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| Harland and Shirley Stonecipher |
It’s a novel concept in the United States: Pay a monthly fee and you’ll get toll-free access to a law firm that answers your legal questions, reviews your documents, prepares your will and provides advice on legal matters. This unique service is provided by Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc., founded in 1972 by Harland Stonecipher and based in Ada, Okla., Stonecipher’s hometown.
While pre-paid legal services are a relatively new phenomenon in the United States—with Pre-Paid Legal Services being an early pioneer—legal- service plans have been available in Europe for more than 100 years. The $4 billion legal-plan industry has existed in Europe since 1907.
Like many great accomplishments, Stonecipher’s achievement sprang from adversity. One morning in 1969, Stonecipher was driving through Central Oklahoma, on his way to a business meeting. At the time, he was an insurance salesman. A car suddenly made a quick turn in front of Stonecipher’s vehicle. Stonecipher was hurtled into the backseat of his car and suffered back injuries. The woman driving the other car was injured as well.
Despite the fact that a highway patrolman ticketed the woman, she initiated a lawsuit against Stonecipher, alleging the accident was his fault. “I faced thousands of dollars in legal costs stemming from an accident in which I was blameless. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he says.
Although Stonecipher won the lawsuit, he spent thousands of dollars on attorney fees. It was at that moment that Stonecipher decided such vulnerability—the potential for financial devastation and the loss of personal freedom at the hands of a convoluted legal system—was simply unacceptable. The idea of a company that offered pre-paid legal service plans occurred to Stonecipher.
“My wife, Shirley, and I were pioneers in an entirely new field,” Stonecipher says. “It was something that had never been done before here in the United States.”
In the early days of the company’s formation, Stonecipher took inspiration from McDonald’s Founder Ray Kroc. The formula driving both McDonald’s and Pre-Paid Legal Services springs from the same concept: Combine the purchasing power of many customers, each willing to pay a relatively small unit price, and create on their behalf a system that consistently and efficiently delivers a quality product.
Today, Pre-Paid Legal Services is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (PPD), and it boasts annual sales of $464.48 million and more than 800 staff members. Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc. has the largest toll-free, direct-access law firm in the world. This is achieved by a network of Provider Law Firms located throughout the United States and Canada.
“The difference that Pre-Paid Legal brings to the table is when a member calls to speak with a lawyer, the firm has already been paid,” Stonecipher says. “Their job is to deliver service. I’ve learned that life is about serving others. The more service you provide—the more you can help others—the more successful you will be.”
Through providing needed services, Pre-Paid Legal has achieved success. By the end of 2008, Pre-Paid Legal had more than 1.55 million members in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba.
One of the best measures of Pre-Paid Legal’s economic success is membership revenue per share, which has grown nearly 17 percent each year during the last 10 years.
Pre-Paid Legal’s Life Events Legal Plan (referred to as a “membership”) includes preventive legal services, motor vehicle legal defense services, trial defense services, IRS audit services and a 25 percent discount on legal services not specifically covered by the membership plan. Additionally, in 44 states, members may opt to add a Legal Shield rider, which provides 24-hour access to toll-free attorney assistance if the member is arrested or detained.
Capitalizing on the rise of identity theft, Pre-Paid Legal offers an Identity Theft Shield plan, which provides benefits such as a credit report and instructional guide, a credit score and instructional guide, and ID-theft restoration services. Identity Theft Shield benefits are provided by Kroll Background America Inc., a subsidiary of Kroll Inc. Pre-Paid Legal’s relationship with Kroll is one example of its ability to embrace cooperative partnerships with other companies.
In 1973, Pre-Paid Legal introduced a group plan, designed for the large-group, employee-benefit market. Associates sell employee group memberships to school systems, governmental entities and businesses. Available in 36 states, this plan provides all the benefits of the Life Events Legal Plan, as well as mortgage document preparation, and assistance with uncontested legal situations such as adoptions, name changes, separations and divorces. Additional benefits include the preparation of healthcare power of attorney and living wills or directives to physicians.
Employee group plans, which are administered on a payroll-deduction basis, enable associates to reach more members with each sales presentation. And helping the company’s associates attain success is where Stonecipher’s passion lies.
“If there has been any key to my success, it’s realizing that—when it comes to our sales associates—I’ve got to find a way to serve them better,” Stonecipher says. “My goal every day is to find a way to make it better for them so they can become more successful and they can earn more money. As a result, our company grows.”
Stonecipher says he will never tire of hearing success stories from Pre-Paid Legal associates and members. “Right now, somewhere in North America, Pre-Paid Legal is helping save someone’s home, helping stave off the damage of identity theft, or helping prepare a will,” he says. “They are doing things that are really important to the average person.
“Having a law firm on your side is such an empowering feeling because you get what is rightfully yours—and that is equal justice under the law,” Stonecipher adds.
