Is LegalShield a Scam? A Scheme That’s Not As Legit As You Think

Welcome to my LegalShield review!

Companies will always try to outdo one another by providing unique products and services.

One company that succeeds (in one way or another) in doing so is LegalShield. 

First of all, I must Congratulate you for taking your time to do your own research before buying into any "seemingly good" product.

That's the way to avoid scams and find the legitimate way to make money online!

Let me be completely transparent with you, I'm not associated with LegalShield in any form.

So, rest assured that I'm not here to pitch or sell anything to you.

Instead, I'm here to reveal the secrets, the schemes, and the plans,behind LegalShield and determine if you can really make money from their program or not.

Is LegalShield a scam? 

Find out more here...

LegalShield is a multi-level marketing company located in Ada, OK, that claims to provide “Affordable attorney access and legal services” to consumers across 49 US states and 4 Canadian provinces for more than 40 years.

LegalShield also holds an A+ Rating with BBB or Better Business Bureau, which is expected of a company that’s been around for decades and despite having 142 closed complaints within the last 4 years alone.

All services provided by LegalShield are on a prepaid basis and are provided to both individuals and small businesses.

LegalShield’s premise is that more than 57 million Americans are facing some kind of legal issue every year, and nearly 60% of businesses have faced significant “legal events” in the past 3 years.

Thus, their main goal is to provide their clients, both individuals and small businesses, with prepaid legal services from their network of attorneys.

For a small monthly membership fee, LegalShield provides you with legal assistance in relation to:

1. Landlord / Tenant
2. Consurmer Finance
3. Traffic
4. Estate Planning
5. Real Estate
6. Employment
7. Collection
8. Family Law
9. Civil Litigation
10. Criminal

LegalShield has three plans provided for their customers:

1. Personal Plans (individuals)
2. Small Business Plans
3. Identity Theft Plans

1. Personal Plan

Covers the following:

1. Consultation – through letters, phone calls, document review, and trial defense
2. Document preparation – Wills, loan documents, Powers of Attorney, etc.
3. Auto – Traffic violations, vehicular accidents, insurance claims, etc.
4. Family Matters – Divorce, annulment, and adoption representation, name change assistance, etc.
5. IRS – Tax and auditing services

2. Identity Theft Plans

1. ID Plan – Covers you and your spouse for single credit monitoring and restoration services on top of unlimited consultations
2. ID Premium – Includes everything from the ID Plan, only with triple credit monitoring, web watch, SS number skip trace, and more.

3. Small Business Plan

Small Business Plan provides legal consultation for various legal issues including:

1. Debt collection
2. Contract review and renewal
3. Trial defense services
4. Landlord/tenant disputes

For each plan, you can choose from different add-ons with different ranges of prices, which you can view on their website or on one of their presentations.

Each month, you will be automatically charged from your credit card or bank account according to your plan.

Regardless of what plan you choose, keep in mind that there’s an additional $10 “enrolment fee” to be charged on your first month.

Based on their site, LegalShield looks like they offer a wide range of services, but that’s what they want us to think.

Customers complained about some services not being made available to them because according to the plan details, these services are “at the discretion of the Provider Lawyer”. In other words, they cover you but it’s up to the lawyer if they will do it for you or not.

In essence, LegalShield functions more like a provider of DISCOUNTED LEGAL SERVICES than full prepaid legal cover, so that may be an issue if you sign up based on your needs and only to find out that you’re not fully covered.

It should also be noted that within the services they provide, criminal charges and cases involving medications are not covered. Some issues with family matters like child custody are not covered.

There are three ways to earn money with LegalShield:

1. Sell memberships and earn personal commissions
2. Recruit others and build a team. This is referred to as a start-up or override
3. Passive income through member retention (monthly fees).

You earn passive income through member retention (monthly fees).Think of them as similar to Primerica, with no physical products to work with and only services to sell.

Now you have two choices with LegalShield. You can simply be a member and just avail of their prepaid services. You won’t be selling anything here, so you won’t be earning anything.

LegalShield’s pre-paid plans are as follows:

Personal Plans: $19.95 per month

Identity Theft Plans:

• ID Plan – $14.95 per month
• ID Premium – $29.95 per month

Small Business Plans: These plans are customized based on a business’ needs so pricing may vary.

