What does Legal Shield Cost? Cost to start your own LegalShield Business: $145 plus state-specific filing fees. Also, there are optional associate tools and monthly services ($30-$40 per month) you can purchase from LegalShield to assist your LegalShield Business. If you are a customer of their legal service, it costs $15.95 per month for a family, and $39 per month for a small business.
Now, I need to be frank with you. I have been making money online for over 20 years, and I have major concerns with the LegalShield business model.
My main concern is this: Since you only make money by selling someone else’s product, the product owners may not pay you. They may change their commission structure. They may remove their products from the market. I have PERSONALLY had all these things happen. Instead, learn a business model that puts you in total control. You keep all the profits and you own all the products. And it takes less time to setup than a LegalShield business. It uses a loophole in the google maps system to get you autopilot monthly payments. Video Here.
My own teenage kids even make money with this business model!
Here’s a video of my daughter’s business using this :
Click Here to Get The Course My Daughter Used.
The course my daughter used above is much better than LegalShield. But since you are here to learn about LegalShield, lets get back to our review of that:
I have personally been a legalshield customer for many years, but had no experience with the business opportunity they offer, so I asked one of my students who has been a Legal Shield rep to review it for us. This is Robert’s experience with the MLM (multi-level marketing) side of LegalShield, formerly known as Pre-Paid Legal.
Is LegalShield a Legit Company?
Absolutely! I’ve personally been a member for many years and have nothing but praise for the service. LegalShield is basically “legal insurance” where members of the service pay a monthly fee which gives them access to unlimited phone consultations with attorneys who practice all types of law, i.e. contract law, traffic law, family law, consumer law, real estate law, etc. These attorneys will provide a limited scope of legal services as part of the monthly membership. More extensive legal services are provided at a discounted fee. LegalShield also offers an identity theft protection service called IDShield for an additional monthly fee.
Is Legalshield Worth the Money?
As a LegalShield associate myself with the ability to sell memberships, I often used the motto, “LegalShield. It’s so inexpensive it’s like attorneys are free” (plans start at $24 per month). I must say—the service is excellent. As a member myself, it has literally saved me thousands of dollars–recently assisting me in getting a $3,500 refund on an extended auto warranty from a less-than-cooperative car dealership. In this case, the attorney simply wrote a legal letter to the dealership on my behalf. Once the dealership heard from the attorney, they suddenly became very interested in resolving my situation and issuing a refund. So, I am a firm believer in the service and think it’s great.
Even though a LegalShield membership is a no-brainer for anyone who’s ever had to deal with a legal situation and realized how quickly legal fees can escalate, it can be a hard sell to someone who is not currently dealing with any legal issues, especially with an economy like we have now where people are much more careful with their money. Not that LegalShield is expensive. It’s really very affordable. Still, people are reluctant to purchase a service if they do not have an immediate need for it. I once heard a top LegalShield sales associate say that he averaged 1 sale for every 30 cold-calls he made.
For me, it started with hitting up every friend and family member I could. I hate to say it but some of them started avoiding my calls because they thought I was calling to hound them again about LegalShield—and yes, hounding is part of the game. LegalShield reps hold regular rallies and events to fire up the new recruits and that is where they want to focus the new associates–on friends and family to start. According to them, you’re not “selling”, you’re “sharing”. Well, call it what you will, but it’s straight up selling and as a new recruit you have to be excited (and maybe even a little desperate) to start making sales if you hope to make a living off of it (and there are those that do but they are “super-star” sellers). What I observed is that the majority of new recruits burn out pretty quick and get discouraged when they compare the amount of work they put in to the money they are making.
In my case though, I actually had an unexpected advantage. I had started working for a local car insurance agency who paid for me to study and take a test to obtain an insurance license. Once I became a licensed insurance agent LegalShield told me, “Congratulations! As a licensed insurance agent you are now eligible to be fast-tracked to the top of our associate ranks, to the position of director”. This amounted to basically a jump to nearly the top of LegalShield’s ranking structure. There was only one level higher, executive director, and that could only be reached by making an insane amount of personal membership sales for any given month and you had to do that every month to maintain this level.
