoma, founded the Motor Service Club after being involved in a car accident in 1969. The other party to the crash was cited for misconduct, but nonetheless filed a lawsuit against Stonecipher for the accident. Although he has health, life and auto insurance, he had to hire a lawyer to defend himself in court and struggled to pay legal fees. [16] After researching the European legal protection plan industry, he founded the Sportsman`s Motor Club to reimburse members for legal fees related to motor vehicle accidents. [16] [12] Resolve immediate legal issues now and continue to have peace of mind that you have an entire law firm ready, willing and able to help you with anything that may arise in the future.
Stone Point Capital, another private equity firm, acquired a majority stake in LegalShield from MidOcean Partners in 2018. [30] In 2019, the firm expanded into the UK with offices in Oxford and an agreement with Slater & Gordon UK, which provides legal advice via the LegalDefence app. [10] [31] The business went bankrupt and was closed in February 2021. [32] As a subsidiary of LegalShield, our firm is one of 39 law firms nationwide representing individuals, families, small businesses and commercial drivers through a network at the request of established lawyers. More than 80,000 LegalShield members rely on Riggs Abney to be represented in all areas of law. Representing membership plans allows us to be at the forefront of providing legal services in an emerging area of practice. LegalShield develops and markets prepaid legal service plans through a network of more than 6,900 independent lawyers in the United States and Canada. The company also markets IDShield, a privacy and reputation management service that also helps monitor and recover identity theft. [42] [43] The company`s membership plans are sold as employee benefits and directly through its multi-level marketing department. [9] The association changed its name and was incorporated into Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.
in 1976,[17] becoming the first company in the United States to offer prepaid legal plans for individuals. [16] Initially, members could choose their own lawyer and request reimbursement of prepaid payments, but in the 1980s the society referred members who needed legal help to pre-screened companies. [16] PrePaid was the largest donor to the 2008 re-election campaign for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who defended the operation of multi-level marketing companies in the state. [41] In 2000, Pre-Paid Legal was criticized by the CBC market for acting as a multi-layered marketing model and encouraging sales representatives to purchase training materials. [25] Do you have any questions? Call our customer support team at 1-844-980-0106 or live chat today. In 2004, about 250 plaintiffs in Alabama filed about 30 lawsuits against advance payments, all of which were dismissed or settled in 2006. [21] Pre-Paid faced two lawsuits in Mississippi, one in October 2004 and the other in February 2005. A jury ruled in favor of the company in the first trial. In the second case, a jury found Pre-Paid and Stonecipher guilty of misleading advertising and fraud[14] and ordered them to pay $9.9 million in punitive damages in November 2005.
[37] TheStreet.com reported that Pre-Paid faced further lawsuits filed by 400 Mississippi plaintiffs, which were eventually resolved. [21] TheStreet.com also noted that the company had achieved some success in court, including the overturning of a judgment of fraud and the dismissal of a class action lawsuit alleging that the company was a Ponzi scheme. [37] Society and the United States. Areas of expertise include the benefits of litigation defense, contract and document review, IRS audit benefits, estate preparation and planning, and traffic offense representation. In July 2014, Jeff Bell replaced Mason as CEO and Mason became Chairman of the Board. [29] In 2011, Pre-Paid Legal moved from the New York Stock Exchange to a private company when it was acquired by MidOcean Partners for $650 million and later changed its name to LegalShield. The company was founded on August 8, 1972 by Harland Stonecipher in Ada, Oklahoma,[12] as Sportsman`s Motor Club. It was founded in 1976 as Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. and went public in 1984. In 2007, the FTC began investigating the prepaid marketing of the identity theft service and the Affirmative Defense Response System (ADRS), which the company had developed to increase the company`s revenue. [ref.
needed] Pre-Paid changed its marketing materials in 2009 after regulators deemed the company`s claims about ADRS misleading. [40] According to an SEC filing, the FTC and Pre-Paid “reached an out-of-court solution,” and in 2010 the agency ended its three-year investigation without action. In 2001, a press release from the Wyoming Attorney General announced: “When we discovered that prepaid companies were using prohibited revenue representations to promote their multi-layered marketing program, we warned them that the representations were prohibited by Wyoming law. Pre-Paid denied breaking the law, but agreed to adjust its marketing message and pay $7,000, including $2,000 to participants who claimed the company had misled them. [33] [34] In the same year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required that advance payments no longer count commissions paid to sales representatives as assets rather than expenses, reducing reported profits by more than half. [14] As a result, Pre-paid amended its reports and presented its 2000 accounts in February 2002.