Or, you can sign up as an associate and sell their memberships to earn commissions.

Option #1 - $99.00 

This option also has additional costs of $20.00/month for Legal Shield Advantage plus state licensing fees (varied) and includes:

1. Associate Portal
2. Online Training
3. Weekly Newsletter
4. Support Center
5. Associate Perks
6. Help From Sponsor, Team and Local Leaders

Option #2 - $249.00

Simply includes everything from Option 1 plus 12 months of Legal Shield Advantage (which is a $240 value).

Option 2 is equal to paying your monthly fee up front for one year and foregoing the $99 start-up cost.

The amount that you can earn depends on your product or service that you’re selling, and for this example, I’ll be using a $39.90 per month sale as an example.

There are 7 base levels which include:

1. Associate
2. Senior Associate
3. Manager
4. Senior Manager
5. Director
6. Senior Director
7. Executive Director

The compensation works on an “advance” system, so if an associate earns $39.90 per month on membership sale, they will be paid an advance of $100.00.

Now, note that all associates and upwards are charged back for membership cancellations.

As you progress from one level to another, like Associate to Senior Associate, your advances get larger.

A Senior Associate earns $120 per membership sale, a Director Earns $140, and so on. Refer to the chart below.

To earn from your team, you need to be ranked a Senior Associate at the minimum. These overrides start at $20 for Senior Associates and go up per level.

Like most MLM’s, their compensation plan is complex and full of advancements and bonuses.

They also provide trips, contests, and promotions as well.

To know more about their compensation plan, check out this video:

Based on their 2017 LegalShield Income Disclosure Statement, the first thing that I saw was that only 2.5% of all active members are Associates who’ve made at least one sale in 2017.

Whether they paid for option 1 or 2, I can’t say for certain.

But according to their document, Associates who’ve been a member for less than 2 years earned an average income of $718 for 2017.

Even experienced members took at least 4 years to earn $1,181 on average.

How much is that?

If I was an associate that year, I would have earned $59.83 per month in order for me to get to the $718 average and $98.41 to get to the $1,181 average.

That is only a $20 MONTHLY INCREASE within 4 years of working for the company!

That’s crazy low, even for an established company!

If we’re talking about consistent monthly income, I would suggest looking at affiliate marketing and how it works.

Back when LegalShield was still Pre-Paid Legal, and even one for false advertising.

In one case, a Mississippi Jury found the company and its founding CEO, Harland Stonecipher, guilty of deceptive advertising and misrepresenting income statements.

There are older lawsuits which were either dealt with through appeal or settlement, but the fact remains that a company that provides legal services always finds itself in legal trouble.

Most of LegalShield’s negative reviews stem from them providing the worst customer service, and this is coming from a company that’s been around for 40 years.

On their BBB page alone, they have 225 customer complains and customer service just happens to be a fraction of it.

I am still shocked as to how they still have an A+ rating on BBB.

Because they’re a service-oriented MLM (like InteleTravel or ACN), there’s no physical product for you to sell. This means that you don’t have to worry about inventory issues.

While the company provides a legitimate range of products, it’s far from being a scam but it’s nowhere something I’d recommend either.

First, you get what you pay for, and LegalShield is no different. You are entering into a prepaid discounted legal coverage, so expect to get a not-so-quality service from their network of providers. That’s easily proven because of their complaints.

And like with any legal service, you have to pay top dollar to get the best service.

Second, if you want to join LegalShield to make money, you are wasting your time. Based on last year’s income statement, there was only a $20 difference in monthly income between a new associate and a senior associate that’s been around for 4 years.

There are better alternatives to earning passive income, and LegalShield is not one of them.

I'm not a fan of MLM, not because it's illegal or not profitable, but because of all the restrictions and the expensive costs involved.

Instead, Affiliate Marketing is my top recommended business model for anyone to make money online.

The reason is simple...

• You don't have to recruit anyone to make money
• You have the freedom to promote any products you want and not being restricted to only promote the products from one MLM company
• It's Free to get started

In fact, with affiliate marketing...