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| Pre-Paid Legal’s Ada, Okla., headquarters |
What makes Pre-Paid Legal so effective is that its members have direct, toll-free access to their Provider Law Firm rather than having to call for a referral.
Pre-Paid Legal has a network of independent Provider Law Firms under contract, including 2,483 lawyers and support staff members. The firms are paid a fixed fee on a per capita basis to provide services to plan members. The average tenure of Pre-Paid Legal’s Provider Law Firms is more than 10 years.
Approximately 96 percent of Pre-Paid Legal’s Provider Law Firms are connected to the company via high-speed digital links, providing real-time monitoring capability. This online connection allows Pre-Paid Legal to pull reports of each law firm’s activity and performance.
Additionally, Pre-Paid Legal regularly conducts random surveys of members who have used the services of a Provider Law Firm. Members in each state are surveyed every 60 days, and the results are compiled and provided to the Provider Law Firms. Each month, Provider Law Firms are presented with a comprehensive report of ratings related to Pre-Paid Legal’s online monitoring, member assistance requests, member survey evaluations, telephone reports and other information.
“Pre-Paid Legal takes the guesswork out of selecting quality, yet affordable, legal counsel,” says Mark Brown, who was recently appointed the company’s Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. “Provider Law Firms are selected after careful scrutiny. To be selected by Pre-Paid Legal, a law firm’s attorneys must handle the life events for which average people need counsel. They must take these issues seriously and treat Pre-Paid Legal members with courtesy, providing excellent customer service.”
In fact, the quality and credibility of the legal services Pre-Paid Legal provides are evidenced by the former state attorneys general who work with the company. Mike Moore, former Mississippi attorney general; Mike Turpen, former Oklahoma attorney general; Grant Woods, former Arizona attorney general; and Andrew Miller, former Virginia attorney general, have all spent years keeping the public safe and continue that mission through their work with Pre-Paid Legal. “Across the country, hardworking men and women have access to the justice system and quality legal representation they otherwise could not afford,” Woods says. “We wouldn’t be involved unless we believed Pre-Paid Legal was a good company.”
Jim Merritt, of Merritt, Flebotte, Wilson, Webb and Caruso PLLC, has been a Provider Lawyer since 1999. His first Pre-Paid Legal case reminded him why he became an attorney. “It occurred to me that Pre-Paid was all about balancing the scales of justice,” Merritt says. “Since I have been with Pre-Paid, on every level—from professional to personal, from faith in my profession to faith in my God—I could not be happier.”
According to Stonecipher, many lawyers tell him that if they had to practice law the way they did prior to Pre-Paid Legal, they wouldn’t practice law. “Most lawyers go to law school for the right reason—to help people,” he adds. “When they get out, unfortunately, they find they can’t help most of the people they wanted to help—working-class people with real-life problems—because they’re stuck having to represent some large corporation or some wealthy individuals. Their relationship with Pre-Paid Legal allows them to reconnect with these types of people.”
The pivotal moment in Pre-Paid Legal’s marketing history was when Stonecipher discovered the direct selling model. At the time, Pre-Paid Legal was marketing its products through a traditional commission-based system, which resulted in slow, incremental growth. Stonecipher wanted to provide equal justice under the law to the masses—and he found a way to do that through network marketing.
Stonecipher says the success of Pre-Paid Legal’s business opportunity is due to the products’ uniqueness. While there are many direct selling companies marketing the same types of products, Pre-Paid Legal is the only direct seller of pre-paid legal-service plans in North America.
“When people are introduced to the product and understand the power of it, not only do they want to become members, they want to become associates,” Stonecipher says. Today, Pre-Paid Legal has more than 425,000 associates.
Pre-Paid Legal continually reviews its compensation plan to ensure that financial incentives encourage the company’s goals and growth. Commissions are paid only when a membership is sold. No commissions are paid based solely on recruitment.
During Pre-Paid Legal’s initial training, new associates have access to a variety of tools—DVDs, CDs, printed materials and online training—that convey the many benefits of the company’s products and business opportunity and provide personal development.
The quarterly Advanced Product Training shows independent associates how to sell personal plan memberships. But the granddaddy of trainings is the Pre-Paid Legal national conference—held twice yearly. These valuable, inspirational, in-person events give associates the chance to learn from top field leaders, share their success stories and supercharge their attitudes.
While Pre-Paid Legal has achieved much success since its inception, “the best is still to come,” Stonecipher says.
“Our company is based on the power of the free enterprise system, where anybody—no matter how old they are or what level of education they completed, no matter what their background or what they have done in the past—can have success if they’re willing to work hard enough,” Stonecipher says. “To me, that’s what being a premier company is all about—positively impacting the lives of people.“
Stonecipher says that although Pre-Paid Legal has gained much ground, the company has barely made a dent in the market. “Pre-Paid Legal is still in its embryonic stages,” he says. “The company will be growing long after I’m gone because the market is so vast. We haven’t even scratched the surface. We haven’t even scratched the scratch.”
