GROUP LEGAL SERVICES
Legal services provided under a plan to members, who may be employees of the same company, members of the same organization, or individual consumers.
Group legal services resembles group
HEALTH INSURANCE. It is an all-purpose, general
coverage: for an annual fee, members are enti-
tled to low-cost or free consultation with an
attorney. Several forms of group legal services
exist, ranging from employee-provided benefits
to commercially marketed plans. These vary in
scope, price, and availability. The first plans
appeared in the early 1970s, for unions, which
negotiated for them as employee benefits and
have remained their primary users. Over the fol-
lowing two decades, the concept expanded as
lawyers saw an opportunity for a nontraditional
way to market their services. By the mid-1980s,
the rise of commercial plans aimed at other
groups sparked considerable interest in the legal
profession, the media, and the public. Approxi-
mately 10 percent of U.S. citizens belonged to
some form of plan in the 1990s, and observers
expected that percentage to increase as more
vendors entered the market to cater to con-
sumers.
For several decades, the legal profession
resisted the plans and sought to restrict them.
State bars opposed them because the organiza-
tion of the plans requires the imposition of an
intermediary between the attorney and the
client, which they saw as violative of the tradi-
tional attorney-client relationship. As the first
groups to realize the advantages of using the
plans, unions encountered stiff opposition in
several states. Beginning in the early 1960s, how-
ever, the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and a series
of U.S. Supreme Court decisions removed these
barriers.
The Court’s decision in NAACP v. Button,
371 U.S. 415, 83 S. Ct. 328, 9 L. Ed. 2d 405
(1963), struck down a Virginia law that had pre-
vented the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from
providing staff lawyer services to members.
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia ex rel. Virginia State Bar, 377 U.S. 1, 84 S. Ct. 1113, 12 L. Ed. 2d 89 (1964), struck down an INJUNCTION that prohibited legal services activities of the union on First and FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT grounds. In United Mine Workers District 12 v. Illinois State Bar Ass’n, 389 U.S. 217, 88 S. Ct. 353, 19 L. Ed. 2d 426 (1967), the Court per-
mitted the union to collectively sponsor legal
services for members’ WORKERS’ COMPENSA-
TION claims, holding that restrictions imposed
by the Illinois State Bar Association were uncon-
stitutional under the FIRST AMENDMENT.In
response, the legal profession slowly loosened
restrictions in its Model Code of Professional
Responsibility and Model Rules of Professional
Conduct. By the mid-1970s, most of the special
restrictions were gone.
These trends cleared the way for a broad
expansion of group legal services. The chief
benefit of such plans is discounted legal fees.
Legal advice is often expensive. As in group
health insurance, volume produces savings: the
buying power of a large membership can lower
the costs to individuals. This feature figured
prominently in an expansion of the plans into
commercial markets in the 1980s. Moreover,
although individuals with low incomes are
sometimes entitled to legal aid, and affluent
individuals can usually afford a lawyer, mem-
bers of the middle class are often hit hard by
legal bills. Thus, marketers of group legal serv-
ices have tried to appeal to middle-class con-
sumers through such outlets as banks and credit
card companies.
Federal and state regulations govern plans
for group legal services. Employer-provided
plans fall under the EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT
INCOME SECURITY ACT (ERISA) (29 U.S.C.A.
§ 1001 et seq.). Enacted in 1974, ERISA protects
employees’ PENSION rights and imposes strict
fiduciary requirements on their group legal
services. Other types of plans are subject to state
laws, which generally impose light regulation
and follow the legal profession’s Model Rules of
Professional Conduct in such areas as ethics and