Is Legal Shield a Pyramid Scheme?
No, it is not a pyramid scheme. It is a legitimate multi-level marketing company selling real-world services that have a lot of value to customers. Regular associates who start at the bottom have to work their way up through 6 levels, making more and more sales to advance from one level to the next. At the bottom, the commissions are pretty paltry (last time I checked $50 per sale). You hope to sign up new associates under yourself and get busy encouraging them to make sales and duplicate themselves. You have to turn into a Legalshield evangelist of sorts, trying to fire everybody and yourself up. You only make money when you are paid a one-time commission on your sales or a one-time commission, though smaller, on your recruits’ sales. If you’re not making sales and they are not making sales, no money will come in. There are no residual payments off your already-existing membership sales so you really can’t take a break from selling.
I was really hoping at least one of my new recruits would “catch fire” selling memberships and making new recruits because I was nearly at the top of the ranking structure already and would receive higher kick-backs on their work. I guess instead of “catching fire” my new recruits just smoldered a little bit. They did what I did—hit up friends and family and got a few sales but that runs out quick (or you wind up annoying the heck out of them). Every now and then I get a little kick-back from someone making sales under me and I am thankful for it even if it’s not much, though it’s definitely not enough to live off by any means.
How Much do LegalShield Associates Make?
Over the past seven years as a LegalShield associate at the director level, I’ve made a few bucks. Every now and then I’ll check my bank account and find that LegalShield made a deposit. Last year, 2020, five deposits were made by LegalShield to my account adding up to around $600. Not bad for basically doing nothing and it was enough to pay for my own LegalShield and IDShield memberships covering my family of 3 last year plus a little on top. It’s been a similar story for the prior years—sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
Legalshield Pros and Cons
I really have to emphasize the HUGE advantage I had with LegalShield because of the insurance license helping to promote me through the ranks. I’m sure anyone reading this wonders why I have not capitalized on this fortuitous promotion and really pushed my LegalShield business. It just boiled down to the fact that I don’t prefer doing direct sales, especially when I have to try to get people to buy something they don’t see a need for. I stopped working in insurance not long after this promotion with LegalShield but got to keep the director status. Without this advantage I would not have made the little money I have with LegalShield unless I beat the bushes like a crazy man, selling LegalShield memberships and making new recruits—basically eating, sleeping, and breathing Legalshield.
You also have to be aware that you can be back-charged by LegalShield if memberships you sign up do not last at least a year. This has happened to me a time or two. You also must maintain your own paid membership to maintain your associate status as well. If you cancel your own membership you are no longer an associate.
Which is better LegalZoom vs LegalShield?
The main difference between LegalZoom and LegalShield is that Legal Shield is a monthly service, whereas with LegalZoom you only pay when you need the service. Also, LegalZoom does not have a full fledged business opportunity connected with it. They do allow affiliates to promote their service using tracking links, but they don’t even do their own affiliate tracking. With LegalShield you are able to become a full fledged representative of the company, recruit others under you and receive commissions from their sales, and more.
LegalShield Associate Review:
I would say anyone wanting to give LegalShield a shot should not expect to live off of it unless they are a selling machine. Otherwise, an initial burst of energy and excitement might land them a few sales among friends and family but they won’t be able to quit their day-job anytime soon.
Instead I highly recommend another business model, that can be done with far less setup time and far less ongoing work: Lead Generation.
With this business model, you setup websites that generate traffic and phone calls in a local market. You then turn around and sell these leads to local businesses. Local businesses love it . It works on autopilot once you set it all up. I have been doing this for MANY years, and my students are bringing in full time incomes with very little ongoing work.
Click here for a free video of how my recommend business model works: