Call Your Lawyer on the Installment Plan: Prepaid Legal Help Is Accepted in Trucking

To have a lawyer or not to have a lawyer? That is the question for truckers and trucking companies — whether or not they face the need for immediate legal assistance.

Paying an attorney could be costly for a company or driver. A survey by Altman Weil, a legal consulting firm, pegs attorneys’ fees from a low of $110 to more than $335 an hour nationally.

There is, however, another option — the prepaid legal plan.

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An idea spawned in the 1960s, paying for what amounts to an insurance plan for legal help grew in popularity in the 1970s and ’80s, according to Alec Schwartz, executive director of the American Prepaid Legal Services Institute, a nonprofit trade association for the prepaid legal services industry. Now, the use of prepaid legal plans is an accepted and respected part of doing business, and is supported by the American Bar Association, he said.



For the full story, see the Sept. 11 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.