Pre-paid legal

[needhelpthx]

Hello everyone! Newbie here, lots of great on this board!

I plan on filing CH7 within a few months, and was just wondering if anyone is signed up with PPL, and used them for a CH7? Can you refer the creditors to them to make the creditors stop calling?

Are PPL attys any good?

Thanks!

[HHM]

It really just depends.

Be sure to check the benefits and make sure bankruptcy is available in your state and if there are any time restrictions (i.e. how long you need to be a member) before you can use the benefit.

Not sure if you can refer creditors; the firms are hit or miss. In some areas, I am sure they are fine, in others, I have heard nothing but negative comments. After all, pre paid legal is insurance. When insurance companies provide services, they go with the lowest bidder. In most cities, there is a central law firm that acts as the intake or managing firm and then farms out the work for areas of law (like BK) in which the managing firm does not practice.

Generally, bankruptcy appears to be covered under the "preferred member discount" program of pre paid legal. So, its not like you can sign up, pay 1 months premium, and then get a free bankruptcy, you simply get a discount.

Also, the plan has the usual exclusion language.
"...something that occurred prior to your membership or because of conditions that were reasonably anticipated or foreseeable prior to your enrollment, then that legal matter is excluded from your benefit."

[maggie]

check them out!

We had a prepaid referral and he was more expensive and gave us inaccurate info. We ended up with a much better attorney that was less expensive. I complained to Prepaid about the lawyer that they referred us to. Just be careful!

[ccsjoe]

My wife and I thought about using something similar, Hyatt Legal, but decided against it as we would not have had the chance to actually interview attorneys and would have had to take whatever they assigned to us. We thought this was too big a deal to leave it up to an entity to decide for us.

[sophia]

We used a Lawyer from our Hyatt legal Plan for our BK. We had a choice of 3 and picked the one with 1 lawyer and one paralegal. Our only expenses were the court filing fee's and the pre & post education classes. We had a pretty straight forward Ch. 7 though. No car loans, homes or anything like that. All went well and we were closed and discharged within 4 months of 341 meeting. A buddy of my husband had a much more difficult case and used the same lawyer we did and had only good things to say too. Turns out that many employees from my spouses job had picked this lawyer through the legal plan for their BK's as well.

[maggie]

That is what happened to us. I had read on these boards that we should interview 3 attorneys. I'm so glad that we found one that would file a chapter 7 for us. The prepaid attorney only talked about chapter 13.